國際海運公約對海事仲裁協議效力擴張的限制

The Restriction on the Expansion of the Effectiveness of Arbitration Agreement in International Maritime Transport Conventions

海運業廣泛使用單證，使得海事仲裁協議的效力擴張更為明顯，主要表現為仲裁協議生效的形式要件更寬鬆，仲裁協議的拘束力延伸至第三人。海事仲裁協議效力擴張的實質是船貨雙方利益博弈的結果，合理的擴張有助於國際貿易糾紛的解決，無節制地擴大仲裁協議的效力，則損害當事人意思自治，危及糾紛解決的公正和公平。國際海運公約一直試圖對該問題進行干預或衡平，《漢堡規則》圍繞這個目的將仲裁寫入公約，《鹿特丹規則》作為國際海運公約的最新成果之一，在允許仲裁效力合理擴張，保護仲裁自由的同時，區分各類海運合同和單證的性質，通過適當限制、不加干預、嚴格限制三種手段，多層次調節當事人對仲裁地的選擇權，從而制約仲裁協議效力的過度擴張。我國應回應國際海事仲裁的發展趨勢，改變仲裁協議生效要件過於嚴格的現狀，對“仲裁協議”予以寬泛的解釋，承認“仲裁地”的法律意義，以實現仲裁協議效力的合理擴張，推動我國海事仲裁的良性發展。

Because of the characteristic of maritime transport industry and the extensively use of documents, the effectiveness of maritime arbitration agreement expand obviously. It represents the form requirements of valid arbitration agreement are eased, and the arbitration agreements bind third party of contracts through the documents. Such expansion is essentially an interest game between shipper and carrier. Reasonable expansion contributes to dispute resolution, but expansion without restriction will hurt the autonomy and equity of the parties. The international maritime transport conventions intervene in the expansion to keep balance between parties. As a result, The Hamburg Rules include the arbitration into conventions. The Rotterdam Rules is the newly international maritime transport conventions. It allows the reasonable expansion oi the effectiveness of maritime arbitration agreement for protecting the freedom of arbitration. According to the distinction of various maritime transport contracts and documents, The Rotterdam Rules use three ways—appropriate restriction, without intervention and strict restriction to adjust the choice of seat of arbitration by parties. China should respond to this expansion tendency and relax the form requirements of arbitration agreements. The relevant law should accept the concept of seat of arbitration and allow the reasonable expansion to advance the development of Chinese maritime arbitration.