Ship collision in Chinese Maritime Law: Legislation and Judicial Practice

A report released by the Chinese Maritime Court found that the natural environment and other objective factors have greatly reduced the risk of ship collision accidents with the advancement of technologies. However, collisions between merchant ships and fishing boats occur frequently along the coast during fishing seasons, which should be highly valued. International conventions and domestic legislation in China comprise detailed laws with respect to ship collisions, but the theory of ship collision infringement needs to be improved, enriched, and developed. Meanwhile, the development of the tort liability law provides theoretical support for ship collision infringement. As far as China’s ship tort legal system is concerned, the research on ship collision tort damage compensation is relatively extensive, and the constitutive elements and causality of ship collision tort liability have also been studied in depth. The purpose of this paper is to explore the domestic legislation applicable to disputes related to ship collisions in China. As these laws are unclear on the resolution of disputes resulting from ship collisions, significant attention has been focused on the final judgments by the Supreme Court of China (SPC), as well as the judicial judgments set by the Maritime Court of China.