The Cape Town Academic Project - 7th Conference

The Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (the CTC) is one of the world’s most important commercial law treaties, which now has 76 Contracting States.    The Cape Town Convention Academic Project held its seventh annual conference, which built on the success of the previous ones, in Oxford on 12th and 13th September 2018 at the Blavatnik School of Government.    

As usual this conference covered issues and discussion on all three existing protocols of the Cape Town Convention, but this year there was also  considerable focus on the draft MAC protocol and another event. 

Papers at the conference covered  the relationship of various legal issues and concepts with the Cape Town Convention including floating security, commercial reasonableness, trusts and conflict of laws. There were papers on the meaning of procedural law within the Cape Town Convention and the relationship between international law and court decisions under the Convention.      On the MAC draft protocol, there was a comparative legal analysis of the MAC draft protocol and the other protocols, and a discussion of the economic analysis of adoption of the protocol.  There was also updates on Irish cases on the operation of the aircraft registry, the CTC compliance project, and the drafting of revisions to the Official Commentary. 

Papers from the first six annual conferences, held in Oxford between 2012 and 2017, are published in the Cape Town Convention Academic Journal and are available electronically from the project website at http://www.ctcap.org/.

The Cape Town Convention Academic Project is a joint undertaking between the University of Oxford Faculty of Law and the University of Washington School of Law. Aspects of the Project are also being undertaken under the auspices of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). The Project’s purpose is to facilitate the study and assessment of the CTC and to advance its aims and, it  will benefit scholars, practising lawyers, and judges and other government officials. The Project’s founding sponsor is the Aviation Working Group. It comprises several segments, including the creation of a comprehensive electronic data base, a specialised journal, the creation of teaching materials, and economic assessment. Details are on the project website at http://www.ctcap.org/.

PROGRAMME

Wednesday 12th September

9am            Delegate registration and tea/coffee

9.30am       A comparative legal analysis of the MAC Protocol and the other Protocols

11am          Tea/coffee

11.15am     MAC protocol, economic analysis

12.45pm     Buffet lunch

1.30pm       Recent Irish cases: Matthesons

2pm            Update on revisions to Official Commentary 

2.30pm       Floating security under the convention and protocols (including the treatment of inventory under the MAC Protocol)

4pm            Tea/coffee

4.15pm       Advanced conflicts questions

5.45pm       Summary of day

Opportunity to book into accommodation

6.15pm       Drinks, followed by dinner (7.15pm) at Harris Manchester College

Thursday  13th September

9am            Tea/coffee

9.30am       Implications of CTC for use of trusts in transactions

11am          Tea/coffee

11.15am     The Contours of ‘Commercial reasonableness’ under CTC

12.45pm     Buffet lunch

1.45pm       Update on CTC Compliance Project 

2.15pm       The meaning of procedural law under CTC

3.45pm       International law and court decisions under CTC

5.15pm       Closing remarks