On The Liability System Of Carrier In "Rotterdam Rules"

"Rotterdam Rules" meets the "door to door" transport requirements which is mostly used during the international cargo transport and developed the traditional single-style international convention on the carriage of goods by sea into the multi-modal international convention on the carriage of goods, in which sea and inland transport means are included. The"go ashore" of the international convention on the carriage of goods by Sea is not only a simple extension of the carrier's period of responsibility, but also makes the building of the form of the carrier's responsibility a new topic for research. At the same time, the foundation of responsibility is a very important part of the carrier's liability system in " Rotterdam Rules". Combined with the formulating background of "Rotterdam rules", the carrier's liability system of "Rotterdam rules" is analyzed and evaluated from the following three aspects in this paper: the responsibility period, the responsibility forms and the responsibility foundation, so that man can understand the "Rotterdam rules" correctly and perfect the legislation of the carriage of goods in China and thus be able to deal with impact after the execution of "Rotterdam rules".This paper is divided into three parts which includes the introduction, the body part and the conclusion. The total paper is about 32000 words.The introduction part provides an overview of main contents and of the legislative process of "Rotterdam rules".The body section is divided into four chapters.The first chapter studies the rule-making background of"Rotterdam rules"from the following three aspects: the international law on carriage of goods is not unified, the status of carrier in the international maritime transport of goods has changed, and the "door to door" transport is rapidly growing. The author thinks that these backgrounds are built on the basis of the liability system of carrier.The second chapter discusses the period of responsibility and is divided into four sections. Section I discusses the definition of the period of responsibility and in the author's point of view ,the period of the carrier's responsibility to Carriage of Goods by Sea Act is actually a system of mandatory application of the responsibility of the carrier phase; Section 2 discusses the historical evolution of the period of carrier's responsibility,the author considers that there is a trend that the period of responsibility is to extend; Section 3 analyzes the period of responsibility in "Rotterdam Rules", and the author thinks that defined the period of responsibility in "Rotterdam rules"as a "door to door" is unscientific, the form of " sea + "has truly reflected the feature of the period of responsibility in " Rotterdam Rules " , Section 4 contains comments on the period of responsibility of "Rules of Rotterdam," for that "sea +" has adjusted to the "door to door" transport development; At the same time, there are some problems on "sea +" period of responsibility, which mainly reflected in conflict with the existing legal framework.The third chapter deals with the liability regime and contains four sections. In the first section the author analyzes the legislative model of the carrier's liability regime and thinks that the various existing legislative models of the carrier's liability regime all have flaws in spite of their own features. Section 2 is about the analysis of the liability regime in "Rotterdam Rules" and the author thinks that the minimum mesh regime of liability is actually a mixed regime of liability, in which the uniform regime of liability is adopted during the sea section and the limited regime of liability is used during the non-maritime section. In section 3 the responsibility-taking under the minimum mesh regime of liability is discussed. The author found out that according to the mesh regime, the carrier's is responsible for the whole process of transportation; maritime performing party is responsible for the sea section in the period of responsibility; the " Rotterdam Rules" did not make specific provisions for the non marine performing party. Section 4 deals with the period of responsibility in the " Rotterdam Rules" and the author draw the conclusion that in spite of the positive influence the "minimum mesh regime" laid on the uniform of the international law on the carriage of goods by sea and the developing trends of "door to door" means, still it has the following problems: it cannot solve the problem of conflicts with other international transport treaties; it is not good for the priority application of domestic law due to lack of provisions; it does not specify the specific responsibilities of non-maritime performing party, which may cause problems in judicial practice; The fourth chapter contains three sections. Section 1is the analysis of the foundation of responsibility.In the author's point of view, there is an increasing trend in the carrier's liability. In section 2, the foundation of responsibility in " Rotterdam Rules " is analyzed from the following four aspects: the principle of responsibility, the scope of exemption, the liability of the unseaworthiness of the ship and the mixed responsibility. Section 3 contains a short comment on the foundation of responsibility in " Rotterdam Rules ",and the author thinks that the foundation of liability in " Rotterdam Rules " is a new model of the foundation of liability and has increased the burden of the carrier.In the end the author makes a general comment on the liability regime of " Rotterdam Rules " and thinks that it has ,to a certain extent, unified the law of international carriage of goods ,meets the trends of modern shipping industry and has been the result of a compromise between the interests of all parties.