The Legal Position of Terminal Operators in Hinterland Networks

The legal position of the terminal operator changes by the integration of the carriage of goods between the sea port and the hinterland into his service profile. The terminal operator performs a wide variety of obligations, including loading and discharging, stacking, warehousing, measuring, weighing and carrying goods within and beyond the terminal's premises. These obligations fall into different categories of contracts for which the law provides specific rules, i.e. a contract of carriage, a contract of deposit and a service contract. Some of these obligations might be subject to mandatory provisions derived from applicable national legal systems or uniform private law conventions. This book examines how to determine the applicable rules to the terminal operator'smixed contracts. This serves a practical purpose as one of themain differences between the applicable legal regimes is the terminal operator's liabilities towards third parties such as cargo owners or ship owners who do not have a contractual relation with the terminal operator.