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Convention on the contract for international carriage of goods by rail as a first Convention in a system of Unified Railway Law Conventions (URL Convention)
The Convention on the contract for international carriage of goods by rail was adopted by UNECE on 17 November 2023. The Convention is the first in a future system of unified railway law conventions.
The URL Convention has not yet entered into force. It will enter into force six months after ratification of at least five signatory states (art 44). The signing process was opened on 17 January 2024 and will last until 21 March 2025.
To date, the Netherlands and Togo have signed the Convention. Based on informal information at the last SC.2 Meeting in Geneva on 14-15 November 2024, Türkiye is also preparing a formal signature, and Iran is considering ratification.
Context of the URL Convention
In November 2023, the Member States of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe adopted the new Convention on the Contract of International Carriage of Goods by Rail as the first Convention in a series of Unified Railway Law Conventions. The lack of a single legal framework puts rail operators at a considerable competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis other modes of transport, especially road and maritime freight. Reconsignment of the goods is necessary at the handover points between the CIM and SMGS freight law systems.
The URL Convention establishes a uniform international legal framework for rail freight transport between the participating states falling otherwise under the CIM or SMGS regimes. This could avoid frequent transfers of consignment notes from CIM to SMGS areas, which implies additional costs and delays in transporting goods. This new Convention acts as a bridge between the CIM system and the SMGS system and beyond, creating one legal regime, one contract of carriage, one consignment note, one liability regime, hence one global system. Moreover, the co-existence of two bodies of freight law (CIM/SMGS) means that customers face serious hurdles identifying and enforcing claims in the event of cargo losses.
The URL Convention aims to offer railway undertakings and their customers the opportunity to conclude a single contract of carriage for international transport of goods by rail and also for multimodal carriage, in particular between Europe and Asia. This contract is intended to apply as a single international legal regime (opt-in). The contract of carriage will be accompanied by a single URL consignment note based on the common CIM/SMGS consignment note that is subject to a single legal regime. Thus, URL provisions take priority over their national laws and apply to each international contract of carriage between those states if the parties to the contract of carriage opt to apply the URL Convention to their contract.
Key advantages of the URL Convention
The new Convention thus increases time efficiency, improves cost effectiveness and provides greater legal certainty connected with the movement of freight on the railways in the Euro-Asia area. At the same time, it allows other countries – those not falling under the CIM or SMGS regimes – to achieve the same benefits for international carriage by rail when they accede to the Convention. As an initial set of contractual legal provisions, the new Convention is intended to offer rail stakeholders the following advantages, enabling them to:
- apply a single legal regime on rail freight transport between consignors and consignees,
- use a single consignment note,
- adopt a ‘fit-for-purpose’ contract,
- include multimodal transport operations (by road or by sea),
- apply a unified system for liability covering loss, damage or delay in delivery applying to all stakeholders in end-to-end transport and to their customers,
- apply a minimum liability level for carriers, with specific financial thresholds and the possibility to agree on higher thresholds,
- opt-in to the use of CIM or SMGS negotiable transport documents for the goods in transit.
Impact on the COTIF Convention
The URL Convention is a voluntary choice for the contracting parties. It does not conflict with CIM and SMGS as it is not applicable to contracts within the CIM or SMGS regimes, unless decided otherwise when applicable. It will still be possible to apply CIM and SMGS systems for carrying goods between Europe and Asia if the parties choose not to apply URL for a specific consignment. In this case, it will once again be necessary to conclude two different contracts of carriage, one under CIM and another under SMGS, and the consignment will need either two consignment notes or a single CIM/SMGS consignment note.
It should also be noted that the Convention allows the parties to the contract to enjoy certain contractual freedoms in agreeing specific particulars, e.g. the time of delivery, assumption of greater liability by the carrier, point of carriage from which the right to dispose of the goods is transferred to consignee, or other party than consignor to pay the carriage charges. To achieve even greater efficiencies, the Convention offers the parties the possibility to use an electronic consignment note as a transport document. Moreover, the Convention allows for the use of the contract between the parties as a document of title if the parties to the contract agree. In this case, specific provisions apply. It can also be used for operations performed by other modes of transport in addition to international rail transport, unless a Contracting Party has declared not to apply it to multimodal transport contracts.
The Convention, as with other laws on the carriage of goods, governs the legal relationship between the carrier and its clients, consignors and consignees, and only exceptionally the relationship between carriers. As such, the operational and technical performance of the carriage of goods is left to the Terms and Conditions of the carriers.
NB: the URL Convention is available on the CIT website (c.f. “Rail Transport Law”)
2024-11-22, EE