The Development Of The Common Law Contract Principle Of Relativity And Its Impact On The Carriage Of Goods By Sea

Privity of contract can be traced to "privity of debt" in Roman law. "Privity of debt" means that only debtee and debtor will be bound by debt. There is no concept of "debt" and related system in Common law, so "privity of debt" in Roman law is known as "privity of contract" in Common law. The basic content says: only the privy of a contract can take rights and obligations of it, only parties of a contract are bound by the contract and non privy of it can enforce performance of it. From Roman law, "privity of contract" or "privity of debt" are becoming a cornerstone of contract or debt-related law system and play a very important role."Privity of contract" whereas brings so many inconvenience in business practice of shipping law, for example, Hi international carriage of goods by sea, persons who sign contract are shipper/seller and ship-owner, buyer is only a third-party and has no right to bring an accusation against ship-owner under bill of lading, at the same time, ship-owner has no right to ask buyer for demurrage; To independent operator, third-party liabilities are extremely different between action brought by violating contract and action brought by tort. Independent operator has no stable and reasonable anticipation to his dealings; Seaway bill, used widely gradually, can't be involved by the existing law system of bill of lading, etc.In order to solve these practical inconveniences, some countries gradually set individual cases and make the related law. With "privity of contract" as clew and development of British law as example, this article will discuss the impact that evolvement of "privity of contract" and development of related lawmaking bring to business practice of shipping law. Using comparing analytical method and focusing on society development and business practice, this article will discuss the right attitude to "doctrine of privity of contract" and applications of the doctrine in real business cases and will bring forward personal opinions and methods solving theinconvenience.Maritime Code of PRC does not take effect until 1993,compared late to international legislation. It absorbs some advanced contents from the existed laws so avoids a part of inconvenience in practice. Whereas, there are still a lot of problems need to be solved. One can gain experiences from other's mistakes. I hope we can learn as much as possible from the introduction of British law and we can learn the spirit and explore the purpose of the law, combined to our existed law system and real situations, to establish the right law that can promote the development and ensure the justice and efficiency of the industry.