ABSTRACT
With bills of lading, where jurisdiction clauses are often invoked against third-party holders, these clauses have always been, and continue to be a source of disputes. The first group of theories has the holder of the bill of lading succeed to all rights and liabilities of the shipper. The second group accepts that the holder and the carrier are in a contractual relationship, but with distinct rights and liabilities of the holder. If the holder enters into a contractual relationship with the carrier, that automatically implies that the holder has accepted the terms of that relationship. The third group sees the relationship between the carrier and a third-party holder as non-contractual. If the bill of lading is a non-contractual, unilateral document created by the carrier, then the bill of lading as such cannot prove the required agreement between the carrier and a third-party holder.
