ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns Article 1 of CMR Convention, which lays down the general prerequisites for the application of the Convention. The question of the status of the forwarder for the purposes of the Convention is essentially the same question as to whether, for the purposes of English domestic law, a party constitutes a carrier or a forwarding agent. Ultimately, however, the latter question should be regarded as being subject to the autonomous interpretation of CMR rather than as a matter of national law. Before attempting to deduce any general guidance from these cases, it is useful to have regard to the Continental case law on the discussed issue. However, before doing so, it is important to realise that, as distinct from English law, where the precise status of the forwarder is largely undefined, under Continental legal systems the forwarder is given a specific legal status under the commercial law provisions of the various legal codes.
