History
Legally, the Commission's authority comes from agreements made at the Congress of Vienna, held in 1815 in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The first meeting took place on 15 August 1816 in Mainz. In 1831, the Convention of Mainz was adopted, establishing a number of the first laws governing Rhine navigation. In 1861, the commission's seat was moved to Mannheim, and on 17 October 1868, the Convention of Mannheim was agreed to.
This agreement still governs the principles of Rhine navigation today. Then, as now, the member states were Germany, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, and Switzerland (The United States was temporarily a member immediately after World War II, while Germany was under Allied occupation.)
The current revised convention is that signed in Strasbourg by the five members of the commission and the United Kingdom on 20 November 1963 and brought into force on 14 April 1967. There have since been additional protocols.
Shortly after the end of the First World War, in 1920, the commission's headquarters was moved to Strasbourg as a part of the Treaty of Versailles. In 2003 the European Commission asked for the permission of the Council of Ministers to negotiate the adhesion of the European Union to the regulations of the CCNR and the Commission of the Danube, especially given the prospective enlargement of the EU.
Read more about this topic: Central Commission For Navigation On The Rhine
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“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)