The mandatory regime for international carriage of goods by road in Europe, with its consignment note, its defenses and its per kilogram limit.
The convention on the contract for the international carriage of goods by road, signed in Geneva on May 19, 1956, governs any road carriage where the place of taking over and the place of delivery lie in two different countries of which at least one is a party, and it does so mandatorily. The carrier answers for loss, damage and delay from taking over until delivery, unless it establishes one of the listed defenses, among them inherent vice, insufficient packing, fault of the claimant or circumstances it could not avoid. Its compensation limit is expressed per kilogram of gross weight short, regardless of actual value, and it falls only in cases of willful misconduct or equivalent fault under the law of the forum. The consignment note is evidence of the contract terms and of the taking over, and its electronic version was opened by the additional protocol of February 20, 2008. The problem solved is the impossibility of running a door to door European movement under twenty-five different national laws.
The protocol of July 5, 1978 set the limit at 8.33 special drawing rights per kilogram short: a 400 kilogram pallet of electronic components worth 200,000 euros therefore gives a maximum entitlement of 3,332 special drawing rights, a few thousand euros, a gap that explains why shippers buy a cargo policy rather than rely on recovery from the carrier.
lettre de voiture CMR, transport routier international de marchandises