In such a comprehensive sector as the international shipping industry numerous conflicts arise every day, and a significant number of them ends up with arrest of ships. The main issue in this respect is that during the same voyage a ship can be subject to several legal regimes with totally different arrest of ships procedures. This makes shipping really insecure and creates the problem of forum shopping. To overcome, at least partly, these jurisdictional discrepancies two major international conventions were adopted in 1952 and 1999 respectively. However, the comparative analysis of the relevant conventional rules and provisions affirms that the wide uniformity of arrest of ships procedures is still not achieved by the international maritime community. From this perspective, the work focuses on the gaps, uncertainties and omissions of the 1952 Convention and examines the 1999 Convention as the compromise that represents improvement over the former international legal regime on arrest of ships by taking into account the recent developments of the international shipping industry. The research was conducted through the example of Ukraine that is the State Party to the 1952 Convention.