Maritime Events Showcase Tulane’s “Second Home” in Panama

The Tulane Maritime Law Center hosted back-to-back events in Panama in October, gathering lawyers, government officials, and scholars to chart the future of maritime trade in the wake of a $5.25-billion expansion of the Panama Canal.

The events included a day-long seminar on emerging issues in admiralty law for Panama’s legal community, an alumni reception, and an academic colloquium involving scholars from the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law at the University of Oslo, the University of Southampton and Tulane. 

Panama’s Minister of Canal Affairs, the Hon. Roberto Roy, delivered the keynote address at the day-long seminar, which was co-sponsored by the Maritime Law Association of Panama and its chair Francisco Linares (L ’96).  Among topics discussed were the state of maritime law in the current geopolitical climate, the Ballast Law Convention, and issues of comparative maritime law.

Tulane’s speakers included:

Robert Force, the Niels F. Johnsen Chair of Maritime Law and Director Emeritus of the Tulane Maritime Law Center, spoke about flags of convenience and the law of the sea.

Raymond T. Waid (L ’07), a partner with Liskow & Lewis in New Orleans and Tulane adjunct professor, spoke about comparative maritime and forum selection issues in the international arena.

lMartin Davies, Director of the Tulane Maritime Law Center and the Admiralty Law Institute Professor of Law, spoke on the Danish fuel company OW Bunker’s collapse a year after its IPO.

Christopher O. Davis (L ’79), a partner with Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, in New Orleans, and Vice President of Comité Maritime International, spoke about the state of international maritime law 100 years after the launch of Panama’s ship registry. 

That evening, Tulane Law Dean David Meyer hosted a reception for Tulane alumni living in Panama. Some 150 Tulane Law alumni currently live and work in Panama, along with a roughly equal number of alumni from other schools within Tulane University.

“Panama is really a second home for Tulane,” Dean Meyer said.  “We’re extremely proud of our alumni in Panama and grateful for their active support.”

Tulane’s alumni in Panama have raised funds for each of the past five years to offer full-tuition scholarships to talented Panamanian students attending Tulane for graduate study.  So far, the scholarship has enabled six Panamanian students to graduate from Tulane Law’s LLM program; a seventh student, Tiffany Reyes, is currently enrolled.

The Oslo-Southampton-Tulane Admiralty Colloquium rotates each year among the three academic partners.  This year, Tulane elected to host the colloquium in Panama, where Tulane has strong historical and alumni ties, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Panamanian ship registry and the opening of the new, expanded Panama Canal.

On Oct. 13 and 14, Tulane’s Maritime Law Center hosted this year’s OST at Miraflores Locks at the Panama Canal, bringing distinguished faculty from the three leading maritime centers in the world to discuss topics relevant to today’s maritime climate.

With the canal as a backdrop, the theme for the eighth annual colloquium was the significance of ship registration and flagging, given the centenary of the Panamanian registry. Panama is the world’s largest ship registry, with about 23 percent of all ships in the world registered there.  Remy Carreira (L ’05), a lawyer with Carreira Pitti in Panama, helped organize the event at Miraflores.

Finally, local prospective LLM students had an opportunity to meet with Maria Landry, the Law School’s director of admissions and international student affairs, about possibly joining the Green Wave family.