On 7 December 2022, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the International Effects of Judicial Sales of Ships, known as the Beijing Convention. It is the newest instrument of international maritime law prepared under the auspices of UNCITRAL, stemming from a project initiated by the Comité Maritime International (CMI) in 2014. As of July 2024, 27 States had signed the Convention — including China, the European Union and Singapore — with El Salvador becoming the first to ratify it. Only three ratifications are required for it to enter into force.
The problem the Convention addresses
A judicial sale of a ship is the classic enforcement mechanism when a shipowner fails to meet its financial obligations: the ship is sold, existing charges pass to the proceeds of sale, and the buyer acquires a clean title free of encumbrances. The difficulty is that, under the principle of national jurisdiction, nothing guarantees that this “clean” title will be recognised abroad. Over the past decades, foreign courts have repeatedly refused to recognise judicial sales carried out in other jurisdictions, generating protracted litigation and uncertainty for buyers and creditors alike.
The case of the MV Bright Star illustrates the problem well: sold by a Jamaican court in 2016, the sale was later challenged in Malta by a mortgagee, triggering litigation that only ended in 2023 — more than five years later, and despite the buyer ultimately prevailing.
Earlier instruments, such as the Brussels and Geneva Conventions on Maritime Liens and Mortgages, already regulated the domestic effects of a judicial sale, but left recognition abroad to each State’s national law. The Hague Judgments Convention (2019) does not close this gap either, since UNCITRAL takes the view that the decision conferring title on the buyer is not, for this purpose, a judgment on the merits covered by that instrument — a position the article’s authors consider open to debate.
Scope of application
The Beijing Convention applies to judicial sales of ships — of any kind, commercial or pleasure, seagoing or inland — provided that:
- the sale is conducted under judicial intervention (excluding, for instance, a mortgagee’s common-law power of sale, which does not involve the court);
- it takes place by public auction or private sale under court supervision; and
- it confers on the buyer a clean title, purged of all prior encumbrances.
Warships and ships in non-commercial government service are excluded, as are sales whose proceeds revert to the State as a sanction (for example, forfeiture following illegal fishing or smuggling).
Key mechanisms
Notice and publication. The Convention sets uniform rules for notifying mortgagees, lienholders, the registered owner, the ship registry and bareboat charterers, alongside publication of the sale notice in an international repository run by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) through its GISIS system. The aim is to protect creditors while attracting the widest possible pool of bidders, maximising the sale price.
The Certificate of Judicial Sale. This is the centrepiece of the system: issued by the competent authority in the State where the sale took place, it certifies that the sale complied with both the Convention and applicable national law. Once produced in another State party, the Certificate serves as sufficient evidence of the sale, dispensing with any substantive review by that State’s authorities — and even with legalisation or apostille. Foreign ship registries and courts are then required to act accordingly: cancelling mortgages, deleting and re-registering the ship, and releasing or dismissing arrest applications, all on the strength of the Certificate alone.
Automatic recognition and the public policy exception. Recognition is automatic and can only be refused where it would manifestly contravene the public policy of the recognising State — a demanding standard, which UNCITRAL limits to situations such as fraud by the buyer, serious procedural irregularities, or an affront to sovereignty. Any challenge to the sale on the merits can only be brought in the State where the sale took place, which would have avoided precisely the impasse seen in the Bright Star case.
Critical assessment
The authors credit the Convention with clear merits: it strengthens the transparency and integrity of judicial sales, clarifies the position of buyers and registries vis-à-vis creditors seeking to revive claims already extinguished by the sale, and offers a simpler, buyer-friendlier automatic recognition regime than the Hague Judgments Convention. They nonetheless flag some circularity in the drafting of Article 1 on scope, and stress that the Convention’s success will ultimately depend on wide ratification — noting that, alongside China and Singapore, both the European Union and Switzerland have already signed, though full effect within the EU will still require ratification by each Member State individually.
Note
This summary is based on the article by Yingfeng Shao, Laura Carballo Piñeiro and Maximo Q Mejia Jr, “A Newcomer to Maritime Law: The Beijing Convention on the International Effects of Judicial Sales of Ships”, published in the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, vol. 73 (July 2024), pp. 793-810.
