Sturley, M, Fujita, T, van der Ziel, J, The Rotterdam Rules, The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea

• Author: Nick Gaskell
• Pages: 42-46

(2013) 27 A&NZ Mar LJ

42

BOOK REVIEW

Sturley, M, Fujita, T, van der Ziel, J, The Rotterdam Rules, The UN Convention on

Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea (Sweet &

Maxwell, London, 2010). liv + 444 pp, HB. ISBN: 9781847037343, £235.

Nick Gaskell*

The maritime law world waited expectantly for UNCTRAL ’s new 2008 Convention on the Carriage of Goo ds

by Sea, designed as a replacement for the Hag ue Rules 1924, Hague/Visby R ules 1968 and Hamburg Rules

1978. The new ‘Rotterdam Rules’ (snappily and appro priately na med after o ne of the world’s greatest ports)

were finalised in 2008 with t he aim of providing a uniform international carriage regime adapted to the needs of

e-commerce. The Rules have the potential to have an eq ual, or greater, international importance for world trade

as, eg, the Vienna Convention on International Sales.

In maritime law, generally, uniformity has always been an important goal, but in the case of the carriage of

goods by sea there is currently a terrible mess internationally. Apart from the three sets of Rules dating back to

1924, there are still States which are party to none of the international regimes. All this causes great uncertainty.

In the present international climate, the world is particularly looking to the USA and China to see if they will

take the lead; if both of these States adopt the Rotterdam Rules it seems inevitable that the rest of the world may

have to follow.

1 To some extent the EU will also be important but, despite the underl ying desire of the EU

Commission to take a co ntrolling role, there are still many differing voices among t he EU States. The greater

fear is tha t, in the absence of a quick degree of international acceptance of the Rotterdam Rules, t he

Commission will take the opportunity to introduce regional legislation. T hat would be bad, not only because it

would undermine attempts to achieve international uniformity, but also because there is little confidence in the

Commission’s knowledge of maritime law or its ability to draft commercially realistic solutions.

Debates about t he intrinsic merits of a new carriage Convention can be passionate. The reviewer well

remembers the many discussions and conferences from the late 1970s about whether to adopt the Hamburg

Rules, and the particularly forceful views of some in the shipping and insurance industries who warned against

changing an existing system that ‘worked’ (albeit after a fashion). To believe some of the critics at the ti me,

world trade might almost come to an end if the 1978 Rules were adopted. Thirty-five years later most of these

arguments seem unrealistic and the entry into force of the Hamburg Rules has caused hardly a flutter . So, while

the same arguments about the destabilising effect of change may be made against the Rotterdam Rules, what is

true is that the shipping and commercial world does not want yet another co mpeting regime.

At the time of writing only Spain a nd Togo have ratified the 2008 Convention incorporating the new Rules, but

those Rules have already been the subject of many learned articles and edited books, not to mention countless

PhD theses (many held in abeyance during the protracted negotiations). A new Con vention in a central area of

international trade is bound to attract such close attention. Calculations of commercial self-interest have already

thrown up strong advocates for and against the new Rules; there are still fierce critics of any change to an

existing model; a new Convention that does not provide perfect or different solutions is a problem for other

critics (some of them peeved that they were not invited to be among the new generation of drafters); there will

be academics keen to generate research publications and organise big conferences; and there will be the

(sometimes partisan) voices of those who were directly involved in the drafting and who want to explain what

was really intended.

* Professor of Maritime and Commercial Law, Marine and Shipping Law Unit (MASLU), TC Beirne School of Law, University of

Queensland.

1 This is not simply a political issue; the Rotterdam Rules have wide scope of application provisions that mean that those trading with

Rotterdam Rules’ States may find that the Rules ‘trump’ national provisions. The choice of law of a Rotterdam State may also be significant

to allow full application of transferable ‘electronic transport records’, ie ‘electronic’ bills of lading.