Incorporation of an arbitration clause in a charter party into a bill of lading: familiar complex problems with no new solution?

Maritime commerce operates within a maze of complex legal systems requiring documentation that is sourced to the specifications of international and domestic law regimes as well. While the stated purposes of the bills of lading and the charter party agreements have been delineated within the international law and the domestic law respectively, with a significant measure of exclusivity, the practice of such laws revealed the inter-relationship between the two documents. Incorporation has been a common methodology for the occurrence of such interrelationship and this is evident in the case law on the incorporation of the arbitration clause in a charter party agreement into a bill of lading. The authors discuss the case law to examine whether such incorporation is pursued as a matter of contractual construction and interpretation or it is rather a matter of judicial attempts to ensure effectiveness of arbitration agreements. The research would also attempt to outline the techniques of such incorporation and the concerns arising from such incorporation. Sifting through the catena of judicial dicta the authors would attempt to make a few observations on the courts’ attitude on the issue of incorporation.