On September 7, 2011 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed the Law of Ukraine "On Accession of Ukraine to the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules relating to the arrest of sea-going ships» ¹ 3702-VI.
Accession to this convention has been made by Ukraine with the following reservation:
"Ukraine reserves the right not to apply the provisions of this convention to warships and to other government ships used for non-commercial purposes".
However, according to the article 14 of this conventionit will enter into force for Ukraine only 6 months after the date of the deposit of the instrument of ratification.
Ratification of this convention is a significant step towards addressing a problem ofarrest of sea-going ships in Ukraine, because currently the arrest of ships is usually possible only to secure a claim, but not a maritime claim.
This convention provides a list of claims that fall under the category of "maritime claims." Among them, for example, claims that are aroused out of the damage, caused by the operation of the vessel, salvage, towage, pilotage, vessel ownership, and et al.
However, despite this accession for the proper implementation of the convention in the national legislation of Ukraine it necessary to make amendments to the Laws in force.
That is why the VerkhovnaRada of Ukraine considers from May, 2011, a draft law "On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine concerning the arrest of sea-going ships» (¹ 8553 of 20.05.2011), which proposes to make the appropriate amendments to the CommercialProcedureand CivilProcedure Codes of Ukraine.