Container Carrier's Liability in International Multimodal Transport

International multimodal transport has been developed rapidly in recent 50 years and the worldwide use of containers made a valuable contribution. There are various effective international conventions for different modes of transport and this monograph focuses on the fundamental parts of the international multimodal transport, container carrier’s liability regime. The central research question is has the current liability regime provided a sufficient framework for container carriers in international multimodal transport? The question can be divided into three issues. Firstly, how wide should the scope of application of the international unimodal conventions be to cover the period of liability of container carrier in international multimodal transport? Secondly, do the existing conventions provide a proper and satisfactory framework to govern container carrier’s liability? Thirdly, if not, what solutions can be adopted? In order to answer the above questions, the novelty of this monograph lies on experiences gained from recent case law in relation to container transport. This monograph does not only discover problems in the existing legal system but also provides feasible suggestions for container carrier’s liability regime based on the Rotterdam Rules.