Delivery Of Goods In The Rotterdam Rules Rules On China Maritime Law "legislation Revelation

As the present international conventions don't pay much attention to the delivery of goods, and the national laws of different coutries have controversies on many problems related to the delivery of goods, such as the types of transport documents, whether straight bills of lading need to be presented when delivery goods, the defination of"proper delivery"and so on, so that there are many confusions in juridical practice. Meanwhile, with the development of container and oil tanker shipping and the disputes of international trade, the difficult problems related to the transport by sea—delivery without production of the original bill of lading and no consignee claims the goods at destination, have become much more prevailing. However, the traditional principle of delivery—delivery under production of original bill of lading, has made the carriers overburdden the liabilities of delivery of goods.The purposes of drafing Rotterdam Rules are mainly to unify the different international or national laws related to the transport by sea, and also to solve the difficult problems of sea transportation mentioned above. Rotterdam Rules creates a new delivery principle—delivery under instructions, which makes delivery without bills of lading becomes legal, and also entitled the carriers to delivery goods under instructions when no consignee claims the goods at destination, so that it's much more easier for the carrier to delivery goods. Moreover, the new convention make innovations on the types of transport documents, e.g, it creates a new type of document—electronic transport records. However, this brand new convention also has many drawbacks, such as the wording is vague and hard to understand, the legislative deficiencies, lack of operability, and the possibility to bring about new problems and so on. These drawbacks may even frustrate the purposes of drafting the new convention.China Maritime Law and the Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues concerning the Application of Law during the Trial of Cases about Delivery of Goods without an Original Bill of Lading have many imperfections on the regulations of the types of documents, the remedies of no consignee claims the goods at destination and the trial of cases about delivery of goods without an original bill of lading, so that the national laws in China can't solve the present difficult problems, and can't follow the new developments of sea transportation, either. The drafting of the new conventions gives a good opportunity for China to modify China Maritime Law. Meanwhile, the strong points of the new convention can give guildlines to the modifications of China Maritime Law, e.g, to create electronic transport documents in China Maritime Law, to stipulate different delivery rules for different transport documents, and to add the responsiblities for consignee to receive goods at destination and to set up the new delivery rule--delivery under instruction.My thesis can divided into three parts as follows. In the first chapter, I mainly introduce the present delivery rules and the problems related. In the second chapter, I introduce Rotterdam Rules and then analyse the strong points and drawbacks of this new convention. And last but not least, I analyse the present provisions related to delivery of goods in China, focusing on the following three aspects: transport documents, delivery without bill of lading and no consignee claims goods at destination. After finding out the drawbacks of the regulations in China, and using the strong points in the new convention, finally I put forward my legislative proposals to perfect delivery rules in China Maritime Law.