Improve The Legal System Of Shipper Under China Maritime Code

With the development of maritime cargo transportation and foreign trade, deficiencies of the Maritime Code of the People’s Republic of China occur in practice after the code was proclaimed. The shipper system under the China Maritime Code also causes problems in recent years due to the limitation of the drawing of the law. China Maritime Code defines two types of shippers, and allows the possibility of forming two types of shippers in the relationship of maritime cargo transportation. However, the rights and obligations of these two types of shipper’s are not clear. This obscure situation is also one of the most serious problems in theory and the shipping industry. To specify the status of the shipper in transport law, so as to make the shippers’rights and responsibilities clear, is significant to help balancing the profits of both sides and protecting and promoting the shipping industry. In addition, the way we determine the contracting shipper and the consignor’s legal status and rights and balance their obligations and liabilities will also become an important content of China Maritime Code’s amendment in the future.This thesis is divided into three parts to analyze and research on the way to improve the shippers’legal system of China Maritime Code according to introducing the question, analyzing the problem, and solving the problem. Some personal views are also introduced in the end.The first part of this thesis reviews many International Conventions’shipper system, discusses the history of the shipper system and theoretically describes the present legislation on the shipper system in China Maritime Code in order to define the concept of the shipper clearly and to know the background of its relative rights and responsibilities.The second section of this thesis clarifies the difficulty of the identification of the shipper in practice based on theoretical studies, analyzes the shortcomings of the shipper system in China Maritime Code, and describes the internal causes of the shipper system’s shortcomings combining with the background of the enactment of China Maritime Code.The final section, firstly, discusses the necessity to improve the China Maritime Code of the shipper system. Secondly, it makes clear the relationship between the shipper system in China Maritime Code and the relative concepts in Civil&Commercial Law by the felicitous definition of relevant Maritime provisions in our legal system. Finally, it researches on how to understand the two types of shipper in China Maritime Code in practice, discusses the rights, obligations and responsibilities of the two types of shipper in the legal relationship of the Carriage of Goods by Sea. And on the basis of the above, some legal suggestions concerning the revision of the relevant articles in China Maritime Code are made.