Carrier’s Liability Under The Electronic Bill Of Lading

Trade and transportation are the most important parts of human civilization. From the Age of Exploration, the communications of people, information and goods have been strengthened unprecedentedly. Transportation industry, especially the maritime transport, has been considerably developed. Along with this development, for the purpose of protecting the rights and appointing the obligations of all the stakeholders and to establish a rule that can be followed and is accepted by all parties involved within the transportation events, a number of contracts and bills were emerging and applied as well as relevant laws and regulations have also been enacted and enforced. For to solve the problems arose in transportation events, bill of lading has been used as solution base of mutual rights and obligations of carrier and shipper. More precisely, bill of lading is the transportation contract between carrier and shipper.Paper based bill is the most traditional way of bill of lading and has been used without serious changes from the very beginning. In the recent three decades, along with the rapid development of digital information and communication technology, electronic equipment and technique have been widely used in more and more business activities. Electronic bill of lading, therefore, rose in response to this proper condition. By comparing with the traditional one, electronic bill of lading can transfer the information in a more convenient, faster and safer way. It is easy to be made and stored. At the mean time, however, as its feature of electronic information, electronic bill of lading was born with the defects and risks of EDI.As information technology and infrastructure are rapidly spreading over the world, electronic communicating and trading have been widely accepted by most of the parties. The development of electronic is irresistible. Electronic bill of lading has been applied gradually and its worldwide application in future is predicable. As a basis of rights and obligations within transportation activities, the transform of bill of lading will bring intensive and profound influence to all the trading and transportation events.In China, the laws and regulations are all set on the basis of traditional bill of lading for the confirmation of responsibility of all parties. Thus, the legislators, executors and all parties involved must face to this challenge and opportunity to enact laws and regulations according to the technical specifications of electronic bill of lading. In this way, the advantages of electronic bill of lading will be realized while the risks will be mitigated. It will enable the wide, effective and long-term application of electronic bill of lading. Moreover, it will effectively protect the interests of all the stakeholders, who involve into the using of electronic bill of lading.The application of bill of lading will bring critical influence to the carrier. This is because the carrier is the essential that connect the shipper and consignee. The carrier is responsible for issuing bill of lading and transporting goods. For these reasons, all the researches on electronic bill of lading must contain the study and analysis on the legal liability of the carrier.This thesis summarized the experience and problems by studying the usage of electronic bill of lading. Hence, a concrete analysis on legal liability of the carriers has been taken. Meanwhile, this thesis conducted a study on relevant laws and regulations from other countries. With the study outcomes and analysis, this thesis tries to offer some suggestions on the enactment of laws and regulations for China and other countries that do not have such kind of laws and regulations in action. Moreover, as per the complicacy, a substantial content and a discussion on legislation methods have been included in the legislation prospect.