The Legal Nature of General Average in Iran and France Law

General average as one of the important issues of maritime law in international trade has an undeniable prominence. In Iran most of imports and exports are carried out by sea and it is inevitably encountered with the concept of General Average as joint damage at the time of damage in certain circumstances, therefore, it is necessary to examine the legal nature of General Average within the legal system and strive to compare it with similar concepts or legal entities. Despite the fact that damage is intentionally imposed in order to preserve the ship and its cargo in terms of its essential conditions, such nature does not conform to any of parallel similar concepts intensifying the importance of examining this novel concept in Iran's legal system. This research, conducted with the aim of investigating and identifying the legal nature of the aforementioned international entity, also through a descriptive analytical approach, has been considered as an achievement meaning that General Average based on compromise of the parties, has Sharia' canonical foundations such as Consensus, the Rule of Prohibition of Detriment, the Rule of Permission of Committing a Corrupt action in Avoidance of a Corrupter one or the Rule of Repelling of the Worse by the bad; however, legally speaking, none of the above foundations approved by legal scholars justifying the true nature of such entity ;therefore, General Average entity will have a special and separate legal nature in terms of its effect. To discuss on, it is possible for the interested parties to consent to the merits and demerits of it or ignore that to some extent; in addition, in case of silence of law, such entity with all its aspects will forcefully govern over the legal relations of the interested parties in time of loss during sea voyage.