On Issues Concerning Ship Arrest Under Chinese Law

Arrest of ships, as the most important form of the security of maritime claim, hasbecome an ideal way to guarantee the legal maritime applicants. The internationalconvention and maritime legislation of the countries have all enacted detailed lawsand regulations to protect the applicants’legal maritime claims. This was also done byour country to pass The Special Procedure Law for Admiralty in1999, which sharesthe same spirit as the international convention on the system of arrest of ships.However, after a careful study on the legal system of arresting ships of other countriesand regions under the two law systems and the related rules of our country, you willfind out that there still exist a great number of problems on the arrest of ships in TheSpecial Procedure Law for Admiralty. Many laws and regulations are too generaland there are many contradictions and conflicts on both theoretical and practicalaspects. Therefore, in order to totally achieve the goal of establishing the legal systemof arrest of ships, i.e. to protect the maritime claim of applicants, and to guarantee thelegal rights of the opposite applicants, it is of great importance to study internationalconvention and the legal system of arresting ships of other countries and regionsunder the two law systems, as well as to improve the legal system of arresting ships ofour country.This thesis, by comparison and analysis, is to make a study on the followingthree aspects, the scope of arresting ships, wrongful arrest of ships and maritimesecurity of arresting ships in the legal system of arresting ships of other countries andregions under the two law systems and the related rules of our country. The firstChapter of this thesis is a basic overview of the system of arresting ships. It will focuson the scope of arresting ships, with a brief introduction to the concept of arrestingships, significance and conditions, in which will analyze the related provisions on thescope of arresting ships in other countries and regions under the two law systems onthe following three aspects: the ship involved, the sister ship, and the associated ship. In addition, to improve laws and regulations on arrest of ships in our country, positivesuggestions will be raised from four aspects, i. e. whether ships well prepared to setoff can be arrested, whether the sister ship of the container ship chatterer can bearrested, whether the ship of the operator can be arrested, and whether the associatedship can be arrested.Chapter Two will give an illustration in detail about the related theories of thewrongful arrest of ships, especially about the criterion of liability of the wrongfularrest of ships. By studying the criterion of liability of the wrong arrest of ships inother countries and regions under the two law systems and the related rules of ourcountry, we will find that, in the case of wrongful arrest of ships, the criterion ofliability adopted by our country cannot maintain the applicant’s maritime claims in theway of arresting ships. Therefore, on the basis of the theoretical analysis, the authorwill emphasize the practical problems caused by the criterion of liability of thewrongful arrest of ships, in order to make appropriate changes.Maritime security problems involved in arrest of ships will be discussed inChapter Three. The study of whether to offer security, the way of offering security andthe amount of security in the legal system of arresting ships of other countries andregions under the two law systems and the related rules of our country will prove thatthe protection to the applicants from our law is inadequate. Therefore, based on theproblems existed in the guarantee provisions of China, the author is to put forwards abrand new relief way to replace that provided by the arrest of ships applicant tocompensate the loss caused by his wrongful arrest of the ship. Meanwhile, thepossibility, service conditions and application procedures of setting up this newwrongful arrest of ships compensation relief fund will be further discussed in thischapter.