Analysis On The Legal Status And Obligation Of International Freight Forwarder In China

The international freight forwarder is the outcome of traditional foreign trade and transportation and its operating scope is extending constantly . The traditional freight forwarder mainly provide services as customer's agent in the field of transportation industry, while nowadays it has begun to engage in many kinds of new business as a contract party . With the change of its servicing scope, the freight forwarder bears different legal status, sometime as agent ,sometimes as contract party ,and different status will bring about the change of its responsibility . The third party logistics (3PL) will become the new source of economic growth and the main stream of future logistics developments . Today, more and more freight forwarders joined in the army of 3PL industry , which also complicated the identification for legal status of the freight forwarder . So, it is necessary to give a deep analysis about the legal status of freight forwarder, which will affect its responsibility.There is no absolute legislation about freight forwarder at present . Provisions regulating conducts in freight forwarder field scattered within statute laws such as "civil law", "contract law", "maritime law", "special maritime procedure law". Yet we can not find definite regulation about the legal status of freight forwarder within these statue laws ,and that make it difficult to assert right , obligation and the liability between disputed parties. But we can find a basic regulation within these statute laws , that is the freight forwarder can operate as both agent and contract party , which is very similar with the international regulation .The repaid development of The third party logistics gives new business scope to freight forwarder , yet the lack of logistics law has become a main restrict in the logistics economy . The same key problem existed in the logistics industry as in the freight forwarder industry is that there is also no definite regulation about the legal status of freight forwarder as 3PL service provider.Today , our freight forwarder has begin to provide service such as groupage and devanning service , combined transport, non-vessel-operating , and 3PL. The third party logistics service has shown its advantage compared with the traditional transportation. So we should perfect the statute laws for industry of freight forwarder, which will benefit the development of industry of logistics and the legislation of it.The dissertation falls into three chapters . The first chapter dates back to the origin and development of the freight forwarder industry, especially that in our country and refers to the definition of International freight forwarder so as to have a better understanding of the reason for the complexity from a historical perspective .The second chapter mainly give a introduction for the right ,obligation and responsibility of the freight forwarder regulated under the present laws . The third chapter mainly makes an analysis of the legal status of international freight forwarder under the legal framework of our country , legal indentity having been classified into two, one as agent ,the other as a participant in contract of carriage. In the third chapter also give a analysis about the legal status of for freight forwarder as 3PL service provider in particular.