The Legal Issue Of Delay In Delivery Of Carriage Of Goods By Sea

There are two different standards to define the delay in delivery. The first standard is that the carrier failed to deliver the goods in an agreed period in the contract; the second standard is that the carrier failed to deliver the goods in a reasonable period of time if there is not an agreed period in the contract.Delay in delivery had not take on its own unique style until it showed up in Hamburg Rules. The definition about delay in delivery has changed among different conventions. In Hague Rules and Hague-Visby Rules, there are no definition about delay in delivery, but different countries joined the conventions had different opinions about delay damages. Some countries hold the opinion that “loss or damage” in Hague Rules include the delay economic loss, but some countries had ambiguous attitude.The Maritime Law in China only has one defining standard, following the logic in the Maritime Law, “loss and damage” only mean material damage, and the delay in delivery just mean economic losses, so when consignee suffered economic losses which caused by delay in reasonable time, there is no statutory basis for compensation in Maritime Law.There are three parts in this thesis. Chapter one is the general introduction about delay in delivery, such as the definition, defining standard, and different opinions about delay in delivery among different Rules, and the major reasons giving rise to the delay in delivery. Chapter two is about the question,there is no compensation for delay in reasonable time of period, and the next part is about the problems in Maritime Law. And Chapter three introduce some problems about delay in delivery and disputes that have happened in judicial practice, and then give a detail explanation about how to perfect the legal system of the delay in delivery.