The Application Of Fault Liability In The General Average Contribution Rule Under The Coastal Shipping Of China

General Average Contribution System under the coastal shipping is also from the provisions of the China's maritime law;the basic rule is fair to bear the risk together.General Average comes from the process of carrying out the contract of carriage of goods by sea,and the carrier's liability is the core question.However,the carrier's Criterion of liability between the coastal shipping and ocean shipping applied are different,the General Average contribution will face lots of real problems when there is a carrier's fault existed,as the carrier's may still follow the method under ocean shipping to request the cargo owner to share the GA loss or expense,the court may use the fault liability instead of the strict liability to try a GA case.Thereout,we can find the core point under this article is which Criterion of liability should be reasonable for the GA contribution under coastal shipping,strict liability or fault liability.Under this article,the author commences from the analysis of the carrier's Criterion of liability,combines the typical adjudication cases,analyzes the real problems when the carrier use the strict liability to determine GA contribution,and on basis of the mismatching of the theory and the practice to discriminate whether there is possible to choose other Criterion of liability for the GA contribution under coastal shipping.Investigate the development in different times of carrier's Criterion of liability,the legal fairness and justice,benefit balance between the carrier and the cargo owner,also the marine insurance practice and so on,try to see whether there is a practicable way and the carrier's liability applied under coastal shipping could be the Incomplete Fault Liability.Follow the Unification tendency of the carriage law of goods by sea,the author suggests modifying the general rules of the China's maritime law and the coastal shipping could be restrained by chapter 4 of the carriage of goods by sea.So the coast shipping and ocean shipping will apply for the same Incomplete Fault Liability,meanwhile the unified Criterion of liability for China carrier by sea will come true.The author still suggests modifying the Article 197 of China's maritime law;to delete words “the party” so as to clarify the legislative thinking under this part and to solve the translation problem that is differ from the York-Antwerp Rules,so as to avoid the misapply under the GA Contribution practice.In the meanwhile,the author hopes to add some applicable rules for GA fault in this article,then the coastal shipping will easy to reach a general accepted GA standard,GA contribution system will achieve his advantage of risk bearing together,adjust the benefits between the carrier and the cargo owner reasonably,maintain and protect the coastal shipping in smooth process.