GENERAL AVERAGE General average refers to those rules and principles of maritime law which govern the sharing of losses caused to the interests of ship and cargo by the intentional sacrifice of cargo or extraordinary expenditure by one or other of those interests in the face of exposure to a common danger . The concept of general average was known as early as 900 BC when under Rhodian Law it was provided that if one party’s cargo had to be jettisoned to save ship and cargo in a situation of common danger, the ship and remaining cargo had to contribute to those losses. A general average loss is said to give rise to the duty to make a general average contribution but the definition of loss and the extent of the duty have not been without controversy. While the laws of most mercantile States made (and make) provision in one form or another for general average, there were considerable divergences. In the second half of the 19th century various international efforts culminated in t...
The more you learn, the more you see.