The Establishment And Improvement Of The Procedure Of Limitation Of Liability For Maritime Claims

Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims is a rule that the responsible parties may limit their liability for compensation for loss or damage after the occurrence of a maritime accident. It is one of the unique features of Maritime Law, which is different from the principle of indemnity in accordance with actual loss or damage in Civil Law. According to Lord Denning MR, it is 'a rule of public policy which has its origin in history and its justification in convenience. It is a right given to promote the general health of trade and in truth is no more than a way of distributing the insurance risk.Special Maritime Procedure Law of the P.R.C. only regulates the procedure of establishing a limitation fund. The author considers that this kind of regulations would not resolve the argument from maritime claims well, and we should learn from foreign legal rules to develop our procedure rules for limitation of liability.At the first part of this article, the author analyses the procedure rules for limitation of liability from several countries. At the Great Britain and the USA, you can sue for limitation of liability obeying the civil procedure rules and special supplement rules. But at the European counties, you can just an independent legal procedure to settle arguments from limitation of liability, and you can just sue to the judge when arguments could not be settled at the hearing.At the second part of this article, the author analyses the nature of the limitation right of liability for maritime claims, and also the structure of the procedure rules of limitation of liability. I consider that the limitation right is a right for defence but not a procedure rules. And the limitation procedure should be an independent legal procedure.At the third part of this article, the author analyses the defects of the Procedure Rules of Establishing Limitation Fund. After that, I just offer some suggestion on how we should do to improve the limitation procedure rules. At last, I offer a whole draft of the limitation procedure.