By STUART HETHERINGTON, Consultant, Colin Biggers & Paisley.
2025 is likely to see the finalisation, in Vienna from December 15-19 2025, of the work of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) on the Convention for Negotiable Cargo Documents (NCD).
At UNCITRAL’s 52nd session in 2019 the Chinese government presented a proposal on possible future work “towards the development of a negotiable transport document to facilitate multimodal carriage of goods, particularly by railway in the Euro-Asian space”.
It was pointed out at the same time that “unlike the ocean bill of lading the railway consignment note did not serve as a document of title and could not be used for the settlement of and financing of letters of credit.” That proposal was accepted by UNCITRAL. The Comite Maritime International (CMI) has monitored the progress of the work done over the last few years in Working Group VI of UNCITRAL to ensure that there was no inconsistency between the laws as they operate in relation to bills of lading and their negotiability and the proposed new Convention.
Mr Hetherington is the Chair of the CMI.
Read Mr Hetherington’s full insight here.
