Authors Edgar Gold, Aldo Chircop, and Hugh Kindred have written the first general treatment of Canadian maritime law to be published since 1916. This comprehensive text covers the whole of modern shipping law, including admiralty jurisdiction and procedure; ownership and registration of ships; maritime mortgage and liens; insurance; carriage of goods and passengers; pilotage and towage; salvage and wreckage; environmental issues; and limitation of liablity.
The work provides insight into the Canadian experience and practice in this field and will appeal to legal practitioners, marine insurers, government officials, students and all others concerned with the regulation of the shipping and boating industries. It includes discussion of important differences between Canadian and US and UK maritime law.
For students and practitioners new to the field, the text explains the law surrounding the life of working vessels and pleasure craft in plain language and defines all technical legal and shipping terms as it proceeds. For experienced legal and other practitioners, it affords the means to analyse maritime situations, marine incidents, boating accidents, and other ship related events according to Canadian regulations and precedents, with due notice of their divergence from US and UK practice in this intensely internationalized area of law. In addition, original discussion of the unique Admiralty jurisdiction and procedure under the Federal Court of Canada is backed up by copious references to Canadian as well as comparative and international sources throughout the book.
The comprehensive lists of cases, statutes, and treaties provide an invaluable quick reference to the content and sources of Canadian maritime law.

Edgar Gold, CM, AM, QC, PhD, DSc (hc), FNI, had a first career at sea for sixteen years and was in command of a variety of ships for several years. He then studied law and holds an LLB from Dalhousie University, Halifax, and a PhD in international Maritime Law from the University of Wales in Cardiff. He was professor of maritime law at Dalhousie for many years, and also practised with a prominent Halifax law firm. He is a past president of the Canadian Maritime Law Association and a titulary member of the Comité Maritime International. He is a former member of the Board of Governors and visiting professor at the World Maritime University, Malmö, Sweden, and the International Maritime Law Institute in Malta. Until 2012 he was an adjunct professor at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, where he now lives. He has extensively published, lectured and advised governments on maritime law and related fields. Among other honours, he has been awarded the Order of Canada, the Order of Australia, Germany’s Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit, and honorary degrees from the Canadian Coast Guard College and the World Maritime University.

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Aldo Chircop, JSD, is professor of law and Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Maritime Law and Policy, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax. He was Chair in Marine Environment Protection at the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden, and held directorships of the Marine Affairs Program and Marine & Environmental Law Institute at Dalhousie University, and the International Ocean Institute and the Mediterranean Institute in Malta. Professor Chircop’s teaching and research interests are in the fields of Canadian and international maritime law, international law of the sea, regulation of Arctic shipping, and comparative coastal and ocean law and policy. He is a member of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society and the Canadian Maritime Law Association, and chairs the International Working Group on Polar Shipping of the Comité Maritime International. Professor Chircop’s extensive book and refereed publication record includes the first edition of Maritime Law (Irwin Law, 2003; co-authored with Gold and Kindred); Places of Refuge for Ships: Emerging Environmental Concerns of a Maritime Custom (Martinus Nijhoff, 2006; edited with Linden); and The International Regulation of Shipping: Essays in Honour of Edgar Gold (Martinus Nijhoff, 2012; co-edited with McDorman, Letalik, and Rolston). He is also co-editor of the Ocean Yearbook (Brill/Nijhoff).

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Hugh Kindred is a professor of law emeritus at Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, where he taught international law, commercial and consumer law, and maritime transport law. His publications in the maritime area include Marine Cargo Delays (Informa, 1990, with Ganado), Multimodal Transport Rules (Springer, 1997, with Brooks), the first edition of Maritime Law (Irwin Law, 2003, with Chircop and Gold), which was co-winner of the Walter Owen Book Prize 2005, and Law Beyond Borders: Extraterritorial Jurisdiction in an Age of Globalization (Irwin Law, 2014, with Coughlin, Currie, and Scassa). He is also a co-author and general editor of multiple editions of International Law Chiefly as Interpreted and Applied in Canada, including the eighth edition (Emond, 2014). Professor Kindred was senior legal officer in the Shipping Division of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and assisted Transport Canada in the preparation of the Canadian Carriage of Goods by Water Act 1993. He holds law degrees from the Universities of Bristol, London, and Illinois, and is a member of the bars of Nova Scotia and England. In 2003 he was honoured by the Canadian Association of Law Teachers with its Award of Academic Excellence.

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William Moreira, QC, FCIArb, is a partner in the Halifax office of Stewart McKelvey. He has practised for more than thirty-five years in admiralty and commercial litigation and public law litigation, appearing before all levels of court in Nova Scotia, the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada, and served as counsel and as an arbitrator in domestic and international arbitrations. Mr Moreira is former president (2005–2007) of the Canadian Maritime Law Association, former chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s national Maritime Law Section, a titulary member of the Comité Maritime International, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and former chair of the Maritime and Energy Law Committee of the International Association of Defense Counsel. He is a part-time faculty member in the Marine & Environmental Law Institute, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, and a former chair of the Mission to Seafarers, Halifax.

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• Winner, Walter Owen Book Prize