A Study On The Civil Legal Relations On The International Freight Forwarders

The freight forwarder is not a party of the transport contract, but only acts as an agent before. Nowadays, however, more and more freight forwarders play the role of carriers. Many of them have their own conveyance and participate in the carriage of goods including Bill of Lading for multimodal transport. Some of them even have been engaged in logistics businesses. All of the above features carrier.Therefore, the obligations of the international freight forwarders who perform as carriers have been clearly stipulated in model rules for freight forwarding services by FIATA; some countries have divided freight forwarders into those who act as agents and those as carriers, and stated their rights and obligations separately in regulations on standard trading conditions of international freight forwardersSince the double roles of the freight forwarders have appeared in businesses ,legal practice and even legislation, it is obviously necessary for us to study and discuss the legal relationships in which the freight forwarders take part. Hopefully it will do some good to the legislation and practice of our country.In the article ,the author firstly defines the two different roles of the international freight forwarder as agent and contract party ,with the emphasis on the establishment of the relations of agency of entrustment of the international freight forwarding銆?the content of entrustment contract銆?relations between the contract of carriage of goods銆乼rading contract and entrustment contract and the influence of CONTRAC LAW on legal relations of international freight forwarding. Through the analysis, the author clarifies the civil legal relations of the freight forwarding and the legal norms regulating the legal relations of international freight forwarding; meanwhile expounds the status of dormant agency in the legal system of international freight forwarding of China, make some confused understandings about relations of freight forwarding in practice clear. In addition, on the basis of the definition of statue of NVOCC, civil legal relations 銆?the rights 銆乷bligations and responsibility of NVOCC are expounded in this article.