Abstract
The UNCITRAL Draft Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea was approved on Thursday, 3 July 2008 and would then be presented to the General Assembly of the United Nations for endorsement later this year. Many innovative features contained in the Draft Convention fill the perceived gaps in existing transport regimes. Carrier's liability compared with international maritime conventions and the Draft Convention as well as China Maritime Code is discussed in the paper. It is pointed out that although the Draft Convention plays a very important role in the development of international private maritime law regime, the entry into the force of the Draft Convention is not optimistic.
Highlights
The international carriage of goods by sea (Faghfouri 2008; Paulauskas and Bentzen 2008; Lingaitienė 2008; Afandizadeh and Moayedfar 2008) is governed by various conventions such as the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law Relating to Bills of Lading, Protocol to Amend the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to Bills of Lading 1924, 1968, 1979; United Nations Convention on the Carriage of Goods by Sea, 1978
Except for the particular defenses of error in the navigation and management of the ship and fire, the basis of liability applicable to the carrier under the Hague Rules and the Hague-Visby Rules comes to a liability for presumed fault or neglect plus exceptions, which means that the carrier has an obligation to exercise due diligence to make the ship in all respects seaworthy so that it can properly carry the goods to destination
The Protocol of 3 June 1999 for the Modification of the Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) of 9 May 1980 entered into force in July 2006. These are a few examples of the international conventions related to transport by air: Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air (Warsaw Convention) was adopted in 1929 and entered into force in 1933, the Hague Protocol (1955) was adopted in1955 and entered into force in 1963, Montreal Protocol No 4 (1975) was adopted in1975 but entered into force in 1998, Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air replacing Warsaw Convention system of 1929 came into force on 4 November 2003
Summary
The international carriage of goods by sea (Faghfouri 2008; Paulauskas and Bentzen 2008; Lingaitienė 2008; Afandizadeh and Moayedfar 2008) is governed by various conventions such as the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law Relating to Bills of Lading (the Hague Rules), Protocol to Amend the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to Bills of Lading 1924, (the Hague-Visby Rules) 1968, 1979; United Nations Convention on the Carriage of Goods by Sea, 1978 (the Hamburg Rules). In 1996, considering the absence of an updated maritime transport regime, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) proposed to include a review of modern practices and applicable law regimes in the international carriage of goods by sea in its work program with a view of establishing the need for uniform rules where such rules were lacking so as to achieve greater uniformity of laws (Tetley 2003). It assigned to the Secretariat the task of collecting information, ideas and opinions. The following provides a brief account of carrier’s liability based on international maritime conventions and the revised text of the Draft Convention annexed to the report of the Working Group in the document report of the Working Group: A/CN.9/645 (Faghfouri 2008)
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