Study On Limitation Of Liability For Damages Caused By Dumping Of Wastes At Sea

In juridicial practice, issues concerning limitation of liability for maritime claims can be found very easy. With the economy rapidly developing in current society, there are more and more cases on limitation of liability for pollution damages caused by dumping of wastes. However, Chinese Maritime Code (CMC) and the related juridicial interpretations in China have no explicit definition about behaviors relating to dumping of wastes at sea, not to mention whether to apply and how to apply limitation of liability for maritime claims to compensation for pollution damage caused by dumping of wastes at sea. In this thesis, methods like case analysis, comparison and so on are used to analyze the above issues, trying to propose beneficial help to solve disputes concerning limitation of liability for maritime claims caused by dumping of wastes at sea.This thesis can be divided into three parts besides the intruduction and conclusion part.The first part is the overview of pollution caused by damping of wastes at sea. To begin with, the meanings of "dumping of wastes at sea" and "dumping pollution" are defined in this part. And pollution caused by dumping of wastes at sea is distinguished from other kinds of pollution, such as pollution from ships. Next comes to the systemization of current situation of legislation that is concerning preventing the pollution of wastes dumping at sea, including introduction of relevant provisions of both international and domestic. Finally, through systemizing relevant laws, this paper states the necessity of studying on limitation of liability for damages by dumping of wastes at sea.The second part is about the disputes of limitation of liability for pollution damages caused by waste-dumping at sea. This part brings out different opinions and theoretical foundations in academic circles according to the juridicial practice when facing damages disputes about pollution by waste-dumping at sea, namely methods of case analysis; the following issues are discussed in this part:the character of dumping of wastes at sea, whether claims for damage compensation caused of dumping of wastes at sea belong to the claims subject to limitation within the adjustment range of CMC, etc.The third part explains the realistic issues and comsummate suggestions when claims for pollution damages are admitted belonging to claims subject to limitation. The realistic issues mentioned above are:loss of the right of limitation of liability, including subjective condition, implementers’ condition, cause-and-effect relationship and the identity of loss; the liability limits; how to count the times of the accident, that is to say, how to detemine the number of the accident when calculating liability limits if dumped several ships of wastes or multiple times at fitful intervals.