The 1978 sea carriage regime that abolished the nautical fault defense and raised the limits, but stayed marginal for want of major maritime states.
The Hamburg Rules are the answer of the cargo owning countries, mostly developing ones, to a Hague-Visby regime they saw as written by and for shipowners. Adopted in 1978 under United Nations auspices and in force since November 1, 1992, they reverse several balances: nautical fault of the crew and fire cease to excuse the carrier, liability rests on a presumption of fault that the carrier must rebut, the period of responsibility covers the whole time the goods are in its charge at the port rather than tackle to tackle alone, delay becomes compensable and the time bar moves from one year to two. The limits are raised by roughly twenty-five percent over Hague-Visby. Their failure is a matter of tonnage geography: no major maritime nation ratified, so the text governs a marginal share of world trade and its main effect has been to fragment the law it set out to unify.
The rules set the limit at 835 special drawing rights per package or 2.5 per kilogram, against 666.67 and 2 under Hague-Visby. Some thirty-five states are parties, none of them among the ten largest flags in the world: a bill of lading issued in Chile or Senegal can therefore fall under a regime the same owner will never meet on the neighboring trade.
convention des Nations unies sur le transport de marchandises par mer de 1978