Study On Shipper System In The Rotterdam Rules

On December11th,2008, the United Nations General Assembly adopted thedocument named “UN Convention on Contract for the Internal Carriage of GoodsWholly or Partly by Sea”(also named the Rotterdam Rules). The Rules aims tosubstitute the three of current contracts for the Internal Carriage of Goods by sea, seekunify of the contracts for the Internal Carriage of Goods by sea, and establish a commonsystem which would regulate and balance the rights and obligations of Shippers andCarriers. Therefore, the Rotterdam Rules increases the clauses and establishes theshipper system that is different from other contracts which focus on the carriers system.This thesis divides into five parts.Part one is introduction which briefly presents information about the RotterdamRules.Part two introduces the three contracts for the Internal Carriage of Goods by sea.Meanwhile, it points out that there is no shipper system in the past three contracts.Part three introduces shipper system in the Rotterdam Rules, concluding how toidentify who is shipper, rights and obligations of shipper and documentary shipper. Thischapter shows shipper system in the Rotterdam Rules is more abundant and specific.Part four analyses several issues concerning shipper system existing in theRotterdam Rules, i.e. consigner and documentary shipper under FOB. In addition, itbriefly puts forward proposals.The final part is epilogue of this thesis. It sets out that there is dispute, but shippersystem which is built by the Rotterdam Rules will have great impact on China. So weshould learn more about this contract.