Legal Analysis of Safe Port in Tanker Charter Parties and its Challenges in the Context of Economic Sanctions

Today, the chartering of oil tankers for the purpose of transporting oil cargo, oil products and liquid natural gas plays an important role in this industry. With the intensification of economic sanctions in recent decades, we have witnessed the seizure and confiscation of ships due to the carrying of sanctioned cargoes or going to the ports of the sanctioned governments, which raises various questions regarding the legal aspects of the challenges facing these contracts.In search of obtaining a theoretical basis for analyzing the effect of economic sanctions on the performance of oil tanker charter party contracts, regardless of the general rules of contract law such as force majeure, frustration and economic hardship and the like, we come across the obligation of the charterers towards the safe port, which in short, its purpose is that the charterer does not allow the tanker to go to unsafe ports. The basic question is whether economic sanctions can be considered a risk that can be placed in the framework of the charterer's obligation to the safe port? If this is the case, what remedy is there to protect the rights of the owners of the tankers based on the violation of the safe port guarantee by the charterer?As a preliminary answer, it may be said that the safe port guarantee, due to the background of its formation, includes the physical and purely inherent risks of ports and refrains from economic sanctions. In this article, by inductively examining scientific sources, judicial practices, and standard charter party contracts of oil tankers, it is briefly concluded that economic sanctions as a political risk can cause port unsafety, as a result of which the charterer is considered responsible to the ship owner.