LAW OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Law of international trade

Law of international trade

Introduction

The International law is a topic of great interest not only for international lawyers but also for economists and political scientists. It is the outcome of the ever-increasing scope of international law and a growingly diversified international legal order where several international regulatory institutions or rule systems with overlapping authority and ambiguous boundaries have emerged. Fragmentation of international law is related to the fact that international law develops through issue-oriented fields of lawmaking driven by 'specialized and relatively autonomous spheres of social action and structure'. Fragmentation can be understood in substantive terms in that it is caused by fragmentation of substantive norms but also as the result of fragmented authority at the international level. In the latter case, fragmentation problems can be viewed as institutional challenges associated with the allocation of jurisdiction along horizontal, vertical, and functional dimensions. Such a constellation is reminiscent of the subsidiary analysis, which is regarded as one of the organizing principles of the European Union (EU).

Undeniably, the polycentric legal systems that exist at the global, regional, or bilateral level are systemically integrated, that is, they form part of the international system. However, these systems have created issue-driven, overlapping governance regimes, which lack a common governance body coordinating them. As Shany puts it, 'being essentially an inter-subjective system without central authoritative law-creating and law-applying organs, international law inherently enjoys low levels of coherence'. Thus, normative conflict is a phenomenon inextricably associated with international law; it has shaped it and influenced its evolution through the years.

Discussion

Bill of Lading under UK and EU law

Britain's merchant navy dominated the international maritime trade in the 19th century. The strong ship owners' lobby imposed on the shippers the only choice to contract either under bills of lading drafted almost totally on the ship owners' terms or not to contract. The conflict between Britain and its rival the American merchant navy precipitated a movement for the use of model contracts of shipment (carriage) and towards standardization of the liability of International liner carriers by legislative intervention. The bill of lading through its use in international trade gained the characteristic of being the document which incorporates the contractual terms. So, the orally agreed contract of carriage gave way to the contract of carriage in the form of a bill of lading.

England introduced the Bills of Lading Act 1855(5), in which the transfer of contractual rights to the consignee has been stated. The transfer of the contract depended on the transfer of the property of the goods. This interdependence created problems in the application of the Act in many cases, where the holder of the bill of lading had not received the property in the goods.

From the first published case, it seems that the bill of lading has been established as the contract of carriage. The Bills of Lading Act 1855, reflecting the prevailing view, stated the bill of lading as the contract of ...