Carriage of Goods by Sea

Sea-carriage disputes turn on documents, contractual duties and the allocation of risk. John F Wilson’s Carriage of Goods by Sea examines those legal questions in a carefully organized seventh-edition survey, connecting charterparty practice with bills of lading and the rules governing a carrier’s responsibilities.

Start with the contract behind the voyage

The opening chapters consider the obligations that shape a contract of affreightment, including seaworthiness, reasonable dispatch, deviation, safe ports and the shipment of dangerous goods. These principles provide a foundation for understanding how duties arise and what may follow when they are breached.

Charterparties, from loading to redelivery

Separate sections explore voyage and time charterparties. The discussion follows practical stages and recurring terms, including loading and discharge, laytime, demurrage, hire, off-hire and redelivery. For readers studying shipping contracts, this organization helps make the relationships between clauses and voyage events easier to trace.

Why bills of lading matter

Wilson considers bills of lading as receipts for shipped goods, evidence of carriage contracts and documents of title. The book also addresses third-party reliance, presentation problems, waybills, straight bills, switch bills and electronic bills of lading—topics that show how shipping documentation can affect parties beyond the original contracting pair.

Comparing international rules

The text examines the Hague/Visby Rules alongside the Hamburg and Rotterdam Rules, including their scope, carrier liability and related provisions. Further chapters take up combined transport, exceptions to liability and limitation of liability, broadening the picture beyond a single document or contractual form.

A specialist legal reference

With a detailed contents structure, this seventh edition is suited to law students and readers researching maritime and international trade law. It was published in 2010; its treatment should be understood as the perspective of that edition, not as a statement of subsequent legal developments.