The Rotterdam Rules

Book excerpt: The Rotterdam Rules represent the most comprehensive overhaul of the law of carriage of goods by sea in more than fifty years. To coincide with the signing ceremony, six members of the Institute of Maritime Law have written a detailed commentary on the Rules. The Rotterdam Rules: A Practical Annotation examines the text of the Rules, all ninety-six articles of the new Convention, and compares them to the text of the Hague-Visby Rules, the instrument currently covering most bills of lading. The authors have also examined the judgments in cases decided in the English Courts under the Carriage of Goods by Sea Acts of 1971 and 1992 and have indicated whether these cases would be decided differently under the new Rotterdam Rules.