acase@tulane.edu / The Qatari Maritime Law No. 15 was enacted in 1980. Since then, no amendment has been made to it. It is recommended that this law be revisited in view of the developments that have taken place in the maritime industry. At the national level, the Qatari maritime sector has undergone substantial changes. More importantly, the introduction of a new International Convention on Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partially by Sea (“The Rotterdam Rules”) in 2008 is a second reason for revisiting the Qatari Maritime Law. This is because, such a convention reflects recent advancements in the international shipping industry. This dissertation compares the Qatari Maritime Law provisions of the contract of the carriage of goods by sea to those of international seaborne carriage conventions namely the Hague Rules, the Hamburg Rules, and the Rotterdam Rules. Where relevant, the perspectives of the U.S. and the U.K. will also be examined. There are four major topics analyzed within this dissertation: 1) background information about the State of Qatar in order to set the context, 2) the scope of the application of the rules involved in the comparison, 3) the carrier’s obligations, and 4) liabilities. The main objective of the dissertation is to examine how the Qatari maritime law should be developed in light of the international conventions on carriage of goods by sea. The investigation ends by making some recommendations to the Qatari legislature on how to reform the Qatari Maritime Law so that it is sufficiently robust to cope with modern maritime practice. / 1 / Muna Al-Marzouqi