Legal Study On Electronic Bills Of Lading

Bills of Lading is the foundation of international trada and transportation. Nowadays,the rapid development of computer and internet made bills of lading out of date.Compared to bills of lading,electronic bills of lading could more rightly fit for the nees of international conmercial development, because it can be transferred in higher speed and lower cost as well as reducing the possibility of fraudulence. Now,more and more countries begin to adopt electronic data interchange in the field of sea transportation. The first attemptation is SeaDocs program, then follows Bolero program. There are also many law statues made for ectronic bill of lading,for instance, Ectronic Bill of Lading Rules of CMI, Model Law on Electronic Commerce with Guide to Enactment of UNCITRAL,and many other national reforms of relative law.All these attempts make a better way for electronic bills of lading to preveil.Nevertheless,the history of electronic bills of lading is only more than twenty years. There still are many obstacles for it to replace bills of lading,becauce different countries have different legal system,and there are no international law system of electronic bills of lading.By using the rule of functional-equivalent,the author proved that electronic bills of lading could serve all the fuctions of traditional bills of lading,including cargo receipts, evidence of transport contract, and document of title. Then, by studing of international and national practices and laws, the author probed into some legal aspects of the electronic bills of lading arising from its issuing and transferring, such as the admissibility as evidence, electronic signature, switching into paper bills of lading, jurisdition and etc., and the author tries to put forward his own opinions and suggestions aiming at some existing problems.At last, the author introduced the use of electronic bills of lading in China, suggests that, in order to promote our economy, the legal institutions of electronic bills of lading should be established as soon as possible.