Lex Rhodia de iactu is a set of maritime law regulations originating from the Greek island of Rhodes. It concerned so-called maritime dumping (iactus), i.e., cases where a ship’s captain (the so-called magister navis) was forced to throw part of his cargo overboard in order to save the rest of the cargo, as well as the crew and the ship itself.
Throwing overboard part of the cargo was intended to reduce the vessel’s draft and thus prevent the deck from being flooded by high waves.
The conditions for the application of the Lex Rhodia (all of which had to occur together) were:
- exceptionally difficult situation for the ship and its cargo (especially caused by a storm),
- necessity to act selflessly in the interests of those interested in the ship and cargo,
- loss or damage to goods resulting from the discharge,
- salvage of the ship and the remaining cargo.
The legal institution in question was based on the so-called community of danger. Therefore, the intention was to share the damage fairly among all. Therefore, situations occurred where the goods of others were saved at the expense of some merchants. There was an obligation to jointly compensate for the damage resulting from the discharge of cargo.
Owners of discarded cargo would then file a claim against the captain in the form of an actio conducti or actio locati. This stemmed from the fact that the Romans did not have a separate maritime transport contract (as is the case today), but based theirs on a contract of locatio-conductio (hire contract), which under Roman law could also involve the provision of services. Interestingly, the principles of compensation for damages based on the Lex Rhodia also applied to other similar situations involving loss or damage to transported cargo, such as:
- giving part of the cargo as ransom to pirates,
- loss or damage to cargo occurring during the transfer of goods to boats for the purpose of entering a port,
- damage to goods remaining on board a vessel after a sealift.
However, if privateers attacked a ship and forcibly seized the cargo, the Lex Rhodia de iactu did not apply, as there was no conscious action by the crew or the requirement of self-sacrifice to save the ship. Similarly, the obligation to jointly compensate for damages did not exist in other – even accidental – events, such as shipwreck.
Moreover, it is worth noting the claims of the jurists Paulus and Gaius that an item thrown into the sea as part of a dumping operation cannot be considered abandoned (derelictio), because the intention was not to dispose of it, but to salvage the ship. For this reason, acquiring ownership of such an item through occupation (occupatio) and adverse possession (usucapio) was excluded (e.g., in the case of a stranding by waves). Similarly, shipwreck (ius naufragium) was not considered abandoned (and thus excluded the possibility of adverse possession).
There is ongoing debate in the scholarly community as to whether the Rhodian Law was adopted (i.e., adopted) from Greek law or whether it is an original Roman invention. As Stanisław Płodzień, an expert on this subject and author of the monograph Lex Rhodia de iactu: A Historical and Legal Study of Roman Maritime Commercial Law, has pointed out, even if the Romans did not formally adopt Rhodian laws, they undoubtedly infiltrated Roman law as a result of the development of trade and contact with Mediterranean culture, where this law was widely applied as customary law.
Therefore, some propose using the term “Rhodian Law” instead of “Law.”
The principles based on the Lex Rhodia were often commented on by Roman jurists (e.g., Paulus), and Justinian’s Digesta, or more precisely, the second chapter of its fourteenth book (D. 14,2,1–10), was titled: De lege Rhodia de iactu. However, in this case, too, Roman legal doctrine is rife with debate as to whether the principles of the Lex Rhodia as formulated by Justinian’s compilers were not partially “fabricated” by them (historians of Roman law professionally call this “interpolation”).
Finally, it is worth noting that the principles stemming from the Lex Rhodia are still present in contemporary maritime law (as the so-called common law), including in the Polish Maritime Code of 2001. This attests to the extraordinary vitality of Roman law.
