Study On The Application Of Contract Law To The Time Charter Party

The Contract Law of the People ' s Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as Contract Law), adopted at the Second Session of the Ninth National People' s Congress of the People' s Republic of China, went into effect as of October 1, 1999. This law, which is one of the most important civil laws in China, is enacted for the purpose of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the parties to contracts, maintaining the socio-economic order and promoting the socialist modernization.The study on the application of Contract Law to various concrete contracts should be made carefully and unceasingly, for it will conduce to the establishment of the contractual legal system of China.By analysing the problems lying in time charter party and the provisions of Contract Law, the author makes a detailed study on the application of Contract Law to time charter party, which is often used in the practice of the carriage of goods by sea.This thesis is disigned to discuss the characters of time charter party, and dwells on the application of the General Provisions and the Specific Provisions of Contract Law to time charter party. By comparing the characters of time charter party with the provisions of Contract Law, this thesis illustrates that time charter party is not a lease contract, but a contract not explicitly regulated by the Specific Provisions of Contract Law. Though it is regulated by the Maritime Code of the People' s Republic of China as a charter party. The author figures that it lies on the contents of a time charterparty that whether it is applicable to the Specific Provisions of Contract Law. The author, by referring to the provisions of NYPE and BALTIME, studies the application of Contract Law to time charter party with respect to making, validity, fulfillment, modification and transfer, termination of rights and obligations and liability for breach of contract. In every respect, several problems are analyzed with reference to some existing viewpoints, problems and typical cases.