On The Volume Contract Regime

As a new international convention on carriage of goods by sea, the RotterdamRules suffer extensive doubts due to the establishment of various groundbreakingregimes. Especially, the method that the principle of “freedom of contract” isincorporated into the Convention to establish system of volume contract and breakthrough traditional mandatory application regime of international carriage of goods bysea throws the system into significant challenges.This paper wishes to make comprehensive and objective analysis and discussion onall articles about volume contract, based on relevant documents with respect tosessions of Working Group III and various points from domestic and oversea experts.Besides, the paper will do some researches on the principle of freedom of contractwith certain length, discuss the rationality of incorporating freedom of contract into aninternational convention on carriage of goods by sea, and point out advantages anddisadvantages of the regime of volume contract.Besides, as a huge country of both trade and shipping, the usage of volumecontracts in the practice of international carriage of goods by sea by our country isgrowing more and more. However, our country’s legislation on this aspect is stillblank, and we rarely see cases on volume contract in our country’s judicial practice ofmaritime law. Therefore, at the end, the paper will also discuss the possibility andmodel of volume contact in China’s legislation. The writer hopes that China couldestablish the regime of volume contract that will not only respect freedom of contractbetween parties, but also fully take into account the equity and justice of contract, soas to promote the sound and prosperous development of enterprises of shipping andtrade of China.