Bill of Lading in the 2019 Trade Bill with Regard to the Bills of CMR and COTIF

The bill of lading is a document that is the reason for the existence of a transport contract and is issued by the operator or his agent at the request of the sender and the ownership of the goods for its owner, the receipt of the goods by the operator and his obligation to surrender the goods. There is no record of the bill of lading in our jurisprudence and Civil Code and the word bill of lading only in Article 383 of the Commercial Law has been used, but has entered into our domestic laws for the reason of practical necessity in trade and consequently in the transportation of this document with a look at international trade law. In the 2019 Trade Bill which has not yet received the approval of the Council of Guardians, contrary to the Commercial Law of 1932 that the bill of lading is defined and the characteristics and information contained in it are stated. Our legislator in expressing the necessary information contained in the bill of lading to the conventions of Convention on the “Contract for the International Carriage of Goods by Road” (CMR) and Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) noted but in expressing the characteristics of the bill of lading, pointed to cases that are not in line with the above conventions. Contrary to the viewpoint that in land transportation only a roadmap that is a non-transferable document can be issued has accepted the issuance of bill of lading in this type of transportation and ended the disputes in this regard.