Study On The Liability Regime Of The Carrier Under Transport Law Draft Convention

Along with the swift boom of the carriage of container and logistic economy, multimodal transport becomes more and more important economically. From the very beginning, the law of the multimodal transport is eager for international uniformity, however subject to the difference in various transport mode concerning equipment, cost, geography, politics and risk therein, there are remarkable diversity existing the applicable legislation, especially in the aspect of the liability regime. Despite the active probe held by UN and ICC, no mandatory international convention has been achieved till now and the development of the international multimodal transport is impeded.On the basis of the principle of maritime law and multimodal transport law, this dissertation searches for the evolution and essence of Transport Law Draft Convention on the carriage of goods (mentioned as Draft hereunder) by the way of historical analysis, using the relevant theory of legal economics as reference. On account of the period of responsibility of carrier extended form "harbor to harbor" to "door to door" and the appearance of the liability of carrier preceding and subsequent to sea carriage, the contract covered by Draft becomes a multimodal one and the carrier stipulated herein is equivalent to the multimodal transport operator(MTO).Through particular comparation with subsistant several liability regime of MTO, the dissertation draws a conclusion that the liability regime of carrier under Draft is minimum network and creative a new three- level conception of the liability regime of carrier. Additionally, for the purpose of deepening the explanation of that theory, this paper exert on the discussion on such relevant legal matters as the transport mode covered by Draft , the relationship between Draft and other international transport convention or domestic legislation and the impact of the system of performing party on the liability regime of carrier above-mentioned.Finally, the dissertation also designs the primary legal framework of liability regime of multimodal transport operator of China and hope to be beneficial to the study of the international and internal multimodal transport law.