Research On The Legal Status Of Multimodal Transport Operator

The traditional transport modes of international trade in goods change tremendously in pace with the global economic development. The legal status of multimodal transport operator (hereinafter referred to as the "MTO") seems quite important owing to the popularization of the containerized traffic and the "door to door" transport. The lack of a mature and uniform system both in theory and in legislation, however, results in the diversity of MTO subjects and the indistinct relation of the parties. The aforesaid factors in turn leads to the imbalanced venture and benefit distribution between MTO and goods beneficiary or the carrier of unimodal transport, the substantially unjust and so that disputes are unavoidable. Therefore research on the legal status of MTO is very important.The article is divided into five parts.Part one discusses the development of the legal status of MTO from two aspects. One is the analysis of the definition given by the international treaties and international rules. The other is the comparison of the relations between MTO and the counter-parties. The definition of MTO developed from the initial simple one, which is "the person who issues the multimodal transport documents" to "the principal who is to perform the obligations as contracted" and to "the party to contract who acts as carrier meanwhile". The article makes further examination on the legal relations between MTO and the other parties in order to give explicit explanation to the independent legal status of MTO. Though MTO may be regarded as carrier, he is a carrier in charge of various transport modes which makes him differ. And the relations between MTO and the international freight forwarder (hereinafter referred to as the "IFF") is more subtle. When IFF participates in the multimodal transport in the capacity as both agent and operator, the business scope is inevitably coincident. Consequently the capacity of goods transport agent often puzzles the customers in practice. To solve this problem the article advances three differentiation criteria for reference. First is whether the legal status of the parties to contract is explicitly appointed in the articles of the contract. Second is to judge his capacity on the basis of the behavior of IFF, including whether he signs the multimodal transport documents in name of himself, whether he makes an international multimodal transport contract with the deliverer, whether he is responsible for the whole transport. Third is to distinguish MTO and IFF through the way of collecting fees. It is relatively easier to differentiate between MTO and the terminal operators. The main difference is the scope of responsibility. The legal status of MTO is not determined by the Convention of the Terminal Operators even though he offers terminal operators services. He is a MTO in nature. Through the above-mentioned analysis we sum up the basic legal characteristics of MTO, that is "the subject to contract who makes multimodal transport contract with the consignor or the deliverer in name of himself and responsible for the whole multimodal transport.Part two explores the factors affect the legal status of MTO. From economic aspect, firstly, globalization of economy undoubtedly encourages the development from international goods transport market to containerization and "door to door" transport. Meanwhile, the legal status of MTO changes along with the acceleration of globalization progress. Secondly, it is hard for MTO to meet the present requirements owing to the diversion of international transport modes to information-oriented direction. Last, the appearance and development of commodity circulation demands more for MTO progress. From legal aspects, legal rules and regulations show the tendency of integration and unification. The enactment of a large quantity of international conventions in recent decades gives expression to the legal unification. The boundary between the international law and the domestic law is becoming more and more vague which demonstrates the legal integration. The chan...