Legal Issues On Electronic Bill Of Lading

The traditional Bill of Lading(B/L) is always playing an important role in international trade. However, it's shortcomings, such as low efficiency of transmission, high mistake rate and facility of being counterfeited, are emerging with the development of modern international trade. Meanwhile, with the rapid development of the technology of computer and internet especially, more and more merchants are trading through internet. Accordingly, Electronic Data Interchange(EDI) and Electronic Bill of Lading(EBL) are coming forth with new developing mode and challenge for modern international trade. As a result, Net-economy brings about great impact and challenge to traditional law system which is in hot water now. To establish the system of Electronic Bill of Lading is targeted to protect and normalize the shipping industry, however, the electronic commerce has inborn deficiencies which bring about many problems in trade practice. So it is necessary to do some research work in this area since there are so many problems to be solved.This article start with the legal characteristic and deicencies of the traditional Bill of Lading, follows the naissance and development of Electronic Data Interchange and Electronic Bill of Lading, and then expatiates the advantages of Electronic Bill of Lading, compared with the traditional one. It is good for readers to get an outline of the current law system about Electronic Bill of Lading, home and abroad, so there is a rough introduction in this aspect in the following paragraphs.The emphasis of this article is to analyze the problems that Electronic Bill of Lading faces and tentative suggestions to solve them. In chapter 3, the author expatiates the problemes such as the issue of the form, proof of carriage contract, transfer, function of security, security , letter of guarantee, and so on and so forth. In chapter 4, the author presents some good suggestions in order to establish a rough framework for the systeme of Electronic Bill of Lading.