earticle

영어

Multimodal transport is a transport system which combines road transport with other modes of transport such as inland waterways, rail or shipping. Actually the concept of multimodal transport is nothing new. Today, due to increasing volumes of cargo are moving under multimodal via bills of lading issued by ocean carriers and intermediaries, such as freight forwarders and road carriers, providing the shippers an efficient, stream-lined method of moving goods from door to door.
In this situation, the problem is that a bunch of cargo claims arising under multimodal bills of lading increase, while the goods are in the custody of inland carriers or their contractors. However the Korean Maritime Law is antiquated and unable to cope with these types of claim. Therefore, the Maritime Law was amended on August 2007 and will become effective as from August 2008. This amended Maritime Law inserted provisions on the combined transport in Article 816. Recently, the Ministry of Justice formed the Special Committee for Commercial Code Amendment to prescribe the multimodal transport provision into the General Section of Commercial Activities.
Internationally, the multimodal transport practice is controlled by general contract clause not international treaty.
In this regard, Korean Commercial Code needs to prescribe some provisions about multimodal transport before the international uniform treaty of multimodal transport is promulgated. For this purpose, this paper basically examines the Germany and Chinese multi transport systems which have provisions of them to insist on legislative necessity of multimodal transport provision in Korean Commercial Code and then attempts to suggest some considerations to solve the multimodal problem through legislation.