On The Application Of The Rotterdam Rules On Multimodal Transport

Along with the globalization of world economy, it is urgent to build effective logistics management system in this increasingly united international market. This makes multimodal transport which uses two mode of transportation from production to final consumption become more and more important. As a more efficient transportation system, the multimodal transport is not only beneficial to improve customer service, but also can reduce storage costs and logistics costs such as transport costs. The proportion of international multimodal transport is increasing rapidly due to the development of transportation technology,information and communication technology. However, there is no uniform law regulating multimodal transport contract and different legal norms are applied in different section of the transport, so it increases the uncertainty of the applicable laws for multimodal transport contract party. It also increases the transportation insurance, damage compensation program, legal consultation and related transaction costs, which hindered the development of multimodal transport.To unify the legal system for multimodal transport, the international society have enacted the 1980 the United Nations convention on contract for the international multimodal transport. However because of the differences of interests and political standpoint between the carrier and the shipper, it failed to take effect so far. In spite of this, it is a big trend to unify the international cargo transport legislation. The Hague Rules, the Hague-Visby Rule, Hamburger Rules as well as the development of international multimodal transport convention, the trend is clearly reflected.Until December 2008, the United Nations International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) committee adopted the whole or part of the sea UN convention on contract for the international transport of goods (hereinafter referred to as the Rotterdam Rules ") after ten years of efforts. This rule not only expanded applicable scope of sea transport convention, but also made the convention apply to contain the maritime transport multimodal transport. Facing the Rotterdam Rules which tried to unify international multimodal transport law, international society both realized that it may bring about a significant influence on transportation and trade of the countries. As a result relevant specialists have ballooned to join the study of the convention. The attitude of domestic and foreign scholars is not uniform, or rather in contrary. On the one hand someone pointed out that the Rotterdam Rules meets the needs of the transportation and the trade; on the other hand, someone pointed out that the Rules is far away from reality, are too idealistic, and its logic structure is complex etc, so it may not achieve its original aim of unifying international transport law.This paper mainly discusses the scope of the Rotterdam Rules. It is divided into five parts to discuss international multimodal transport.The first part is about the background of the formulation of the Rotterdam Rules. The Rotterdam Rules emerged to meet the needs of international trade and the practice of shipping. It also expounds how the international community especially international organizations formulate the rules through years of work.The second part is divided into "Maritime-plus" transportation mode, Article 26 "mesh responsibility system" and the role conflict of 82 of standard. It comprehensively analyzed the scope of the rules. The Rotterdam Rules coverage will be expanded to include maritime transport multimodal transport section, namely "Maritime-plus" mode. In some extent, it could be deemed as a unified international multimodal transport legislative action. However, the application of the Rotterdam Rules to the maritime transport section has certain limitations, if the contracting state of the Rotterdam Rules is also contracting state of the international road cargo transport contract Convention (CMR), The railway freight transportation group unified rules (COTIF-CIM), and The Montreal Convention (Montreal Convention), the Rotterdam Rules which expand its scope to the "door to door" transportation may conflict with other Conventions. So the Rotterdam Rules designed the exceptional item-article 26 for maritime transport. According to this article, other international transport convention has preemption before and after the damage happened in maritime transport—the so-called "mesh responsibility system". In addition, the Rotterdam Rules has also set up Article 82 to solve conflicts with other international transport convention.The third part analyses in detail the possibility of applying Rotterdam Rules in the international multimodal transport. This part is divided into three parts, namely the existing international law system for international multimodal transport, the interaction between Rotterdam Rules and other transport convention and the coordination mechanism for conflict of rules based on case analysis.The fourth part discusses the problems the Rotterdam Rules may encounter because of the three aspects of limitations of "Marine+other" transportation mode, "mesh responsibility system" in article 26 and the conflict rules in article 82. This part pointed out that the above provisions can't achieve the purpose of unifying international multimodal transport law. On the contrary, it may cause more uncertainty.The fifth part mainly puts forward how China deals with the Rotterdam Rules. This part firstly combed the applicable law for international multimodal transport in China, then points out the unavoidability of applying the Rotterdam Rules, and finally proposes that China should actively do research on the Rotterdam Rules, learn from the terms of Rotterdam rules of maritime law, and the risk control measures should be adopted to meet "Rotterdam times".The sixth part, after summarizing the contents of the above five parts, concludes that because of the complex system, fuzzy expressions of the Rotterdam Rules, the reunification of multimodal transport is still unknown. However, as the approaching of "Rotterdam times", we must carefully study the convention to reduce the impact it might have on our transportation industry and the trade.