ABSTRACT
This chapter draws attention to some issues of drafting technique affecting the 2008 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Carriage of Goods Wholly or Partly by Sea embodying the Rotterdam Rules. A possible inference from the way the Convention is structured is that its drafters thought they were creating international (as opposed to internationally uniform) legislation, something that is not possible in the international legal system because multilateral treaties, while serving a legislative function, must necessarily remain contractual in character. Since, from a public international law perspective, this is apt to cause confusion, an alternative structure is suggested for future conventions that clearly separates the short public international law part of such treaty texts setting out the mutual rights and obligations of the states that become party to the treaty from the bulk of the text regulating private shipping-related transactions.
