PRESIDENT

CMI Colloquium and General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro
Tuesday 12th May – Friday 15th May 2026

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12th November 2025

MLA Presidents
Titulary Members
Consultative Members

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Dear Friends, 

RIO DE JANEIRO 12 TH MAY – 15TH MAY 2026 

The dates for our Brazilian Colloquium in the exciting city of Rio de Janeiro, have been announced for a number of months now and confirmed in Tokyo last May. We have accordingly inserted these dates in our LinkedIn banner and web site. 

However this is the first formal communication aimed at providing you with insight into what promises to be another very exciting colloquium, overflowing with interesting panels, all of which make it crystal clear just why the CMI remains the catalyst for the continuous move towards the unification of international maritime law. It does so by providing the space, platform and canvas for the drafting of laws, guidelines, and other documentation aimed at assisting legislators in various countries to navigate through today’s complex legal waters. Maritime Violence and Fraudulent Activity, Decarbonisation, Ratification of International Conventions by Latin-American countries, Fraudulent Registries, the new UN Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents, Security interests in Containers, MASS, Lex Maritima, Mobile Offshore Renewable Units, Collisions and so many other topics will be discussed, dissected and deliberated at length in our panel discussions. 

The object of this communication is to announce that the Preliminary Programme attached is out, and the registration desk is open. 

The programme is “Preliminary” in the sense that it is being shared with you very early on, 6 months in advance of our Colloquium, and we have yet to populate the panels by the names of individual speakers. This is work in progress. What you can be assured of is that the panels will be made up, as always, of persons who are at the coal face of their subject matter, deeply involved in the sector which means that they can contribute to the discussion by making practical suggestions and recommendations. This coming together of practice and academia is quite unique to the CMI and which enables us to be in a position to make serious, timely and useful recommendations to legislative bodies. 

We hereby invite you to go into the website at https://cmi2026brazil.org and register your attendance. It goes without saying that the earlier you register, book your accommodation and flights, the greater a financial saving you will make, both in terms of our advantageous early bird rate for the conference as well as the cost of flights. Our hosts, the Brazilian Maritime Law Association, have worked very hard to ensure that we have the most seamless experience in attending the colloquium venue, which is the Windsor Barra Hotel at the beautiful district of Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, some 28 km. from Rio central area, by block booking rooms at the Colloquium venue itself, and we strongly recommend that you make use of this by booking your accommodation at this venue. Apart from being able to make use of the extensive 5, 4 premium and 4 stars facilities provided by the hotel, it also means that you will save both time and expense travelling to and returning from the venue. 

Our Brazilian friends have also been hard at work on the social part of the programme. As you can see, be the welcome reception will take place on Tuesday 12th May at the Cavalo Marinho Beach Club from 1830 to 2100 and then our young CMI will be able to continue to dance the night away at the Bar do Zeca Pagodinho. On Thursday 14th we have an excursion to the famous Sugar Loaf Mountain and on Friday 15th we have the Gala Dinner at Casas Dos Canoas. 

Of course, our destination in 2026 lends itself to extending your stay in Rio or elsewhere in Brazil before or after the Colloquium. For travel options or tours in Rio or other parts of the country there is a travel & tours agency referred to in the registration site that can cater for any preferences We encourage you to bring your spouses and partners whom, we are convinced, would be very interested in the accompanying persons programme which will be announced shortly. 

You will also see from the Programme that Tuesday 12th is dedicated to meetings of IWGs and SCs. As has become the practice over the past 4 years, while some of the IWGs and SCs will opt for a closed meeting, others, which are in a position to share their work and obtain feedback from the representatives of NMLAs present, will opt for an open meeting. A list of these meetings will be provided once completed. If you are extending your stay, we would therefore encourage you to arrive in Rio de Janeiro on Monday 11th and stay at least until Saturday 16th! 

As noted above, registration for the conference and the hotel accommodation is now open as well as the travel and tour options, and we invite you to visit the following website at: https://cmi2026brazil.org. Should you require any assistance, please contact our Head Office Manager, Evelien Peeters, on: admin-antwerp@comitemaritime.org. 

We very much look forward to seeing you in Brazil in May 2026. 

With warmest best wishes, 

Yours sincerely