Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
UNIFORM RULES FOR A COMBINED TRANSPORT DOCUMENT
Reproduced by kind permission of the International Chamber of Commerce. Copyright ICC 1975.
The Uniform Rules for a Combined Transport Document were first issued in November, 1973 and were reproduced by kind permission of the International Chamber of Commerce in the May, 1974 edition of this publication. This revised version incorporates modifications designed to overcome practical difficulties of application concerning the combined transport operator’s liability for delay.
INTRODUCTION
The single mode tradition
The traditional carriage of goods by a single mode of transport developed an appropriate transport document for each mode. This document applies only to carriage by that mode. It is issued at the point of departure by that mode by the actual provider of the transport, and it establishes his liability for loss or damage to the goods whilst in his charge by reference to an international Convention, or to a national law, applying only to that mode of transport.
Each of these “single mode” transport documents has served to pass the information necessary for the movement of the goods, and also met commercial and financial needs by acting as a receipt for identified goods, as a contract of carriage, and also, when issued in negotiable form, as a document of title to the goods.
Combined transport operators
The transport developments of the past decade have led to a greatly increased through movement of goods, often in “unit load” form, from a point of departure to a point of final destination by the successive use of more than one mode of transport.
Such “combined transport” (also referred to in the USA as “inter-modal transport” and in other parts of the world as “multi-modal transport”) means either the issue of a series of separate single mode transport documents—which is inefficient from the international trade viewpoint—or their replacement by a new, through, “start-to-finish” transport document.
Such new transport document, a “CT document” (combined transport document), would of necessity be issued by someone who might be the actual provider of the transport—or at least of part of it—or who might merely be an arranger for the provision of all, or part of, the transport by others.
But whether as provider or as arranger of the transport, such person issuing the CT document (the CTO—Combined Transport Operator) would be acting as principal vis-à-vis the shipper and would be responsible, as a principal, for the transport being properly carried out, and liable, as a principal, for loss or damage wherever it occurred during the course of the whole combined transport.
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