The Carriage Of Goods By Sea The Carrier Identification Study

The issue of identity of carrier under carriage of goods by sea is a traditional difficult problem in theory and practice of maritime law. For cargo claimant, correctly identifying the party who bears the responsibility of carrier is the first major problem and understandably key concern in a shipping dispute. Unfortunately, the cargo claimant usually has considerable difficulty in deciding who should be sued, because the carrier is rarely identified with precision in the bill of lading, which are often issued bearing the names of the other party or even some vague entity. On the basis of the above analysis, the paper holds that it is necessary to establish the identical system of identity of carrier under the carriage of goods by sea. Therefore, four parts are arranged in this paper in the order as follows: the overview; analysis concerning the causes of the issue; study on the standards of identity of carrier; reconstitute the system of identifying carrier in present laws.After the brief introduce of the issue, the write discusses the significance of this issue in both substantive law and procedural law. Then, the paper indicates that the difficulty of identifying carrier mainly arises from three circumstances: First, the diversity of the concept of carrier in international conventions and national laws. Second, the complicacy of carriage of goods by sea. Third, non-standardization in shipping operations. To solve the dilemma of identifying the carrier, there are several standards which are used in the judicial practice, such as the records of bill of lading (including the title of B/L and signature of carrier), the contents of contract, the character of cost, the main body of mastering the vessel's control power and the history of transaction between the parties. Though we solved the problem of identifying carrier in certain case by using standards mentioned above, these standards which can't be instead of the definition of carrier are not of the broad application in all trials. Therefore, the writer tries to reconstitute the system of identifying carrier under carriage of goods by sea in our present laws. As to China Maritime Code (CMC), the paper introduces the definition of carrier in accordance with Rule 1 of Article 42. Then, the paper discusses the shortcomings of this definition appearing in the enforcement of this...