Ship Oil Pollution Damage, The Liability Of The Main Study

As one kind of tort, oil pollution damage from ships is a special maritime tort. As the oil pollution damages from ships are usually great, such damages have come to the international sociality's attention. The international conventions on civil liability have been made to fight against such kind of tort, and effective compensation regimes have formed. Based on the principle of shared risk by ship-owners and oil cargo interests, the relevant international conventions have established a dual-subject compensation system, i.e. shipping industry and oil industry share the liability risks and contribute to adequate compensation for such oil pollution damages. One system confirms the ship-owners' liability in traditional tort field, and the other offers the supplemental compensation by IOPC Fund. In this paper, the author mainly aims at the first compensation system of parties bearing civil liability for such tort. It is divided into four chapters.In Chapter 1, the author introduces the basic provisions of the relevant international conventions and foreign laws on the parties liable for oil pollution damages from ships and concludes a tendency of developing that the ship-owners are considered as the only liable party.In Chapter 2, the author introduces the basic provisions of the relevant Chinese domestic laws on the parties liable for oil pollution damages from ships, and indicates that there is no special oil pollution law in China and that the current statutory provisions are general and dispersive. The author also illuminates that the different provisions in domestic laws have lead to different judgments in China.In Chapter 3, the paper explores the basic principal of oil pollution tort, analyses the elements to be considered when choosing the parties liable for oil pollution damages from ships, and puts forward the author's own points of view.In Chapter 4, based on the forgoing analysis, the paper brings up suggestions on how to improve statutory provisions regarding the parties liable for oil pollution damage from ships of China.