University of Delaware
Office of Public Relations
UpDate - Vol. 16, No. 32, May 22
                                   
             Gerard Mangone authors new book about sea law

     When the remains of the Titanic were found in 1985, 73
years after the luxury liner sank, reporters from all over
the globe called Gerard Mangone to find out who its
treasures belong to.
     The ownership of treasure ships, the liability of an
Exxon Valdez-type accident, even the fate of the humpback
whale are all governed by the laws of the sea or admiralty
law, a subject on which Mangone, University Research
Professor of International and Maritime Law in the College
of Marine Studies, is an expert and about which he recently
has written his 13th book.
     "I've long been an expert witness in court cases
involving admiralty law," Mangone said.
     The Hague's Kluwer Law International has just
published Mangone's new book, United States Admiralty Law,
for worldwide distribution to lawyers, teachers and
students of law who are involved in marine transportation.
     The book traces the growth and development of laws
governing sea trade across the centuries and how they
became part of the U.S. Constitution as admiralty law.
     It explains jurisdiction and legal liability for
anything that happens at sea, including shipwrecks,
pollution and fishing and shipping disputes.
     Mangone comes by his knowledge of international law as
a scholar and as a traveler. He's crossed the Atlantic
Ocean 22 times by ship and has been in almost every nation
in the world, some of them during World War II when he
decided what he wanted to do with his life.
     "After spending four-and-a-half years in the Army
during the war, I wanted to know what caused this kind of
destructive international conflict and how to remedy it,"
he said.
     When Mangone received his Ph.D. in international law
from Harvard, his dissertation won the Charles Sumner Award
as the most distinguished contribution to international
peace.
     When the University of Delaware wanted to begin a
college of marine studies in 1972, it recruited Mangone to
create a graduate program in marine policy, the first of
its kind in the nation. Two years later, he designed the
first center for the study of marine policy in the U.S.
     In addition to writing 13 books, Mangone has
coauthored 20 others and contributed to another 24.
                                          -Barbara Garrison