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V. 23 
IV. Outlook 
The Passenger Liability Regulation was an important 
step forward. The EU's implementation advanced the speed 
of ratifications of the Athens Convention and its 2002 
Protocol by EU member states. The entry into force of the 
PAL 2002 also made this legal regime more attractive for 
non-EU member states. It remains to be seen how the 
similar, but slightly different, legal regimes under the 
revised Athens Convention and the Passenger Liability 
Regulation will interact with each other. While neither the 
EU's Passenger Liability Regulation nor the Athens 
Convention provide perfect solutions, the position of the 
victims' relatives is now significantly stronger than it is 
under U.S. law. So far the United States has ratified neither 
the original Athens Convention, nor the 2002 Protocol, 
making the EU's legislative activity in the realm of 
passenger rights to be rightly considered to amount to a 
"boom." 7 3 
More than anything else, the measures taken by the 
EU can serve as a model on how to increase the protection of 
passengers. Obligatory insurance schemes place both an 
indirect as well as a direct burden on carriers. The direct 
burden is the need to maintain insurance for carriers; the 
indirect burden means that carriers will also need to 
maintain minimum standards regarding the way they 
conduct their business because insurance companies will be 
reluctant to provide insurance to carriers that are using ships 
that are in poor condition or to carriers that are willing to 
accept overcrowding onboard their vessels. This economic 
pressure will also show its power where the state in question 73 
73 Karsten, supra note 40, at 214.