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OTIF proposals for the COTIF 1999 revision: meeting of the Ad hoc Committee on Legal Matters and International Cooperation
The 16th OTIF General Assembly took place on 25 and 26 September 2024 at UPU in Bern. 45 of the 51 Member States took part in the meeting, including the Republic of Moldova, which as a new member was attending for the first time; the European Union was also represented. The People’s Republic of China and Turkmenistan were present as observers. The CIT GS also attended the General Assembly, where it was represented by the Deputy Secretary-General. Following a thorough discussion of the presentation of CIT’s suggested revisions of the CIM UR, the OTIF General Assembly decided to include them in the OTIF programme of work for 2025-2027. At the General Assembly the mandate of the ad hoc Committee on Legal Affairs and International Cooperation was also extended for the period 2025-2027 and the 7th session of the ad hoc Committee was prevued for 8-10 April 2025.
In October 2024, the OTIF Secretariat then issued a survey on revision needs, including the COTIF CIV UR (Uniform Rules concerning the Contract of International Carriage of Passengers by Rail – Appendix A), CIM UR (Uniform Rules concerning the Contract of International Carriage of Goods by Rail – Appendix B), CUV UR (Uniform Rules concerning Contracts of Use of Vehicles in International Rail Traffic – Appendix D) und CUI UR (Uniform Rules concerning Contracts of Use of Infrastructure in International Rail Traffic – Appendix E). The CIT GS sent the OTIF Secretariat a comprehensive reply on 17 January 2025. All the responses received to the survey are contained in OTIF document “LAW-25016-JUR 7/4” of 25 February 2025, which collects the replies from the 40 stakeholders who answered. Since there are many lengthy documents involved (19, including some working documents from previous meetings), members are welcome to contact the CIT GS which will provide the documents on request.
The OTIF Secretariat has also sent another two documents in relation to the CUV UR revision: LAW-25020-JUR 7/6 “Wagon law” and LAW-25022-JUR 7/6 “Liability under Article 7 of the CUV UR”. In relation to the CIM UR and CUV UR and the operation of empty wagons, the OTIF paper gives the impression that no clear legal distinction is drawn between the contract of carriage of loaded wagons under the CIM UR (in casu Art. 24 § 1 CIM) on the one hand and the contract of use for empty wagons under the CUV UR (Art. 4 CUV) on the other hand. The lack of a clear and strict distinction between the contract of carriage under the CIM UR and the contract of use under the CUV UR can have serious legal consequences for COTIF Member States and other users of COTIF law such as CIT and its members should this not be discussed thoroughly and clarified at the meeting.
It seems likely that the OTIF Secretariat is planning a further two “consultations of the consultations” for the Ad-hoc Committee’s meeting in April 2025 to take matters further: one on wagon law under the CUV UR and the other on digitalisation of transport documents under the CIM UR. The outcomes of these consultations will then be addressed in detail at the eighth meeting of the Ad-hoc Committee in autumn 2025 (first half of November).
The ad hoc Committee based on the 7th session will discuss future topics for its work programme and in particular, those topics on which it would like to make progress by the next session in November 2025. In particular, the ad hoc Committee will initiate general consultation on the need to revise the CIV UR, CIM UR, CUV UR and CUI UR or relevant common provisions in COTIF. In addition, more specific consultation of stakeholders will be with high priority initiate to revise Article 7 CUV UR and on the movement of empty wagons besides digitalisation of the transport documents in passenger and freight transport.
