Applicability of the Rotterdam Rules to Multimodal Transportation and Coexistence With Other Transportation Conventions

Today's multimodal transportation industry is a complex and the most widely used industry. The Rotterdam Rules have strived to deal with such complexities, and to provide a reasonable solution for today’s needs of extensive transportation industry. Therefore, the Rotterdam Rules have expanded the range and scope of its jurisdiction to all sectors of maritime transport operations. The extension of Rotterdam Rules sovereign, inevitably, leads to a complex problem caused by the collision between the Rotterdam Rules and other related Conventions. To address this problem, the Rotterdam Rules have adopted Article 26 to avoid possible conflicts and Article 82 to solve the conflicts, even though this method of conflict resolution is not compatible with the objectives of the Rotterdam Rules for achieving uniform and integrated systems. This article aims to elaborate the scope of the Rotterdam Rules in terms of time, place and subject of the Rotterdam Rules jurisdiction, and also to examine how the Rotterdam Rules coexist with other maritime and non-maritime transportation conventions.