“Twentieth first century legislators have failed to produce anything to compare
ID: 346144 • Letter: #
Question
“Twentieth first century legislators have failed to produce anything to compare with the simplicity of, and the predictability that flowed from, the common law rules governing the common carrier’s relationship with cargo owners. Legislative attempts at creating a balance of bargaining power between the parties to contracts for the carriage of goods by sea have been misguided and have failed to fulfil their purpose.” Discuss, with particular reference to The Hague, The Hague-Visby and The Hamburg Rules
Business Law
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Explanation / Answer
IT is true in this statement that 20tht century lawmakers have failed to devise a system to protect the interest of both carrier and shipper and to strike a balance of power between them. The Hague-Visby rules were infact an updated version of the original Hague rules The basic premise of these was that a carrier has far greater bargaining power than the shipper so to protect the interests of the shipper the law should impose some minimum obligations upon the carrier.
But they failed miserably. With only 10 Articles, the Rules have brevity, but they also have several faults.
1.The original Hague rules (1924) were updated with a single minor amendment.
2. they covered only carriage wholly by sea
3 the container revolution of the 1950s was not taken into account.
It was felt that they had actually diluted the protection to shippers.
So Hamburg Rules of 1978 were proposed but even those were largely ignored by ship-operating nations.
And hence the 20th century lawmakers could not devise a way to strike a balance between bargaining powers between carriers and shippers
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