On The Carrier's Responsibility System Under The UN Convention Of Transport Contract Law

The carrier's liability system is the core of the law of carriage of goods by sea, which reflects the conflict of interest between the carrier and the merchant .obstructs or promotes the development of the international trade and the shipping. Along with the development of ocean shipping practice and maritime cases in the past several centuries, a set of integrated and characteristic system for carrier's liability has come into being, which is different from other transportation models. But, the law of carriage of goods by sea in the world conflicts so much, so the provisions of the liability are not consistent. For this reason, United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) commenced to prepare the draft of Transport law, which can be applied in all transport models. During Jun. 16th, 2008 to Jul. 3rd, 2008, the 41st meeting of United Nations Conference on Trade and Law was held in New York. The main task of this meeting was to make a final version of the UN Convention on the Contracts of International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea(hereinafter referred to "convention").On Jul. 3rd, this convention was submit to the 63rd Meeting of UN for decision and it was passed on Dec.11th,2008. Meanwhile, the signing ceremony of the convention will be performed in Rotterdam on Sep. 23rd, 2009, and the rules of the convention were advised to be called "Rotterdam Rules". This paper intend to research the liability system provided in the UN Convention of Transport law and compared with the three traditional international conventions ,to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the provisions in the convention. This paper is divided into three parts.The chapter one gives the introduction of the carrier's liability system on the UN Convention. It includes "Hague Rules", "Visby Rules" and "Hamburg Rules". Then, the dissertation introduces the process of convention's drafting and the judgments.The chapter two gives the ideas about the problems of the carrier's liability system. In more specific terms, it expounds the problems in four follow aspects:(l) the period of responsibility (2)the exception of carrier's navigational fault(3)the exception of fire (4)the doctrine of overriding obligation.The chapter three tells us the enlightenment from the convention. Chinese Maritime Code has taken on forceful effect on the shipping and commerce, but with the development of age, some problems have arisen, we have to improve our Maritime Code .The basis of the carrier's liability is the key point. Referred to international carriage of goods by sea, especially the UN Convention of Transport law, this paper makes the concrete suggestions and analyses the rationalization relating to the Carrier's Responsibility System.