The multimodal transportation of goods has become the most noticeable and important technological achievement in the late part of the XX century for setting appropriate solutions to the logistics of the transport chain. The new technical and operational appliances are enormous and a new performer has emerged to the market, namely, the Multimodal Transport Operator (MTO). However its technical and commercial success, multimodal transport has not yet found a suitable regulation at the international level. From the Tokyo Rules, the FIATA Rules, the Combidoc and Multidoc forms, the ICC/UNCTAD Rules to the Multimodal Transport Convention of Geneva 1980, a liability regime for the MTO has no yet been established internationally with binding effect. Indeed, the 1980 Convention did not yet gain force and meanwhile legislation is cropping up within domestic boundaries only. The fresh “Rotterdam Rules” (UNCITRAL Convention of 2009) make a door-to-door example of solution though it is doubtful that, by virtue inter alia of its restrictive application to the maritime mode and another only and of its adherence to the network liability system, it should be appropriate to serve as a regulation of the liability regime of the MTO. Then, the market is still in search of such a regime that might be suitable to an international movement of goods by all modes of transportation.
The organisers, IMMTA with the cooperation of the thinktank shop MARLAW, will pay attention to that international endeavour, at a most timely occasion with the “Rotterdam Rules” on the road, by calling for an international conference located in the strategic passage of the Gibraltar Strait. The Conference will have sitting sessions, and visits, to the ports of Algeciras and Málaga, which serve the trade Mediterranean/Atlantic and the Europe/Africa land routage. The Conference is aimed at examining the performances of the MTO, the ITO, the Shipper and the Consignee with a view to comparing the regulatory options available to date, assessing the suitability of the “Rotterdam Rules” and arriving at a pattern of legislation that might be conclusively proposed for Multimodal Transport and for the liability of the MTO.
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