Maritime Law
Maritime Law tests the contractual and liability framework behind everyday shipboard decisions: what you sign, what you may refuse, and who pays when something goes wrong. Expect bills of lading, charterparties, laytime and demurrage, general average, salvage, limitation and pollution liability.
Contracts of carriage
- The bill of lading is a receipt, evidence of the contract and a document of title. Hague-Visby sets package and weight limits; Hamburg and Rotterdam shift the balance. Know which regime governs your trade.
- Seaworthiness is a non-delegable obligation. Unjustified deviation and unauthorised deck cargo can destroy the carrier's exceptions.
- Himalaya clauses extend the carrier's protections to servants, agents and stevedores.
Charterparties
In a voyage charter the owner bears the risk of time, so laytime, demurrage and despatch allocate delay. In a time charter, hire is paid continuously and off-hire clauses define the exceptions; the safe port and safe berth warranty is a continuing obligation. Notice of readiness must be valid - the ship must be ready in all respects.
General average, salvage and limitation
York-Antwerp Rules: a sacrifice intentionally and reasonably made for the common safety is made good by all parties. Salvage under the 1989 Convention rewards success; Lloyd's Open Form with SCOPIC addresses environmental threat. Salvage is not general average. Limitation under LLMC 1976/96, and pollution liability under CLC and the Bunkers Convention, cap exposure separately.
Worked example
Laytime is 72 hours SHEX, commencing 08:00 Monday; loading finished 20:00 Thursday. Elapsed time is 84 hours, so 12 hours are on demurrage. At US$18,000 per day the claim is 12 × 750 = US$9,000. Once on demurrage, always on demurrage: the laytime exceptions no longer protect the charterer, so weather stoppages after that point fall on them.
Traps
Treating a NOR as valid when the ship is not ready; counting time before laytime commences; assuming weather exceptions apply during demurrage; confusing particular average with general average; and forgetting that Hague-Visby's one-year time bar runs from delivery or the date the goods should have been delivered.