The traditional carriage of goods by a single mode of transport developed an appropriate transport document for each mode, applying only to carriage by that mode, issued at the point of departure by that mode by the actual provider of the transport, and establishing his liability for loss or damage to the goods while 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.

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 U.S.A. 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 view point of international trade—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.

In the absence of a new international Convention specifically applicable to multi-modal transport in the way that existing conventions apply to the different single modes of transport, and as an essential measure to avoid the commercially retrograde step of the development of a multiplicity of differing