Summary for Australian Industry of United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea

• Author: Report to industry by Australian Government Delegation
• Pages: 116-118

(2009) 23 A&NZ Mar LJ

Summary for Australian Industry of United Nations Convention on

Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by

Sea

Report to Industry by Australian Government delegation

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) met in New York from 16

June-3 July 2008 to conclude work on a draft Convention on contracts for the international carriage of

goods wholly or partly by sea (the Convention). The Australian delegation comprised Susan Downing

(Attorney-General's Department) and Charles Gibbons (Department of Infrastructure, Transport,

Regional Development and Local Government). The Commission made some changes to the text

presented by the Working Group and then adopted the final text of the Convention on 3 July 2008. The

Convention was then adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 11 December 2008. The

Convention will be open for signature by countries following the signing ceremony, which is to be held

in Rotterdam, on 23 September 2009.1

This paper outlines the background to the Convention, the changes that were made in the final meeting

(June/July 08) and likely future developments. The current official text of the Convention is available

via the UNCITRAL website:

http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/uncitral_texts/transport_goods.html

Background - The Convention

The original draft of the Convention was prepared by the Comité Maritime International and adopted as

a basic text by the Working Group in 2002. The Working Group has been revising and amending the

text since then and a final text was adopted by the Working Group in January 2008. This text was then

sent to the UNCITRAL Commission for consideration at its June/July 2008 session. The Convention

represents the outcomes of a Working Group that operated under ‘consensus rules’. It is the result of

many compromises and the inclusion of some wording that was requested by specific countries. It is

considered to be lengthy, complex and, in some areas, to be ambiguous.

The general aims of the Convention are to:

• end the multiplicity of regimes (ie the 1924 Hague Rules, the 1968 Hague-Visby Rules, the

1978 Hamburg Rules and the various regional arrangements);

• receive widespread international support;

• reflect modern transport & shipping practices (eg e-commerce); and

• achieve a limited network liability regime or ‘maritime plus’ regime.

The Convention will introduce a new legal liability regime for the international carriage of goods

where there is an international sea leg. It is based on a 'maritime plus' concept2 but is not intended to be

a multimodal Convention.

1 The Convention will be opened for signature and ratification from 23 September 2009. Australia will have to consider whether

it will sign and ratify the Convention. This will be a decision for the Australian Government. If Australia does not ratify the

Convention, its terms will not be binding on Australia. If the Convention is widely ratified and Australia’s major trading partners

are parties, Australia may be subject to external pressure to become a party to the Convention.

2 After much debate, the Working Group decided that achieving a true multimodal and uniform liability regime would present too

many difficulties. These difficulties included conflicts with existing transport conventions and with regional and national law.

The Working Group settled on a limited network system or a ‘maritime plus’ approach. In other words: a maritime liability

regime that is extended to cover incidental non-maritime transport. This approach takes into account that a large proportion of

marine transport is either immediately preceded by, or immediately followed by, a land transport leg.

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