Abstract

The practice of carriage of goods by no fewer than two different modes of transport up to a place designated for delivery situated in a different country is known as multimodal carriage of goods. By this practice, the massive growth in containerisation which introduced modern concept of combined transport has moved the cargo delivery system from port-to-port to door-to-door. This research through doctrinal method examines the legal framework for transportation of goods under a single contract but performed with at least two different means of transport. It founds that multimodal transport becomes knotty because the consignee, consignor and multimodal transport operator (MTO) could be in different countries and the carriage is often performed by using sub-carriers known as actual carrier in legal parlance. The paper recommends flexibility of purpose to be able to respond rapidly to competition and market changes.