Signing ceremony for Rotterdam Rules

At a formal ceremony in Rotterdam on September 23, sixteen nations signed the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea (familiarly referred to as the Rotterdam Rules). The detailed convention was developed jointly by the Comité Maritime International and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) over a period of about ten years. It is intended to modernize and replace the Hague Rules of 1924, the Hague-Visby Rules of 1968, and the Hamburg Rules of 1978. Unlike those older systems, the Rotterdam Rules addresses multimodal transport and electronic transport records. The development has not been without controversy.  Some European interests contend that the Rules do not adequately account for the EU legal regime regarding international transport. Some shippers contend that the Rules excessively favor the interests of carriers. Some carriers oppose eradication of the error of navigation defense. The Rules were signed by: the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Denmark; France; Gabon; Ghana; Greece; Guinea; the Netherlands; Nigeria; Norway; Poland; Senegal; Spain; Switzerland; Togo; and the United States. The Rotterdam Rules will come into force one year after they have been ratified by at least 20 nations. Two separate volumes of commentary and annotations of the new rules have already been published. It is too early to determine whether the Rotterdam Rules will gain broad acceptance and replace the older schemes. Much will depend on if and when the world’s largest trading nation, the United States of America, ratifies the Convention.