Shipping community schooled on Rotterdam Rules

Members of the shipping community and freight forwarders were on Thursday given orientation on the the Rotterdam Rules which seeks to promote equal opportunities for ship and cargo owners in the maritime sector.

The Rotterdam Rules have been described as a hybrid of the three existing conventions: Hague, Hague-Visby and the Hamburg Rules which aims at establishing an environment to modernize and harmonize all the rules governing international carriage of goods by sea.

Dr Kofi Mbeah, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Shippers’ Authority, at a forum in Takoradi, said the event was to create awareness and enable the shipping community to seek clarification and deliberate on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of goods wholly or partly by sea before it came into force.

He said 25 countries have signed onto the Convention with three countries ratifying it and this calls for more education to enable the rules to be effective in the maritime trade.

Dr Mbeah said it is a cardinal responsibility for the Authority to educate and sensitize the shipping community in order to keep them abreast with the changes in the industry.

The Rotterdam Rules was developed as a result of the inadequacies inherent in the three conventions which were not able to address the needs of modern trade and shipping.

Some of the likely benefits of the Rotterdam Rules include: uniformity in liabilities of the shipper and carrier, enhanced use of electronic documentation and innovations such as containerization and door-to-door delivery.

Dr Mbeah said, “A uniform law increases predictability and legal certainty which would facilitate low cost and smoother trade”.

He said the Authority would continue to collaborate with private and public organizations in the maritime industry to pursue its mandate of protecting and promoting the interests of shippers in relation to port, ship and inland transport concerns.