Charterers' Obligation to Pay Hire in Charterparties on Carriage of Goods (A Comparative Look)

The payment of hire from the charterers to the ship owners is considered as a principle in charterparties. Charterers' obligation to pay the hire is an absolute one, and in only exceptional cases, they are entitled to deduct from hire or set off against it. Therefore, the charters include some terms in time or voyage charterparties to permit them to adjust this obligation in certain circumstances. For avoiding the legal consequences, however, the charterers who need to apply this contractual right, must examine the contract attentively. Since the charterparty is sometimes silent on these terms, the question of what sources of law can be used by courts should be discussed. With a descriptive and analytical method and from a comparative perspective, this paper aims to scrutinize the charterers' obligation to pay the hire in charterparties on carriage of goods. The result is that Iranian law on this subject matter differs significantly from the common-law system; including deduction from hire for the ship off-hire period, collapsed ship, and delay in delivery of ship to the charterer. Furthermore, this is the charterparty that must be considered as the primary source of and the basis for regulating the relations between the parties. When charterparty is silent, we should refer to Iranian Maritime Law or other legal provisions as general law. Iranian Maritime Law in its ninth chapter includes scattered articles concerning charterparties, and in some cases such a right is granted to the charterers.