The Rotterdam Rules will be open for signature on September 23, 2009. These Rules represent the most comprehensive overhaul of the law of carriage of goods by sea in more than 50 years. To coincide with the signing ceremony, six members of the Institute of Maritime Law at the University of Southampton have written this book, a detailed commentary on the Rules. The book carefully examines the text of the Rules, all 96 articles of the new Convention, and compares them to the text of the Hague-Visby Rules, the instrument currently covering most bills of lading. The authors have also examined the judgments in cases decided in the English courts under the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1971 and the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992, and have indicated whether these cases would be decided differently under the new Rotterdam Rules. This new addition to the Maritime and Transport Law Library series provides practical and rigorous answers to all the questions regarding cargo claims as they come t