ABSTRACT ON INT.

MULTIMODAL TRANSPORT CONVENTION

The current cross-border transport of goods has been shifted from uni modal carriage of
goods to an integrated multimodal transport where two or more modes of transport are
involved in one journey under a single contract. This phenomenon is obviously a by-
product of containerization and technological developments in terms of transport
operations and relevant infrastructure. Despite the constant growth of containerization
and multimodal transport operations, the peculiar but true fact is that, in terms of
regulatory framework, there has been no successful attempt that could achieve global
uniformity. Almost four decades of the failure of the 1980 multimodal transportation
Convention, coupled with the hopeless situation of the 2009 Rotterdam Rules imply that
the fragmented current legal framework on multimodal transport, which involves a
mixture of international uni modal conventions, regional/sub-regional agreements,
national laws and standard contractual forms, will continue to be applicable to
multimodal transport. Therefore, the issues of legal uncertainty and unpredictability,
together with conflicts and inconsistencies will remain. In terms of multimodal transport
documents, the number of this type of documents used in transport industry is
significantly escalating as a result of the rapid growth of door-to-door transport.
However, a lack of international set of rules regulating multimodal transport leads to the
situation where the legal status and functions of multimodal transport documents are
ambiguous and it can possibly jeopardize the legal value of this type of transport
documents in various dimensions, not only for consignors and consignees under carriage
of goods contracts, but also for buyers and sellers under sale of contracts as well as banks
as examiners of required documents under letters of credit.