ABSTRACT It seems to be useful to present to the scientific, academic and professional community what constitutes the "state of the art" of current empirical trends applied to global maritime trade flows: the conceptual framework CAS (Complex Adaptive System), which looks at the global maritime system as a complex system in which operate relatively independent parties who constantly seek, learn and adapt to their environment, which will provide an overview of the forces at play. The maritime chain represents the maritime, port and logistics markets, which, although segmented, enable the transport of goods from the producer to the consumer. The maritime market is the most important component of integrated supply chains, not just because all the other modes derived from it and depend on, but also because of the importance that the main actors are assuming, namely in the delimitation of the origin and destiny of trade flows. The applicability of CAS to the whole maritime chain is therefore the challenge we assume in this paper.
