ABSTRACT
Introduction During the late 1960s, the Hague Rules and the Hague-Visby Rules came under vehement attack from underdeveloped nations who believed that the ‘operation of the “traditional maritime law” along with certain aspects of international trade law, impaired [their] balance of payments and ensured [their] continued poverty and perpetual underdevelopment in an industrial age’. 1 The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 2 charged with the task of examining the operation of the Hague Rules and the commission of a working paper, 3 consulted interested parties ranging from shippers, shipowners, insurers and legal bodies from many countries and concluded that there was a compelling need for a new carrier liability regime. A number of convincing objections in respect of the two existing conventions on carriage by sea were put forward. In brief:
• Lack of a uniform standard for burden of proof in both conventions. Where there was a reference to burden of proof, as in Art IV(1), 4 the courts tended to interpret it in favour of the carrier, thus placing the shipper under a burden diffi cult to displace due to a lack of access to facts.
