TRANSFORMATION OF THE INSTITUTIONAL BASE OF WORLD CARGO TRANSPORTATION

Abstract

The practice of international merchant shipping and the practice of international trade in goods are interrelated at different levels - from historical to the level of a separate treaty. Here, contracts for the purchase and sale of goods, transportation, insurance, financing, transport and warehouse documents of title are intertwined and interact. The necessary degree of awareness in these issues is an indispensable condition for both successful business activity and for solving the problems of unification of maritime and commercial law. The process of the unification of law began primarily in the field of international transport law. Universal international legal unification of material norms of contracts of sale of goods was held in 1980 in the form of the Vienna Convention. The creation of the Brussels Convention and the Hamburg Rules was preceded by the study of the commercial and economic aspects of the bill of lading in the trade turnover. For example, in 53 paragraphs of the report of the UNCTAD secretariat on a bill of lading, the following issues were covered in various ways: 1) the inversion of a bill of lading; 2) the effectiveness of its role in the sale of goods - in terms of transfer of ownership or risk of damage, as well as in operations related to shipping conditions (for example, FOB, CIF); 3) the role of the bill of lading in the sale of documents; 4) the role of the bill of lading in bank letters of credit; 5) the effectiveness of the bill of lading as a receipt for the goods; 6) the status of a bill of lading as a contract of carriage; 7) the status of a bill of lading as a document of title. In 1996, UNCTAD discussed the proposal to include in its work program a review of existing practices and legislation in the field of international maritime transport of goods with a view to identifying areas that require uniform rules, and with a view to achieving greater harmonization of laws . The proposal was accompanied by information that in existing national laws and international conventions there are significant gaps regarding the functioning of bills of lading and sea waybills, the connection of these transport documents with the rights and obligations of the seller and buyer of goods, the legal status of entities providing financing to one of the parties to the contract of carriage Cargo. In some states there is a regulatory framework for these issues, but it is not uniform. And in many states there is no regulatory framework in this sphere at all. This circumstance is an obstacle to the free movement of goods and increases the value of transactions. The widespread use of electronic means of communication in the transport of goods further exacerbates the consequences of the fragmentation and non-unification of various laws and leads to the need to develop uniform provisions on specific issues related to the use of the applied technologies.