Study On The Damage Compensation Liability Of The Parties Of The Sea Towage Contract

The sea towage refers to the physical displacement of content. Towing vessels or other objects connected to cable form appeared very early in other offshore operations, such as salvage, but sea towage really appear as an independent assignment is very late. Thus it leads to a series of problem. Independence of the towing operation is still being questioned. International treaties and domestic law which adjust the sea towage legal relationship is not yet complete and perfect. There is a conflict between freedom of concluding towage contract and fairness of the allocation of responsibilities and so on.To solve above problems, combining with related foreign precedents of sea towage and in view of the sea towage contract legislation in China, this paper is divided into four parts to discuss the analysis from the following aspects. The first part demonstrates the independence of the sea towage, the nature of the sea towage contract, legal applicability of towage contract and the distinction between sea towage and carriage of goods by sea, sea towage and salvage towing. The second part discusses parties who take responsibility, the scope of responsibility and the premise of responsibility, namely the towage contract obligations of the parties, and mainly analyzes the towworthiness obligations of the parties, including the obligation of towworthiness content, nature, and emphatically discusses the time range of towworthiness obligation to extend the responsibility of the tugowner and shorten the period during which tugowner enjoys the disclaimer rights. The third part discusses the principle of determining liability and allocation of the liability for damages under Chinese law. On the basis of the third part, the fourth part explore the possibility to clear responsibility by combining the principle of control and fault principle. It improves development of the principle of control and solves the problem which the damaged party have when use fault principle to prove the other party’s fault. In addition, the fourth part of this article focuses on the attitude of countries as well as towing companies towards liability clause,the limitation on the clause and the definition of fairness of the clause. And the article put forward making use of unconscionability to define fairness of liability clause under Chinese law to balance the rights between the parties. And the above definition of fairness is not simply to determine whether the results of unconscionability, but should start from the causes, namely the premise of the use of unconscionability of liability clause is refinement and optimization of fair system itself. All of the above will be described in this paper.