| Summary: | United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea, or the Rotterdam Rules, is the most recent attempt to modernise and unify the rules governing the carriers ' liability in the field of shipping law. Although not in force yet, the Convention is expected to enter into force in the future and, if/when that happens, it is likely to make a significant impact on English law. This study explores the Rotterdam Rules' treatment of delay, carrier's sub-contractors and multimodal transport. Concentrating on three subjects that currently fall outside the Hague and Hague - Visby Rules either in whole or in part, the study argues that the resulting lacuna in the existing legal framework regulating these three aspects of the carrier's liability gives rise to significant problems, and the existing solutions devised in English law to address these problems fail to offer a complete solution. As a part of its goal to modemise the existing legal framework, the Convention aims to provide solutions to some of these problems; however, having examined the Rotterdam Rules' provisions dealing with delay, carrier's subcontractors and multimodal transport, the study questions the satisfactoriness of this response. This study offers an up to date analysis and a critical evaluation of both English law and the Rotterdam Rules provisions related to its subject matter, drawing attention to less than obvious problems in the existing legal framework and highlighting novel issues with regards to operation of the Convention provisions. Furthermore, the study goes beyond of merely portraying the potential problems with the application of the Rotterdam Rules and also explores possible ways of minimizing these problems, in the event that the Convention is implemented into English law. By way of providing a detailed analysis and recommendations the study intends to assist policy makers in deciding whether to adopt the Rotterdam Rules or not. Although much of the analysis and recommendations are made from the perspective of English law, the study may also be of interest to policy makers in other jurisdictions considering that the problems examined and the solutions proposed largely originate in the above-mentioned international conventions regulating carriage of goods by sea.
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