Part VI The Rights and Immunities of the Carrier, 29 Limitation of Liability

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the limitation of liability under the Hague, Hague-Visby, and Rotterdam Rules. One of the distinctive features of the maritime domain is limitation of liability. As the shipowner might limit its liability to amounts that are derisory, such limits and the terms on which limitation is offered are prescribed by international conventions, including the Hague, Hague-Visby, Hamburg, and Rotterdam Rules. Additionally, limitation is available under maritime oil pollution conventions, and under two general (or tonnage) limitation conventions, the 1957 Limitation Convention, and the Convention on Limitation and Liability for Maritime Claims 1976 (LLMC 1976) and the Protocol to the latter, the LLMC 1996. In modern law, therefore, ‘the limitation of a shipowner’s liability is the creature of statutes’. The limits of liability under the carriage of goods conventions are concerned with ‘package’ limitation, which is restricted to individual and separate claims made under a contract of carriage.