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Cargo carriage by rail between Europe and Asia will be made easier, quicker and thus cheaper thanks to the adoption of a new United Nations (UN) convention unifying applicable legal rules.
The Convention on the Contract for International Carriage of Goods by Rail, adopted recently by the Working Party on Rail Transport of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), will be forwarded to the Inland Transport Committee at its next session in February 2024 for the opening for signature by all states.
The new convention will entail a number of advantages, such as a single consignment note. It will be applied to multimodal transport operations—e.g., container transport by road or barge between senders and trans-shipment terminals and from arrival terminals to recipients. A single system for liability covering loss, damage or delay in delivery will also be applied to all railway undertakings participating in end-to-end transport and to their customers. A minimum liability level will be applied for the carrier with specific upper compensation thresholds, with the possibility to agree on higher thresholds. An opt-in will be contained to use a negotiable transport document to trade goods in transit.
