Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly

Professor Francis D Rose

Document

THE RIGHT OF CONTROL IN CARRIAGE OF GOODS BY SEA

Liang Zhao*

In current Conventions on the carriage of goods by sea, there is no legal concept of right of control. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea (“Rotterdam Rules”) has for the first time adopted the concept of the right of control for carriage of goods by sea. However, it is argued that, although there is an analogous right of disposal in non-sea carriage and a right of stoppage in sale of goods, the right of control in the Rotterdam Rules as an assembly of those rights is not an appropriate concept for carriage of goods by sea. By contrast, the approach of legislation on control of goods in the US Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) is more feasible for carriage of goods by sea.

I. The Right of Control in the Rotterdam Rules

A. The Rotterdam Rules

Considering some legal issues in terms of maritime transport documents in a new electronic age, in 1996, the Comité Maritime International (“CMI”) and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (“UNCITRAL”) started to draft a new Convention

* Assistant Professor, School of Law, City University of Hong Kong. My thanks to an anonymous referee for helpful comments: errors and omissions remain my own.

The following abbreviations are used:

Benjamin: M. Bridge (ed.), Benjamin’s Sale of Goods, 8th edn (London, 2010);

CIM: Uniform Rules concerning the Contract for International Carriage of Goods by Rail (Appendix B to the Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (“COTIF”) of 9 May 1980, amended by the Vilnius Protocol of 3 June 1999);

CMI: Comité Maritime International;

CMI EBL Rules: CMI Rules for Electronic Bills of Lading 1990;

CMI Sea Waybills Rules: CMI Uniform Rules for Sea Waybills 1990;

CMNI: Budapest Convention on the Contract for the Carriage of Goods by Inland Waterway, 2000;

CMR: Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road, 1956;

Guadalajara Convention: Convention Supplementary to the Warsaw Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air Performed by a Person other than the Contracting Carrier, Signed in Guadalajara on 18 September 1961;

Montreal Convention: Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, Montreal, 28 May 1999;

UCC: (US) Uniform Commercial Code;

UNCITRAL: United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.

Warsaw Convention: Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air, signed at Warsaw on 12 October 1929.

394

The rest of this document is only available to i-law.com online subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, click Log In button.