Prawo morskie USA — współczesna systematyka, źródła i charakterystyka wybranych aktów prawnych

This paper presents a short description of about two hundred selected regulations from the broad field of maritime law. For the purpose of simplicity, they were categorized according to current trends in maritime law theory. The author created several groups of acts, the rules of which belong to the same legal branch, i.e., maritime administrative law, maritime civil law, maritime labor law, maritime criminal law, regulations on marine fisheries and the protection of marine resources, international maritime law. The tasks of the American Coastguard, the body responsible for executing maritime law in the USA, are also discussed. For over a century and a half, maritime law only regulated relationships within marine sailing. The vessel, as a transporter of cargo, constituted the central point in this approach, which led maritime law to come to be viewed as a segment of shipping law. It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that legislation began to regulate aspects other than sailing. This was in response to the broadening of human activity in the marine environment and led to changes in the understanding of maritime law. However, the advantage of statutory law over common law is clear. An example of this is the total revision of American maritime law in 1983 and the introduction of United States Code Title 46 Shipping to statutory law. It should also be emphasized that these changes left only skeletons of many of the older maritime laws. This should be borne in mind when researching original congressional documents especially since there is no practice of issuing standardizing legislation in the American legal system. American law is comprised of a collection of legislation that is difficult to navigate for those unaccustomed to working with a legal system that originated from common law. The content of this paper, thanks to its original, up-to-date, and reliable information, constitutes a compendium of knowledge regarding the contemporary regulations of the statutory maritime law of the USA.