The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) has officially approved the draft Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents (NCD) on July 11, 2025, recommending its adoption by the UN General Assembly later this year. This landmark decision marks a historic milestone in the modernization of international trade law, promising to unlock new opportunities for shippers, freight forwarders, and trade finance institutions across both established and emerging trade corridors.
The NCD Convention introduces an innovative opt-in harmonized legal framework for negotiable cargo documents of title, applicable to both paper and electronic forms, and across all modes of transport. In an increasingly complex and often disrupted global trading environment, this development represents a significant leap forward in enabling more agile, secure, and efficient international trade.
For freight forwarders and logistics providers, the Convention will reinforce their vital role in meeting global shipping needs. By ensuring harmonized legal certainty for multimodal transport, it strengthens their ability to issue paper and electronic transport documents as contractual carriers, such as the widely recognized negotiable FIATA Multimodal Transport Bill of Lading (FBL / eFBL). This addresses a long-standing legal gap and is expected to significantly widen opportunities for trade finance, particularly benefiting micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and regions heavily reliant on inland and multimodal transport solutions.
FIATA, a longstanding observer to the UNCITRAL Working Group VI, has been deeply involved in the Convention’s development. Sharing its extensive experience with the FBL as the only international standard multimodal transport document to date, FIATA has played a crucial role in ensuring the Convention accurately reflects practical industry realities and needs.
Key benefits of the NCD Convention include:
- Legal Certainty for Multimodal Transport: The Convention fills a critical legal void by formally recognizing negotiable cargo documents in multimodal transport, solidifying the established practice of freight forwarders issuing documents like the FIATA Multimodal Transport Bill of Lading (FBL) for end-to-end transport.
- Support for SMEs and Global Supply Chain Access: By facilitating the use of negotiable documents across diverse jurisdictions, the Convention will enhance access to global supply chains for MSMEs, especially those in emerging markets without direct access to deep-sea shipping.
- Enabler of Digital Trade: Incorporating provisions based on the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR), the Convention provides robust legal recognition for electronic negotiable transport records, a crucial step for advancing digital trade and innovation in logistics.
- Opt-In Flexibility: Designed as an opt-in instrument, the Convention grants commercial parties the autonomy to decide whether to apply its provisions, ensuring flexibility and responsiveness to dynamic market needs.
- Preservation of Existing Liability Regimes: The Convention specifically focuses on negotiability and documents of title, without altering existing transport liability frameworks, thereby ensuring continuity and legal clarity for freight forwarders and their clients.
The draft Convention will now be transmitted to the United Nations General Assembly for formal adoption during its 80th session in late 2025. FIATA remains committed to supporting the Convention’s implementation and will provide its members with comprehensive guidance and resources to understand and apply its provisions. FIATA encourages all members to familiarize themselves with the Convention and to engage with their national authorities to advocate for its swift adoption in the interest of strengthening global trade.
