Research On Civil Responsibility Of Third Party Logistics Service Operator

In recent years,with the rapid development of the third party logistics, the thirdparty logistics has got high-level attention in management,economics,logistics,but notthe same situation in the law field.The third party logistics includestransportation,warehousing,loading and unloading,carry,freight forwarding and soon.Any single law can not cover that.There’s no specific legislations,so the third partylogistics operator has no clear legal status and responsibilities which is not good forthe development of third party logistics.Therefore,it’s very important to study legalstatus and responsibilities of the third party logistics operators.The third party logistics with respect to terms of logistics (the seller logistics andbuyer logistics) is the logistics activities taken by professional logistics enterprises inaccordance with the requirements of the logistics demand-side.The third partylogistics operator is the person who is engaged in the activities of third partylogistics.The third party logistics operator has broad sense and narrow sense and thethird party logistics operator in the narrow sense refers to the operator who canprovide systematic and modern third party logistics services.The third party logisticsoperator in the narrow sense is the main object of the study which is distinct butrelated with non-vessel carrier,international freight forwarder and internationalmultimodal transport operator.The third party logistics operator should be givenindependent status that is contract logistics operator who bears full responsibilities tothe logistics demand-side that is principal.The forms of liability systerm of the thirdparty logistics operator mainly include network liability system and uniform liabilitysystem.In different forms of liability system,the third party logistics operator’sresponsibilities to the principal are different.Meanwhile,based on different forms ofliability systerm,the third party logistics operator’s recoveries to the actual logisticsoperators after assuming responsibilities to the principal also have their own characteristics.In the network liability system,the third-party logistics operator’srecoveries to the actual logistics operators,such as the section of the carrier,portoperator are consistent with the responsibilities to the principal.In the uniform liabilitysystem,the third-party logistics operator’s recoveries to the actual logisticsoperators,such as the section of the carrier,port operator have uncertainties in somecases with the responsibilities to the principal.Based on giving the third party logisticsoperator independent legal status,this article discusses the third party logisticsoperator’s responsibilities to the principal and recoveries to the actual logisticsoperators,such as the section of the carrier,port operator and freight forwarder indifferent forms of liability system,trying to clear legal responsibilites of the third partylogistics service operator.