BOOK: Gijs DREIJER, The Power and Pains of Polysemy: Maritime Trade, Averages, and Institutional Development in the Low Countries (15th–16th Centuries) [Brill's Studies in Maritime History, ed. Gelina HARLAFTIS, vol. 15] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2023), ISBN 978-90-04-54035-4, € 156,09

(image source: Brill)

Dr. dr. Gijs Dreijer, who defended his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in June 2021 (supervisor: Prof. Dave De ruysscher), has just published his monograph. Warmest congratulations! This dissertation was written in the framework of a Joint PhD (Law - History) with the University of Exeter (supervisor: Prof. Maria Fusaro), funded through the ERC Consolidator Grant "Average - Transaction Costs and Risk Management during the First Globalization (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries)".

 Abstract:

As the fall-out of the Ever Given Suez canal blockage shows, an ancient instrument like General Average (GA) is still highly relevant in redistributing risks and costs in maritime trade. However, bar marine insurance, not much is known about the development of tools of maritime risk management like GA, which redistributes extraordinary costs incurred for the common safety of maritime ventures. This book investigates the development of General Average and other so-called Averages in the Low Countries on the eve of the early modern period, showing how the various varieties of Averages played a significant role in the development of maritime risk management and the broader institutional development in the Low Countries.

Table of contents:

Acknowledgements
List of Images, Tables, Figures, Maps and Graphs
Abbreviations

1 Introduction
 1.1 General Average: A Long History from Rhodes to the Ever Given
 1.2 Transaction Costs, Protection Costs and Institutional Development
 1.3 Maritime Trade and Risk Management
 1.4 General Average and the Lex Maritima
 1.5 Introducing the Low Countries’ Maritime Economy
 1.6 State Formation, Jurisdictional Complexity and Legal Sources
 1.7 Sources, Approach and Structure of the Book

Part 1: The Development of General Average and Risk Management

2 The Power and Pains of Polysemy
 2.1 Introduction: The Polysemic Meanings of Averages
 2.2 Etymological Origins of GA
 2.3 The Principle of GA Explained
 2.4 Contemporary GA and Historical Reality
 2.5 Averages in the Sixteenth-Century Low Countries
 2.6 Risk Management
 2.7 Cost Management
 2.8 Conclusion

3 General Average in Formal Sources of Law
 3.1 Introduction
 3.2 GA in Sources of Formal Law
 3.3 GA, Salvage, Shipwreck and Ship Collisions: Shifting Legal Boundaries
 3.4 Weytsen’s Tractaet van Avarien
 3.5 Conclusion

4 GA in Legal Practice
 4.1 Introduction
 4.2 The Governance of GA Procedure in Bruges and Antwerp
 4.3 The Position of the Shipmaster and Legal Strategies
 4.4 The Insurability of GA, Moral Hazard and Changes in Risk Distribution
 4.5 ‘Atypical’ GA Cases
 4.6 Conclusion

Part 2: Varieties of Averages and Cost Management

5 Contractual Varieties of Averages and Cost Management
 5.1 Introduction
 5.2 Contractual Varieties of Averages
 5.3 The flete y averías as a Cost Management Structure
 5.4 Conclusion: Averages and Cost Management

6 Consular Averages, Compulsory Contributions and Protection Costs
 6.1 Introduction
 6.2 The Seville avería as an Example of Protection Costs
 6.3 Privileges and the droit d’avarie: False Friends?
 6.4 Disputes on the avería de nación
 6.5 The avería(s)
 6.6 Conclusion

Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
General Index

On the author:

Gijs Dreijer (Dr. Mult.) is a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University. In 2021, he received his dual Ph.D. degree at the University of Exeter and Vrije Universiteit Brussel with a dissertation on Averages in the Low Countries. This is his first monograph.

Read more with Brill (DOI 10.1163/9789004540354).