An Overview of Legal Regime Governing Multimodal Transport: Ethiopia in Focus

Abstract

The term “multimodal transport” refers carriage of goods by more than one mode of transport through single fright contract. Unfortunately, technical developments of multimodal carriage of goods are not supported by adequate legal framework. Despite various attempts that have been made in the past, there is no mandatory international convention governing multimodal carriage. The 1980 Multimodal Convention drawn by the UN has not come into force. All applicable international conventions are unimodal. Provisions contained in each of these unimodal conventions may be applicable to the relating leg of multimodal transport and governing the important issues related to the liability of the MTO differs significantly. Such important issues are: bases of MTO’s liability, limits of liability, loss of right to limit liability, liability of MTO for his agents and servants etc. Therefore, MTO cannot be certain which regime applies to his liability for the loss of goods. This problem is especially noticeable in the cases involving “non-localized loss”. Therefore, there is up to parties to create their own contractual solutions for multimodal transport of goods, taking into account mandatory provisions of unimodal conventions and applicable national laws. Some helpful contractual standard rules have been created in commercial practice. In spite of that, a large majority of industrial representatives and Governments consider the present legal framework unsatisfactory. As a result, countries are adopting their own national multimodal transport laws, in which Ethiopia is not an exception. This reflects fragmentation of rules concerning multimodal transport.