On Issues Of The Charter-party Bill

With the separation of the power of ownership of the ship from ship owners to charterers, more and more ship owners lease the ship to reduce operational risk, while companies hire ships to carry goods to avoid the exorbitant cost of shipbuilding. The popularity of this mode has made the bill of lading disputes under Charter-party grow.Chartering is one of the important means of transportation. The bill of lading is an important document to the international trade practice and the international transportation industry, the effectiveness of its provisions directly affect the rights and obligations of the parties. The combination of these two make the problem about the Charter-party Bill more complicated, while the study on the issue is rare. This paper, in accordance with maritime legislation and practice, comparing British and American legislation and international conventions, combined with the characteristics of charter party bills of lading, try to do some study on legal issues of the Charter-party Bill to benefit the international trade practice and international cargo transportation. This paper is divided into four chapters.Chapter One introduces the function of Charter-party Bill. This chapter firstly analyzes the origins of the bill of lading, summed up the three functions of general bill of lading. This chapter combined with the specificity of Charter-party, then analyzes the different function of the Charter-party Bill in the hands of different holder. The chapter concludes with a brief analysis between the Charter-party Bill and the Liner Bill. Chapter Two mainly elaborates the issuance of the Charter-party Bill and the impact to the parties after its transfer. This chapter summarizes the issuance of the Charter-party Bill under the different situation according to the different operation manners, and analyzes the impact to the parties in each situation also the third holder after its transfer in order to clarify the scope of the law applicable to the bill of lading.Chapter Three focuses on the"incorporated provision"of the Charter-party Bill. This chapter first elaborates the basic concepts and causes of the"incorporated provisions". Then by application of case studies and comparative research methods this chapter introduces the legislative and judicial practice of the Great Kingdom of Britain and the United State, in order to provide suggestion for the improvement of Chinese legislation.Chapter four describes the direct or indirect effects to the Charter-party Bill after the enforcement of the Rotterdam Rules.Chapter five combined with the analysis of the above three chapters, this chapter makes specific suggestions of improvement to Chinese legislation and practice.On the discussion of the legal issues of the Charter-party Bill, the author attempts to do a systematic study about the Charter-party Bill, and hope to benefit the establishment of law system of Bill of Lading.