Study On Application Of Laws On Foreign-related Personal Casualties Of Crewmembers

The theories of private maritime law are approaching to perfect, however, the demonstration on the application of laws concerning crew affairs seems inadequate. Generally, foreign-related personal casualties of crew-members are recognized as a type of maritime torts, however, due to the complexities and particularities in the cases of personal casualties of crew-members, the legal relationship between the two parties before the occurrence of the incident must be considered. The form of legal liability of these cases varies from tort liability, contract liability to product liability attributed to the unique details of a case, thus bringing about the differentiation of applicable law in different cases. Therefore it is of great necessity to analyze the basic principles of application of laws in various forms of legal liabilities or in the case of liability concurrence. In existing Chinese laws, few articles can be used in solving the issue of application of laws in cases of personal casualties of crew-members, successful precedents of legislations of foreign countries can be consulted. Principles of applicable laws under liability concurrence and maritime personal tort must be created or strengthened during the future amendment of Law of People’s Republic of China on Law Application of Foreign Civil Relations Private International Law and Maritime Code of the People’s Republic of China.The main body content of this thesis is divided into four sections:Chapter1analyses the basic issues on application of laws on foreign-related personal casualties of crew-members including the definition, particularities and objects.Chapter2discusses the legal conflicts and relevant causes in foreign-related personal casualties of crew-members and provides solutions concerning united substantive law and conflict law.Chapter3discourses the principles on application of laws of foreign-related personal casualties of crew-members, specifically in areas of contract liability and tort liability. Chapter4presents foreign legislations on application of laws on foreign-related personal casualties of crew-members and throw out correlative suggestions on future amendment of Chinese existing laws.