This text provides the user with a clear introduction to the Hamburg rules, including a clause-by-clause commentary on the interpretation of the rules. This revised edition includes case studies showing how some major Hague-Visby cases would have been decided by applying the Hamburg rules, a summary of the articles on the subject, together with a list of other sources of information. The views of two practitioners is complimented by the offical UNCTAD commentary to present a balanced analysis of the rules.

The Hamburg Rules on the Carriage of Goods By Sea

A sourcebook for students and practitioners who are interested in international business transactions and want to gain familiarity with the law and practice of international trade law, policies and ethics. Each chapter deals with an important aspect of international trade and business.

Anyone involved in trade law knows the time-consuming nature of obtaining primary source material and consulting each of the main trade laws. Now in its fourth edition, Basic Documents in International Trade Law solves this problem by assembling, in a single, easy-to-use resource, a very comprehensive collection of the most important and frequently used documents on the law of international trade. In addition to its obvious practical value, this work reveals much about the process of harmonization in international trade law and the operation of the key international trade bodies. This makes the book a helpful reference for international business lawyers, researchers, legislators and government officials in the field. Since the successful publication of the previous editions of the book, the appearance of new conventions and model laws has considerably enriched the law of international trade, and the present edition contains a wealth of new material. The book has been substantially revised and several new instruments have been included. Among the most significantly important improvements to this new edition are new chapters added to different parts of the book, a redesigned and thoroughly revised Part 6 reflecting the expansion of intellectual property rights under the framework of treaties administered by World International Property Organization, and bibliographies and other research resources updated and enlarged to include an extraordinarily rich collection of books and articles in many trading languages besides English, including, for the first time, major Chinese works in the international trade law field. As the late Prof. Clive M. Schmitthoff commented on the first edition, the book ‘is not only of practical usefulness but has also considerable jurisprudential value’, and ‘reveals the methodology of the harmonization process in the area of international trade law’. The International Business Lawyer first commented in 1987 that the book ‘can only be described as a “vade mecum” for every international business lawyer’, an assessment that now seems more merited than ever.