A Study On The Jurisdiction Chapter In The Rotterdam Rules

Hague Rules, Visby Rules and Hamburg Rules are the main now-existinginternational conventions governing issues arising from the performing ofinternational carriage of goods by sea contracts. Since the Visby Rules is anamendment of Hague Rules, these two conventions are also called Hague-Visby Rules.Although Hague-Visby Rules have reached a great success in the unification ofinternational carriage of goods by sea rules, and have been playing a fundamentallyimportant role in current international sea transport, however, they do not includejurisdiction rules. Hamburg rules, as an integrated carriage convention, historicallytakes jurisdiction issues into account, but does not turn out to be a well acceptedregime.The Rotterdam Rules was drafted by the United Nations Commission onInternational Trade Law as the latest fruit of international carriage of goods by seaconventions. As is different to the Hague-Visby Rules and Hamburg Rules, theRotterdam Rules has set a separate Chapter (Chapter14) dealing with the jurisdictionissues. It has a wide coverage on sub-issues of jurisdiction rules, including generalrules on actions against the carrier and the maritime performing party, choice of courtagreements before and after the disputes have arisen, arrest and provisional orprotective measures, consolidation, jurisdiction when the defendant has entered an appearance and recognition and enforcement, etc. The jurisdiction chapter inRotterdam Rules has the widest coverage and is the most systematic one comparing toprevious conventions. In addition, Rotterdam Rules has designed a special rule tomake the jurisdiction chapter come into force. The effectiveness of Chapter14isindependent and separate from the whole convention, which is called an “opt-in”mode.In academic circle, several books and articles have been published on the draftand promulgation of the Rotterdam Rules. Most of them focus on the comments of thewhole convention and the substantial rights and obligations of the parties. Seldom canany be found on jurisdiction chapter. Jurisdiction chapter in the Rotterdam Rules hasmany breakthroughs, the study on which may help us judge whether if China shouldclaim to be bound when signs the convention in the future. Even we decide not to, itmay also have effect on examining the jurisdiction rules in internal laws or be used forreference when try to revise them, especially the Special Maritime Procedure Law.Jurisdiction chapter has set different rules on the action against carrier andmaritime performing party; has designed special connecting factors after concerningthe development of multimodal transportation; has enlarged the application ofexclusive choice of court agreement comparing to Hamburg Rules; has introducedjurisdiction when defendant has entered an appearance. These are all the highlights ofthe chapter and are in accordance with the law-making trend of the international civiland commercial litigation rules. Meanwhile, some provisions are still under heatdebate, for example, the opt-in mode on one hand can, to some extent, remove theobstacle of the recognition of whole convention by the potential Contracting States;on the other hand, by adopting the mode, the unification goal may hardly be realised.Generally, the future of the jurisdiction chapter and its effect upon the internationalcarriage of goods by sea practice are up to now not easily predictable.