A Study On Legal Issues About Volume Contract In Rotterdam Rules

With the rapid development of cargo shipping, the cooperation between carrier and shipp er also changed. These two parties tend to long-term and persistent cooperation, which made a new type of shipping contract emerge. This kind of contract is concluded by the interest-bas ed free consultation of the carrier and shipper.It can guarantee sufficient shipping order for car rier as well as plenty of shipping capacity for shipper. This kind of new contract is used more and more frequent in practice while there is not related stipulation in the present three Conven tions of International Maritime Transport of Goods nor in every country’s law. Thus, once ther e is any any friction or dispute generate during the contract execution, without related law to b ased on, contradiction shall not be resolved, which can not protect the interest for relevant party. So it’s proposed that some rules should be laid down to regulate such contract. And the new international convention on the carriage of goods by sea, United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea(hereinafter referred to the Rotterdam Rules), firstly incorporates this contract as volume contract into its scope of application.In addition to the introduction and abstract,this thesis can be divided into five parts.This thesis starts with the basic theory about volume contract, including emergence,development, related research,and main content of volume contract. On the basis of the above-mentioned studies, this thesis looks in depth into the special rules for volume contract in the Rotterdam Rules. The rules allow contractual freedom between the parties to volume contract and break through the tradition that the international conventions on carriage of goods by sea limit the freedom of contract strictly. Furthermore, this thesis deeply discusses why contractual freedom should be introduced to the Rotterdam Rules through comparison between the new Convention and the three Old Convention. Then, combining with the actual situation of our country,analyze the influence and policy response of China which casued by the Volum e Contract’s stipulation of Rotterdam Rules.Finally, this thesis details the inspiration in completing China’s legislation of Volume Contract’s special rules.