TT Talk – Adoption of the United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents

On 15 December 2025, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents (the Convention). This is a landmark convention, extending the long-established benefits of maritime bills of lading to all modes of transport. It was developed under the auspices of UNCITRAL, which is the legal body at the United Nations responsible for modernising and harmonising international trade law. It will be open to countries for signature after a ceremony to be held later in 2026 in Accra, Ghana, and will enter into force 180 days after ten countries have ratified it.

The Convention creates a new type of cargo document (which can be paper or electronic), which enables cargo carried by road, rail, air, sea (or a combination thereof) to be purchased, sold or used as collateral for trade finance whilst in transit.  Whilst this practice has long been in place for maritime trade under bills of lading, the same flexibility has not previously existed for other modes of transport. This has become increasingly important in global commerce as new trade routes (often serving land-locked countries) open up across Africa, central Asia and Europe. 

Organisations such as the International Chamber of Commerce Banking Commission and Global Shippers Forum support the ratification of the Convention as it facilitates access for shippers to trade finance to improve the efficiency of their supply chains, whilst providing the certainty and security of a harmonised legal framework to their bankers. The International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) has also been heavily involved in the shaping of the Convention given the opportunities and benefits that it offers to freight forwarders and transport operators to improve and enhance end-to-end multimodal transport efficiency. In practice, freight forwarders already use multimodal transport documents, such as the negotiable FIATA Multimodal Transport Bill of Lading (FBL) to organise end-to-end transportation along complex supply chains. The new Convention strengthens this practice by recognising negotiable multimodal transport documents in paper or electronic form and providing greater legal certainty and harmonisation for multimodal transport. FIATA is ready to assist the industry to make use of NCDs via the FBL and its digital counterpart (eFBL) as soon as the Convention enters into force, and is currently in the process of arranging test transactions and pilot projects with other industry stakeholders.

The NCD is a negotiable document of title, which is issued on mutual agreement between the transport operator and the consignor. It can be issued as a standalone document, or by a simple (but conspicuous) annotation on an existing transport document. There are guidelines in the Convention as to how issue an NCD and what details it should contain. 

It is important to note that the NCD does NOT affect the liabilities of freight forwarders and transport operators under existing law. The explanatory note to the Convention sets this out explicitly as follows: “The Convention focuses exclusively on the issuance and use of NCDs, rather than on the rights and obligations of the parties to the underlying transport contract. This approach ensures that the Convention does not interfere with existing legal regimes governing carrier liability under applicable transport law conventions but instead complements and operates alongside these established frameworks.”

Freight forwarders and transport operators should however be aware of certain obligations arising out of the Convention if they issue NCDs:

• Delivery may only be demanded against the surrender of the NCD; and
• Failure to qualify the particulars provided by the consignor if they are dubious or unverifiable or to note damaged or missing cargo will expose them to liability as they cannot challenge this information against a good‑faith third‑party holder.

TT Club members are thus encouraged to ensure that they are aware of the provisions of the Convention and its implications for their business well in advance of it entering into force. Their staff will ultimately need to be trained on the issuance and use of NCDs. Processes, standard trading terms and insurance policies should also be checked to ensure that there are no gaps or changes needed.

Further information and details can be found online:

United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents (New York, 2025) (the “Accra Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents”) | United Nations Commission On International Trade La