Study Of Dangerous Goods And Their Transport And Insurance Law

The carriage of dangerous goods by sea is an important part of the field of marine transport. With the fast development of science and technology and the expanding of the international trade, the amount of the dangerous goods carried by sea and the number of its kind have increased enormously in the recent years. Because of unstable character, if not be properly treated with, the dangerous goods are most likely to arouse tremendous accidents. In order to strengthen the management of carriage of dangerous goods by sea, many laws and codes have been established, including the international conventions, and the legislations of shipping countries. Article 68 of maritime code of PRC regulates the related content of carriage of dangerous goods by sea.The carriage of dangerous goods by sea reveals the speciality in respect of theory and practice, which is a hot topic in the maritime law academe and shipping field as well. Based on the character of carriage of dangerous goods by sea, by virtue of the international conventions and advanced legislations of some shipping countries, and with reference to the related cases, this paper mainly discussed these following topics: the definition of dangerous goods; the legal status of carrier of carriage of dangerous goods by sea, the legal status of shipper of carriage of dangerous goods by sea; the speciality of insurance for carriage of dangerous goods by sea, and the compulsory liability insurance for the carriage of dangerous goods. Meanwhile, this paper analyzed some specific problems such as the shipper's responsibility of notifying the dangerous character to the carrier, the carrier's rights of refusing to carry the dangerous goods, the carrier's rights of disposing dangerous goods, the necessity to establish a system of compulsory liability insurance for the carriage of dangerous goods.The paper mainly draws the following conclusions: due to the vast variety of dangerous goods, defining a kind of dangerous goods should consider the full characters, rather than only one criteria; the related law should clarify the rights and responsibility of the carrier and shipper for carriage of dangerous goods by sea; under the circumstance that both parties violate their obligations, the causation rule should be adopted to analyze respective liability; compulsory liability insurance may play an important role in protecting the victim of the accidents from the carriage of dangerous goods by sea, it is necessary to establish the system of compulsory liability insurance for the carriage of dangerous goods by sea.