Adopted by the General Assembly on 7 December 2022 (see UN General Assembly resolution 77/100) , the United Nations Convention on the International Effects of Judicial Sales of Ships, also known as the “Beijing Convention on the Judicial Sale of Ships”, was signed by 15 countries in the opening of the signature process on 5 September 2023 (see Status here and UN press release here).
The treaty establishes a harmonized regime for giving international effect to judicial sales, while preserving domestic law governing the procedure of judicial sales and the circumstances in which judicial sales confer clean title. By ensuring legal certainty as to the title that the purchaser acquires in the ship as it navigates internationally, the Convention is designed to maximize the price that the ship is able to attract in the market and the proceeds available for distribution among creditors, and to promote international trade. An Explanatory Note prepared by the UNCITRAL Secretariat may be found here.
De Maribus 