The past three decades have witnessed an enormous expansion of the domestic economy as well as vast changes in the international political and economic environment, which together have effectively rendered the former Commercial Code obsolete. The volume of international trade has increased more than 1,000-fold, from about $30 million in 1962 to about $115 billion in 1989, and the tonnage of Korean-owned vessels has increased more than 80 times in this period from about 100,000 G/T in 1962 to about 8.3 million G/T in 1989. The economy has become increasingly dependent upon foreign trade, which has in turn necessitated legislation to conform with international standards rather than stress regional peculiarities.

Meanwhile, the world maritime environment has also undergone an immense transformation, with a great surge in the volume of worldwide trade, a technological revolution which produced larger, faster and more specialized vessels, and of course the appearance and domination of containerized carriage. Also, whereas the international conventions on maritime-related matters had traditionally been formulated and concluded among advanced maritime nations under the auspices of the CMI (Comité Maritime International) prior to the 1960s, the multilateral agreements entered into thereafter have been led in most part by specialized bodies of the United Nations such as the IMO, UNCITRAL and UNCTAD, reflecting a strengthening of the role of developing nations in the politics of the international maritime community.

In view of these developments in the domestic as well as worldwide economic, technological and political circumstances of maritime affairs, a substantial revision of the maritime section of the Korean Commercial Code became inevitable, especially considering Korea’s current status as a major maritime and trading nation. This article examines some of the important aspects of the revised Maritime Section of the Commercial Code.