Las reglas de Rotterdam (I)

Abstract

After the official signature ceremony held in September 2009, the Rotterdam Rules, or the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea, are open up for ratification. Although it seems it will not be in the short term, the chances that the Rotterdam Rules will become in force are high, which would turn this Convention into the main international instrument governing not only contracts for the carriage of goods by sea but also a significant part of the multimodal transport operations performed today in the world. In order to help understand the Rotterdam Rules during this transitional period, Cuadernos de Derecho Transnacional will publish several articles on this Convention in successive numbers, In the first article of these series, after a short introduction, the following topics will be addressed: temporal, geographical and material scope of application of the Convention, with special emphasis on its multimodal character, the validity of contractual terms against the Rules and the Conventions rules of interpretation.