علی زارع

Purpose: The present paper aims to find the exact responsibility of maritime carriers under the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act. In this regard, the delicacy of the US legislature has always been considered by other legal systems. Also, the attitude of the Rotterdam Rules towards new issues, such as the entry of electronic shipping documents and the hybrid carriage into the industry, has created new dimensions in relation to the responsibility of carriers, which justifies such study. Methodology: The research methodology will be analytical-descriptive. In this method, the existing references on the subject are investigated to comparatively identify and describe the rights and duties of the maritime carrier. Then, based on rational-legal rules, the subject is analyzed to show the ambiguities and the real status of the subject. Findings: in considerations done, there are many important conventions like HARTER act, Hague on 1924, Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1936, the HAMBURG regulations on 1978 and ROTTERDAM on 2009, that have mentioned the marine transportation responsibility and these laws and regulations, behave with the factor of damages, based on the case and based on the responsibility and fault assumption related to the transportation responsible. Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, has been trying to compensate The Hague convention deficiencies meanwhile referring some cases to the sub-regulations and using some ways and approaches and the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, has set some limitations for the responsibilities that sometimes the carriers put them for themselves and for example, each carrier, cannot decrease its responsibility to less than 50 American dollars, that is confirmed for each parcel in the law. Conclusion: the ROTTERDAM regulations, has started considering the dispensation of marine transportation responsible and meantime, has canceled the duty and fault dispensation in navigation and ship handling. And the ROTTERDAM convention, has opened new horizons in marine transportation by using door-to-door way to carry goods and prevail electronic documents and also, setting the volumetric contracts.