유통가능한 화물증권에 관한 유엔 협약의 소개 및 그 영향

The UN Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents (hereinafter, the “Convention”), adopted by the UN General Assembly in Dec. 2025, is an instrument designed to establish a negotiable document of title representing goods in transit, irrespective of the mode of transport. The negotiable cargo document (“NCD”) created under the Convention may be issued either in paper or electronic form and may be used in both unimodal and multimodal carriage. Previously, outside the maritime sector, there had been no legal basis for issuing negotiable documents of title—such as bills of lading—in other modes of transport. This absence created difficulties in trade finance, transactions involving goods while in transit, and changes of transport mode when necessary. The Convention fills this legal gap and thereby contributes to facilitating and promoting international trade. The Convention creates NCD as a negotiable document of title by providing that the issuance and transfer of possession of an NCD shall have the same legal effect, for the purpose of acquiring rights to the goods, as the physical delivery of the goods. It further grants negotiability by stipulating that rights provided for in the NCD may be exercised only by the holder, and that such rights transfer with the transfer of the NCD itself. The Convention does not apply mandatorily; an NCD may be issued only where the transport operator and the consignor agree to do so, thereby upholding the principle of party autonomy. In addition, the scope of application is broad, as the Convention applies regardless of the means of transport and allows for the issuance of an NCD covering the entire carriage, whether unimodal or multimodal. The Convention also contains detailed provisions on electronic NCDs (“eNCDs”). Once the Convention enters into force, it will provide a unified international legal framework for electronically negotiable documents of title, thereby significantly contributing to the digitalization of trade. At the same time, the Convention deals exclusively with the issuance, use, legal effect of NCDs, and the rights and obligations of the holder. It does not regulate the rights and obligations of the parties under the underlying contract of carriage. Therefore, any national law or international convention governing the contract of carriage will continue to apply, thereby minimizing potential conflicts between legal regimes. The Convention simply offers commercial parties an additional, useful option in international trade. In particular, given that Korean commercial law contains limited regulation on multimodal transport and that electronic bills of lading have not been widely used, the Convention is expected to bring clear benefits to Korea.