JAPAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Jumpei Osada, Masaaki Sasaki, Takuto Kobayashi and Hiroshi Ideyama, TMI Associates
TMI Associates 23F, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower 6-10-1 Roppongi Minato-ku Tokyo 106-6123 Japan
Tel: +81 3 6438 5511 Fax: +81 3 6438 5522 Email: josada@tmi.gr.jp Web: www.tmi.gr.jp
1. Maritime and Shipping Legislation and Regulation 1.1 Domestic Laws Establishing the Authorities of the Maritime and Shipping Courts Domestic Laws Japan has ratified most of the major maritime conven - tions, such as the Hague-Visby Rules, the latest ver - sion of the Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims (LLMC) Convention 1976 with its 1996 Protocol, the 1992 Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage (CLC) Convention and the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compen - sation for Oil Pollution Damage (Fund), and relevant rules and regulations. In maritime and shipping prac - tice in Japan, both general civil and commercial law and specific shipping laws/legislation apply, and they are generally based on these conventions. The main domestic laws related to shipping matters are: • the Civil Code; • the Commercial Code; • the Act on International Carriage of Goods by Sea (JCOGSA) incorporating the Hague-Visby Rules; • the Limitation of Liability Act incorporating the latest version of the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims (LLMC) 1976 with its 1996 Protocol; • the Act on Liability for Oil Pollution Damage incorporating the 1992 CLC Convention and Fund Convention, the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage (Bunker)
2001 and the Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks 2007; and • the Mariners Act. Common Maritime and Shipping Claims One of the common maritime and shipping claims filed in the Japanese jurisdiction is related to cargo claims between carriers and shippers under car - riage contracts and/or bills of lading. The claims are essentially classified into contractual claims and the shippers’ claims are successful in the event that the carriers can be proven to be in breach of the carriage contract. The cargo claims for domestic sea carriage and international sea carriage are governed by the Commercial Code and the JCOGSA respectively. Another key type of claim is a tort claim under the Civil Code, which can be broadly used in cases where the victims attempt to bring a claim for damages against the perpetrators. An example of this is where the own - er of a vessel collided with another vessel and would be entitled to make tort claims for damages against the owner of the other vessel. It is worth noting that some general rules of the tort claim under the Civil Code are amended in line with the nature of maritime and shipping claims, such as the statute of limitations. 1.2 Port State Control System of Port State Control Japan has entered into a memorandum of under - standing on port state control (PSC) in the Asia-Pacific region (TOKYO MOU). The TOKYO MOU has been used to conduct concentrated inspection campaigns
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