The inspiration for writing this article was Poland's renunciation of the Brussels Conventions on civil liability for damage caused by oil pollution from 1969 (CLC) and on establishing an International Fund for Compensation for Damage Caused by Oil Pollution from 1971 (FUND), and her ratification of the new versions of these conventions from 1992. This coincided with legislative work on the new Polish maritime code and the passing of the legislation of 14 April 2000 concerning international treaties. In the first part of the essay the author considers the certain disintegration of the international system of civil liability for damage caused by oil pollution, a disintegration connected with a series of modifications of the CLC and FUND conventions. Especially germane are the consequences of the change in the international treaties that apply in Poland in connection with the specific method of their introduction into the Maritime Code, a method which is defined as "incorporation." The author suggests that urgent changes are necessary in the content of the Maritime Code. The lack of these may cause difficulties in applying the principles of the CLC and FUND conventions in Polish law. The second part of the article discusses several consequences of introducing the recent legislation on international treaties in maritime law. Inter alia, it discusses the question of publishing regulations of international origin. Especial attention is paid to difficulties connected with the difficulty of introducing resolutions of international organisations into national law, resolutions that change the content of international conventions on the principle of tacit acceptance. The author draws attention to the fact the new CLC and FUND conventions from 1992 have also adopted the tacit acceptance formula for changes. This certainly constitutes a risky precedence in international civil-law legislation hitherto.
The author proposes a solution that will permit the adaptation of new regulations concerning international agreements to the resolutions of international organisations, changing and supplementing the content of international agreements. He also suggests the abandonment of so-called incorporational clauses in Polish maritime law.

The obscure gloss Phix, which is attested in Hesiod’s Theogony, is thought to denote the same Theban monster that bears the name Sphinx in later sources and appears in the Oedipus saga. The present paper argues, however, that the word Phix cannot be convincingly shown to be cognate with the word Sphinx, since the origin of the latter seems to be a Greek word for a strangling monster – as linked with the verb σφίγγω – whereas the former is probably of non-Greek and possibly even non-Indo-European origin. Subsequently, the article proceeds to discuss a number of ancient Near Eastern sources, in particular those featuring infant-killing spirits, in order to demonstrate the emergence of the sphinxes in Greece from the Levant.