Bills of Lading Forum Clauses and International Conventions: Is there a Fundamental Flaw?

Abstract

The last century had witnessed a number of efforts to harmonise the rules on carriage by sea through international conventions, which have continued in this century. These conventions are Hague Rules 1924, Visby Rules 1968, Hamburg Rules 1978, Hague/Visby SDR 1979, Multimodal Convention 1980 and Rotterdam Rules 2008. Unfortunately none of these conventions gained monopoly, and some of them coexist in practice, sometimes conflating with each other, thus adding ambiguity and uncertainty to the resolution of disputes in every-day life.