Legal regulation of contractual relations during sea transportation of hydrocarbons

Abstract

This paper focuses on the main legal issues, including the contractual aspect of transporting hydrocarbons as dangerous goods by sea. The growing cargo turnover from year to year, as well as the features and high risk of dangerous goods when transported by sea have always attracted public attention. Currently, due to the technological development and the increase in the volume of trade in dangerous goods, problems related to its legal issues are considered as a critical issue in the shipping industry. In this study, the main vector is to comprehensively study legal issues in the aspect of contractual relations, because the contract itself and accom-panying documents are the foundation of economic relations. To achieve this goal, the study analyzes the current state of the market for sea transportation of hydrocarbons, international and national legislation, represented by the Russian Federation, forms and features of trans-portation contracts. The main conclusions show that previous attempts to achieve harmoniza-tion of this transport institution was not completely successful. Accordingly, it is suggested that it is reasonable to review certain provisions of the main international and national legal acts on the carriage of dangerous goods by sea or to improve early regulatory developments.