Bringing a fresh, comparative approach to transport documents used in the carriage of goods by sea, this book covers bills of lading, sea waybills, ship’s delivery orders, multimodal transport documents, and electronic transport documents. The book covers historic developments, current conventions, and thoughts for the future on these transport documents; and delves deeply into the legal issues concerning them. It represents a comprehensive compilation of case and statute law from around the world on this subject. In addition to English law, the book covers American, French, German, and Italian laws, as well as the laws of several East Asian jurisdictions (China, Japan, South Korea). Primarily, the book will be of use to maritime law scholars and students, and lawyers who deal with shipping. It may also be of interest to international traders, banks, and ship masters and officers.

Carriers who assume an obligation to carry cargo from one place to another by sea are the only ones in a position to prevent loss or damage to the cargo, and so by rights assume a degree of liability for its safety. Such liability is defined in the three maritime transport regimes, adopted respectively in 1924, 1968, and 1992. A practicing attorney and consultant to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Karan (law, Ankara U.) explores the liability principles that should be uniformly accepted or rejected for legal reasons, limiting his discussion to legal aspects of the international carriage of goods by sea as covered by the relevant sections of the three conventions. The text is double spaced. Annotation : 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).