Letter Of Indemnity In Carriage Of Goods By Sea

Letter of indemnity is a kind of document in shipping practice, The appearance and application of letter of indemnity in sea transportation have been the focus of people's attention and consideration in sea transportation theory and practice. In one respect, it brings great efficiency and economic value to international trade, it lubricate the trade and shipping development. In another respect, it causes disorder to the international trade, especially the unbelievable and unsafe of bill of lading, and makes cheating convenient in trade, so there are a lot of dispute about letter of indemnity in theory and practice. Due to these, the author realizes that it is necessary to do some research work on it in a systematic way.The first part of the article begins with the conception of letter of indemnity, then this part gives its backgrounds, basic natures and forms, and also the common kinds of letter of indemnity in practice, at the same time, its reasonable and illegible natures are discussed through the civil law.The second part focuses on the legal nature of letter of indemnity and makes analysis under different conditions in details.Weighing its advantage and disadvantage, the author put emphasis on the economic value in international trade and sea transport, the important part of this article is the validity of letter of indemnity, different countries hold various standpoints on this question and so far there is not a general conclusion on it in global sphere. This leads to the unbelievable of bill of lading and bad influence for shipping industry and trade. According to the theory and practice in different countries, as well as "Hamburger Rules", this article is attempting to do a detailed analysis on the various cases and legislation by a comparative method for the purpose of clarifying the validity of letter of indemnity, the third part tried to analysis its validity in detail.In the end of the article, the future of letter of indemnity in China is discussed in particulars, and also the risks and related prevented measures are given. Thinking that there are some blank ingredients in China Maritime Code concerning, and based on the analyses above, the author makes some suggestion on the amendment of China Maritime Code in order to make letter of indemnity better improve shipping and trade developments.