A Study On Legal Effects Of Arbitration Clause In Bills Of Lading And On Latest Development Of Our Country's Arbitrates Legislation

A bill of lading (hereinafter referred to as B/L) is one of the most important documents in maritime transport, and it plays an important role in international carriage of goods by sea and international trades. The content and legal effects of arbitration clause in Bs/L are in direct relation with the rights and obligations of both parties. As an independent means of resolution for disputes arising out of carriage of goods by sea, arbitration has a long history in the world, and becomes more and more popular recently. As the gray area in maritime law, the arbitration clause in Bs/L is controversial. Therefore, questions such as whether the arbitration clause in Bs/L is an arbitration agreement in writing, on what conditions can charter party arbitration clause be incorporated into Bs/L under charter party, whether this incorporated arbitration clause has binding force for the third party (i.e. Bs/L holders) are all worth following up.Our country's latest judicial explanation of Arbitration Law of People's Republic of China by the Supreme Court has been formally implemented in 2006. It makes a breakthrough explanation on the related problems of arbitration agreement, and provides a new judicial basis for confirming the effects of Bs/L in practice, which accords with the international legislation trend. However, it still hasn't made a specific stipulation on the effects of arbitration clause in Bs/L for the insurer who exerts the right of subrogation, and on the judicial application of arbitration clause in Bs/L. Therefore, how to explain the latest judicial explanation in order to match the actual comprehension, how to further resolve the existent problems in legislative and judicatory practice, and how to perfect our country's arbitration agreement system, has become the important topic in front of us. This paper starts with the validity of arbitration clause in Bs/L, combining the latest arbitrates legislation of our country, then deeply and systemically discusses the legal effects of the arbitration clause in Bs/L. The paper also brings forward the scheme for the improvement of correlative legislation and judicatory in our country, hoping to do some help for our country's maritime judicatory and arbitral practice.