The International Effects of the Judicial Sale of Ships Under the Beijing Convention and Its Convergence with China's Domestic Legislation
The United Nations Convention on the International Effects of Judicial Sales of Ships(referred to as Beijing Convention)was initially proposed by the China Maritime Law Association at the Comité Maritime Interna-tional in 2007.On December 7,2022,the 77th United Nations General Assembly officially adopted the Beijing Convention and held a signing ceremony in Beijing on September 5,2023.As the first international maritime con-vention named after a city of Mainland China,the Beijing Convention marks China's significant contributions to the formulation of international maritime,commercial,and trade rules.The Beijing Convention is different from other international conventions in that it takes the priority protection of the purchaser's right to clean property as the leg-islative purpose,and takes the approach of explicitly granting the international evidential effect of judicial sale cer-tificates,so as to unify the rules of various countries to grant the international effects of the judicial sale of ships.The most distinctive feature of the Beijing Convention is that by stipulating that the certificate of judicial sale consti-tutes conclusive evidence of the matters recorded therein,it establishes the extraterritorial effect(international effect)of the certificate of judicial sale.This differs from the path where the effect of a judgment or order issued by a court in one country needs to be recognized by the court of another country in order to be effective in that country.The Beijing Convention contains provisions concerning the actions of ship registration authorities and the cooperation of courts that ensure the international effects of the clean title obtained by a purchaser through a judicial sale of ships.The certificate of judicial sale serves as sufficient and conclusive evidence of the matters contained therein.The Beijing Convention greatly unifies the international laws and rules for obtaining the real right of a ship by judi-cial sale by means of granting the international effect of judicial sale of ships on the purchaser.The advanced legis-lative concept and value orientation,which unifies the international effects of judicial sale of ships through the path of priority protection of the rights of purchasers,will undoubtedly help to improve the disposal efficiency and reali-zation price of ships,thereby promoting the realization of the claims of maritime claimants and financiers.However,looking at China's current legal provisions,it is not difficult to find the existing problems.The provisions of the Chinese Maritime Code on the property rights of ships were promulgated and implemented 30 years ago,and lag be-hind the development of practice.The connection between the provisions of the judicial auction procedure law and the substantive law is not systematic.From the perspective of practical demand,the number and transaction value of China's judicial sale of ships are increasing year by year,and if the Beijing Convention can be better integrated with domestic laws after its entry into force,it will be greatly conducive to protecting the extraterritorial effects of China's judicial sale of ships,thereby promoting the realization of creditors'claims.Therefore,China should strengthen the study and improvement of relevant domestic legislation,so as to make the relevant provisions of do-mestic laws consistent with the Beijing Convention to facilitate the smooth implementation of the Beijing Convention in China after its entry into force in the future to the greatest extent and protect the legitimate rights and interests of all parties to the transaction.
Beijing Conventionjudicial sale of shipsjudicial auction of shipsclean title
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