Study On The Application Of Contract Law To The Towage Contract

Tugs are not impressive to look at but the work they perform is awesome in its scope. That they are used widely on inland waterways and the open seas makes towage contract on sea become a kind of maritime contract that couldn' t be ignored. Towage contract on sea has a history of more than one hundred of years, but there is serious lack of laws of it. Although China Maritime Code has a sole chapter of it, it' s far away from legal system.The aim of this paper is to build up a complete legal system of towage contract on sea. It combined fundamental law theory of China Contract Law and terms of China Maritime Code with practice of towage contract. To begin with, by analyzing of character of towage contract on sea, the paper dwelled on the application of the General Provisions and the Specific Provisions of Contract Law to towage contract on sea. The author considered that towage contract was a kind of contract for works and the terms of contracts for works were applicable to it. Moreover, by referring to the provisions of standard forms, the author studies the application of Contract Law to towage contract with respect to making, validity, fulfillment, termination of rights and obligations and liability for breach of contract, to resolve material problems from practice. The paper then concludes that China Maritime Code has its unique advantage, but still has vacancies and faintness, for example, validity, obligations attributable principles and so on. Only when we link Contract Law and China Maritime Code with practice together, can we make legal system of towage contract on sea more perfect and regular.