A Marine Vessel as an Object of Property Rights in Russian and Foreign Legislation

The paper analyzes the legal regime of a marine vessel, understood as a thing involved in civil transactions. A significant differentiation of definitions of a marine vessel has been established in various sources of international maritime law, domestic Russian and foreign law. The paper reveals the legal nature of a marine vessel in Russian private law regulation as a conditional immovable property, recognized as such by law by virtue of the public law procedure of state registration. The difference between movable and immovable things is shown from the point of view of the moment of transfer of ownership rights in binding relations due to the mixed legal regime of courts in Russian civil legislation, allowing for their both immovable and movable property status. The duality of the legal regulation of private law relations in the field of merchant shipping is demonstrated, including the norms and sources of both civil and international and domestic maritime law (public and private). A comparative legal analysis of the norms of foreign legislation on a seagoing vessel as an object of property rights has been carried out, and the difference between Russian legislative approaches and approaches in legal systems under the influence of English maritime law, in which a seagoing vessel is recognized as a movable thing in all cases, has been revealed.

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