Research On Legal Issues Of Container Demurrage

Ever since the year 1984, container transportation has been on the road of steady progress, although large quantity of legal disputes arise along with, among which the most frequently confronted is the container demurrage dispute. Due to lack of legislative regulations and relevant research, discrepancy of judicial practice concerning container demurrage appears constantly. Thus, it is necessary to make a profound research on this problem.From a combined point of view of shipping and judicial practice, this thesis probes into several main legal issues concerning container demurrage disputes, as legal attributes, principal of right and duty, criteria of calculation, time limits of litigation and jurisdiction. The thesis consists of three parts, which are introduction main body and conclusion. The main body includes four chapters, respectively of which are an introduction of container demurrage, an analysis on legal attributes of container demurrage, the principals involved in, and certain legal issues relevant to disputes of container demurrage.The introduction gives a summary of the current situation of container demurrage, and states the aim of research on this topic.The first chapter introduces the general background of container demurrage, of which the concept and characteristics are defined. Especially manifests the whole process of the transition of container in international carriage of goods by sea, and makes introduction of the documents involved in the process aforesaid. The second chapter makes emphasis on analyzing the legal attributes of container demurrage, which are unclear during a long period of time since collecting container demurrage is generally accepted as an industry practice. In order to clarify, this chapter analyses the legal characteristics of containers, of relations involved in the usage of container, and of container demurrage itself step by step.Through in-depth analysis, it is concluded that the legal relation concerning container demurrage disputes is cocntractual relation of carriage of goods by sea, thus the dispute of container demurrage is a dispute under the contract of carriage of goods by sea. This chapter makes a typical analysis of the container usage agreement that commonly exists between cargo freight forwarders and container management companies in practice.The third chapter mainly explains the recognition of the principals in container demurrage disputes, respectively analyzing the qualification of the principal of the plaintiff and the subject of duty, clarifying the qualified principals according to different situations related to disputes arising from container demurrage.The forth chapter mainly discuss several legal issues regarding container demurrage disputes, and analyze the validity of the criteria of container demurrage collection, the time limits of litigation and jurisdiction concerned as well.The conclusion is a summary of the thesis, and provide several proposals on legislation regarding container demurrage.