Clause paramount
How a charter party incorporates the Hague or Hague-Visby Rules into the contract and into the bills issued under it.
A clause paramount is the provision that incorporates a carriage of goods regime, most often the Hague or Hague-Visby Rules, into a charter party and into the bills of lading issued under it.
The clause matters because the Hague-Visby Rules apply of their own force to bills of lading and not to charter parties, so without a clause paramount the charter carries no Rules-based allocation of cargo liability at all. What the clause incorporates, and whether it incorporates the Rules as a whole or only as they would apply to a bill, decides the carrier’s defences, the package or weight limitation and the one-year time bar.
The full article will cover the standard forms of the clause, general and specific incorporation, the effect on the charter as distinct from the bill, the treatment of a clause paramount that names an inapplicable regime, and the case law on conflicting incorporation wording.