Research Of The Application Of Unmanned Ship Remote Operator Under Chinese Maritime Code

Unmanned ship is a kind of autonomous ship with high intelligence.Both international organizations and national authorities,also various research institutions and economic entities,they all have technical achievements with various degree of intelligence relating to autonomous ships.From the legal and regulatory perspective,in spite of the efforts and research made by the working groups,there still exists many problems relating to unmanned ships should be resolved,especially the legal status,rights,obligations and responsibilities of remote operator under relevant international conventions and national laws.Based on the reality of our country,this paper will analysis the legal status and the application of remote operator under Chinese Maritime Code.This paper is divided into four chapters:The first chapter of this paper focus on some general problems.The first chapter clarifies the research object by sorting out the autonomy level of autonomous ships.This paper confirms that unmanned ships could constitute the ship under maritime law through analyzing whether carrying crew members is an element of Ship under maritime law.Based on the previous conclusion,this paper clarifies the concept of remote operator and its classification.The second chapter mainly focus on the legal status of remote operator.According to the different operation modes of the unmanned ships,this paper analyses the legal status of remote operator when unmanned ships are performed by natural persons who are hired by shipowners,and when performed by the third-party legal entities who are entrusted by the shipowners.The former one is analyzed through comparing the content and characteristics of professions with seafarer,the latter one is analyzed through the relationship between remote operator and the shipowners,also compared with the concept of similar entities.The third chapter mainly focus on the application of remote operator under Chinese Maritime Code.Based on the fact that remote operator undertaking of the crew's function of operating and managing the ship,this chapter will focus on the regulations that related to the crew and will analyze whether remote operator could apply to relevant regulations.For the purpose of research,these regulations are divided into three aspects:one is the regulations related to salary,the second one is regulations related to the operation of the ship,the third one is regulations related to the limitation of liability.This paper will study the application of relevant regulations separately under the circumstances when remote operator is hired by shipowner and is entrusted by shipowner.The fourth,chapter will do further research based on the conclusion of previous analyzation.The regulations that could be applied to remote operator directly without modification and the regulations that could be applied to remote operator after interpretation will not be modified.Regarding the regulations that do not apply to remote operator and need modifications,this paper will raise the amendment suggestions after considering both the characteristics of remote operator and the uniformity of Chinese Maritime Code.