선하증권상 지상약관에 의한 준거법의 분할지정

The paramount clause in the bill of lading, historically as a kind of exemption clause, was designed, according to international demands, in order to restrict the exemption scope of the responsibility and to protect the profit of a shipper by referring to international rules or certain state's rules with respect to the responsibility or exemption of a shipowner under the bill of lading. Accordingly, a law applicable to the shipowner's responsibility is designated in the paramount clause. In connection with this designation of the proper law under the paramount clause, interpretation questions might arise as to the relationship between the law generally applicable to the contract of the bill of lading and the law designated from the paramount clause.Despite the fact that the spilt choice(dpeage) of the governing law often occurs in the practice, it seems that a systemic solution has not been fully explored. The cases are focusing only on the result of governing law determination without elaborate consideration of processes and analyses for it. Likewise, it looks as proper researches have not been performed as to the matter of the split choice from the academic forces.Based on the American President Lines' case of 1999, this paper tries to systematically approach to the spilt choice matter. In relation to the determination and application of governing law, first, this paper explores whether the designation of a law applicable to the paramount clause leads to the split choice by examining the legal nature of the split choice. Second, it discusses how the split choice could be understood, if the law applicable to the paramount clause caused the split choice. Third, it tries to find a way to limit the application of the governing law which is mostly preferential to a shipowner and to protect the interests of a shipper, while analysing the limitation of the spilt choice.