thesis
Multimodal Transport Law: The law applicable to the multimodal contract for the carriage of goods
- Publication date
- 10 December 2009
- Publisher
- Published in the series 'Aviation Law & Policy'.
We only have to look around us on the road while we travel to work or home, or to use our eyes
at a railway station to know that the transport of goods takes up a lot of the room our modern day
infrastructures provide. Sometimes perhaps a little too much; nowadays congestion seems to be
the rule rather than the exception. This is an uncomfortable side effect of the explosive growth
freight transport has experienced the last few decades1.
Modern day transport offers a considerable array of possibilities; possibilities that are –
for the most part – taken for granted by the general public that enjoys their benefits. The average
European would not be surprised to learn that the fruit on offer in the local supermarket
originates from another continent for instance. The idea that most of the things we use in our
daily routine stem from a distant source, such as a cell phone from Japan, a trendy pair of
designer jeans made in China or a glass of Australian wine, seems completely natural to us.
Clearly the contemporary transport industry offers us a lot of benefits besides such
discomforts as congestion and pollution. In earlier times, before machinery such as the steam
engine had been invented it was hardly cost effective – or even feasible when it came to
perishables – to carry goods halfway around the world if they were not at least valuable and
extraordinary2. The limitations set on trade by the transport structures available did more
however than simply curtail the range of affordable products on offer for the public. They also
had a negative effect on the location of the industry, limited transport possibilities and forced
production to take place near or in heavily populated areas to secure the necessary workforce and
market possibilities. After all, industrial decentralisation is only feasible if there is an
infrastructure capable of supporting a cost effective movement of goods and employees3. The
transport possibilities our contemporary society offers make decentralisation feasible. Today’s
commercial actors use sophisticated systems weighing relevant factors such as storage costs, the
placement of production facilities and transportation expenses against each other in order to
generate the highest possible profits.