CMR Convention and Its Purpose
The Convention on the Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road (“CMR Convention”) was drafted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (“UNECE”) in 1956 and entered into force in 1961 to establish a set of rules for solving the problems relevant to the international carriage of goods.
The CMR Convention aims to standardize the rules for international carriage by road and set forth the carrier’s liability for loss of, damage to or delay in the carriage of goods and the limits of claims for compensation. The purpose is to reduce the costs of carriage and the related trade by identifying the risks that can be insured for the parties to a carriage contract in advance. The CMR Convention also clarifies the function of a consignment note and the obligations of the parties to a carriage contract. However, it does not provide definitive provisions on some issues such as the establishment of a contract, the subject of carriage, the officials that will be liable for loading, unloading and stowage, as well as carriage fee, pledge, lien, termination and withdrawal. Therefore, the carriage regulations of the relevant country will complement the CMR Convention for the issues not provided therein.
The CMR Convention reduces legal uncertainty in international carriage by road and promotes order and security in trade.
Countries Enforcing the Provisions
There are 58 signatories to the CMR Convention, including Türkiye.
The CMR Convention applies to any contract involving the carriage of goods by road for a fee where at least one of the places of receipt and delivery of the goods is a Contracting Party to the Convention. Thus, the international carriage of goods by road beginning or ending in one of the Contracting Parties to the CMR Convention and performed for the account of another party will be bound by the Convention, with some exceptions.
Contracts Bound by the Provisions
The CMR Convention does not concern all aspects of carriage contracts since it was not drafted to cover all problems relevant to international carriage. Its main purpose is to determine the carrier’s liability for loss of, damage to or delay in the carriage of goods and to regulate the preparation of transport documents, which is stated clearly in its preamble.
The carriage of goods and the carriage contract are different concepts, and the CMR Convention is only applicable to the latter. For the provisions of the CMR Convention to be applicable, there must be a carriage contract, the carriage must be performed with certain vehicles by road for a fee, and the transported cargo must be goods that are carried internationally. Thus, the CMR Convention does not cover the transportation of other cargo, such as carriage under international postal agreements, the transportation of the deceased, or the packing and transportation of household goods.
The applicability of the CMR Convention is not influenced by the place of conclusion of the contract and the nationality or domicile of the parties since the Convention is binding when any of the countries where the carrier receives or delivers the goods is a party to it. Moreover, the lack of a consignment note does not prevent the application of the CMR Convention, even if it is an important document in terms of the burden of proof.
Relevance of the CMR Convention to Turkish Law
Türkiye ratified the CMR Convention and its additional protocols by Law no. 3939 published in the Official Gazette on December 14, 1993. After the text of the CMR Convention was published in the Official Gazette of 4 January 1995, the country submitted its participation document to the United Nations Secretariat, and the Convention entered into force. Therefore, the CMR Convention and its Additional Protocol have the effect of law under the last paragraph of article 90 of the Constitution.
The Court of Appeals rules that the CMR Convention has the force of law, being duly put into force, and will be applied to every carriage contract governed under article 1 of the Convention, and in case of a conflict between the provisions of the CMR Convention and the Turkish Commercial Code, those of the former will take precedence since they entered into force later with regard to international carriage and became a rule of domestic law.
Thus, the CMR Convention will be prioritized in matters of international carriage, pursuant to article 90 of the Constitution. If a dispute under the CMR Convention is brought before the Turkish Courts, the judge will resolve it as per the Convention without resorting to the rules pertaining to the conflict of laws.
As such, the carrier’s liability is determined by the CMR Convention for international carriage of goods by road, and by Turkish Commercial Code no. 6102 for domestic carriage of goods by road.
Yiğit Okuldaş, Executive Associate
