Voyage plans, automated systems, and the seaworthiness requirement in carriage of goods

Abstract

This essay explores the historical evolution path of the concept for seaworthiness, as well as the influence factors that could contribute to the legal concept itself with the development of sailing and navigation technology. By analyzing how the vessel’s voyage plan can affect seaworthiness in modern times, it tries to predict the further factors that could shape the connotation of seaworthiness obligation in the age of autonomous shipping. To achieve the goals above, the essay’s main body could be divided into three parts. The first chapter is about the historical evolution of the concept of seaworthiness. The concept of seaworthiness rises from the ancient practice of carriage of goods by sea. Hence the chapter will mainly focus on this part of seaworthiness obligations for carriers in the carriage. Through analysis of the seaworthiness duty in case law and statute law by chronological order, this chapter clarifies the development history of the seaworthiness duty for modern carriers. This chapter concludes with the factors affecting the changing seaworthiness standards and the carrier’s due diligence duty. The second chapter focuses on the relationship between the voyage plan and seaworthiness. This relation will be affected by the person making the voyage plan and the plan itself. Firstly, the chapter analyzes the important position of the voyage plan regarding the safety indications. By going through the IMO resolutions, it points out that the key properties of the voyage plan are to make sure the safety issues have been executed and handled with due diligence. Secondly, it outlines the potential scenario of unseaworthiness triggered by defective voyage plans. It concluded that a defective plan could contribute to unseaworthiness; the carrier’s liability of due diligence shall also apply to making the vessel have a proper voyage plan to keep her fit for the voyage ahead. Thirdly, it addresses the legal implications of the Alize case. A defective voyage plan constitutes a defect of the vessel under the current legal instruments and contracts wordings. The carrier’s due diligence duty shall not be bound by the physical shape of a voyage plan could present. The third chapter discusses the impact of the new technologies integrated into the automated systems for voyage plan and the indirect effects on the seaworthiness obligations. It analyzes different roles that should be responsible for the vessel’s seaworthiness before and at the beginning of the voyage, not limited to the carrier itself. And at last, this chapter argues the changes of causation when the AI is involved in the planning process, and how it would affect the decision chain of the voyage plan and further lead to the different situations of making a vessel seaworthy.