The Multimodal Electronic Transferable Transport Record (ETTR) : A Survey of Laws and Basic Concepts

A transport document is a receipt issued by the carrier of goods upon taking possession of them under a contract for their carriage. It is a document of title when its transfer may facilitate not only the transfer of the right to claim the goods from the carrier but also the transfer of title to the goods. Particularly in relation to the carriage of goods other than by sea, and by reference to banking and commercial practices, this study surveys the current legal position of both digitization and negotiability of transport documents. This is done with a view to preparing the ground for the establishment of a legal basis for a multimodal Electronic Transferable Transport Record (ETTR) of which control will be functionally equivalent to the possession of a negotiable tangible document of title. Views as to the need for a multimodal ETTR are divided and may not be the same across all industries and geographic regions. Nonetheless in some industries and regions the demand for an ETTR is genuine and merits a solution. To meet this demand the study recommends the treatment of the document of title under the American UCC Article 7 as the starting point for an ETTR project