A Comparative Study On The Liability Legal Systems Of The Ship Collision In China And South Korea

Ship collision is known as one of the most common accidents within maritime catastrophes. Damages that are mainly caused from ship collision are physical damage of loaded cargo vessels, personnel injuries and property loss of passengers and crewmen on board. Therefore, the estimated damage is difficult to predict, also the amount of compensation paid to the injured party is enormous. As the main causes of ship collision, some of them are accidental while others are claimed to be inevitable and mainly occur from violation of navigation regulation.Collision Convention and Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972 (COLRGES) are known as the two major conventions which most of the international maritime transportations have currently ratified. For example, Collision Convention mainly focuses on the afterward treatment while COLRGES concentrates on the maritime traffic and navigation regulations.Throughout this paper, it will not concentrate on the issues that are related with COLRGES since the paper mainly argues ship collisions as factual matters on the loss of life and property. By looking at current situations on the maritime collision, many countries have actually joined international conventions however, power of the conventions are too limited to regulate individual vessel. In fact, international conventions are ignored by many nations and domestic rules are created then regulated based on their favored interests. Therefore, many vessels prefer to be under their own domestic maritime laws when international conventions should be recognized as legal standards. This current situation is also prevalent in the issue of maritime collision between China and the South Korea. Therefore, how to resolve the ship collision issue have always been one of the major focuses among maritime law scholars.I will first start with the analysis of international conventions of ship collision and then focus on maritime collision between Chinese and South Korean vessels by evaluating the legal differences between Maritime laws of China and Commercial laws of South Korea. From this comparative legal study, I will analyze the international conventions which have been signed and approved by the bilateral nations as well as their domestic laws regarding the ship collision. Eventually, I will come out with legal solutions of Sino-Korean ship collision with my personal legislative views.This thesis consisted of four different chapters that ranges from concept of ship collision, liability fixation and responsibility subjects of ship collision, damage issues from ship collision and finally, legal application and possible future suggestions.The first chapter allows readers to understand both concept and consisting elements of ship collision that is related with international conventions. This chapter will initially examine general effects of the maritime international conventions in various incidents of ship collision then it will focus in Yellow Sea area to examine the role of international maritime convention in maritime collision between Chinese and South Korean vessels.The second chapter focuses on the liability fixation and responsibility subjects in the ship collision. The analysis of ship collision-related responsibility of China and South Korea is based on the tort law principle. The ship collision-related responsibility can be divided into two main subjects in this chapter, liability and action, and the exploration of the relationship between these two subjects has also been touched in this chapter.The third chapter explores the compensation principles, limited range of liability, as well as relative calculation method for ship collision of China and South Korea.The fourth chapter summarizes the legal application and enforcement of ship collision of China and South Korea.