The college of International Transport and Logistics "CITL" organizes a workshop for the League of Arab states that concerns with Rotterdam Rules under the title of "Rotterdam Rules: The Arab vision". His Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Farghaly, the President of AASTMT entrusted CITL to organize this workshop according to the mandatory of Arab Transport Ministers Council in its resolution No. 327 for the year 2009, that held in its 22nd Session, on October 29, 2009. The Rotterdam Rules included the United Nations Convention that concerned with the International transportation Contracts of Goods whether they are transported totally or partially by sea, Where these Rules were adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 11, 2008 and they were signed on September 23, 2009 at Rotterdam and for that it was called Rotterdam rules for the year 2008, however these rules were signed by 21 countries which are Armenia, Cameroon, Congo, Denmark, France, Gabon, Ghana, Greece, Guinea, Madagascar, Netherlands, Mali, Niger, Norway, Poland, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, Togo and the United States of America, but still without any ratification from these signed countries of which at least 20 should ratify in order to allow these rules to be applicable as well as without any of the Arab countries participation. More over, Rotterdam Rules build upon the other previous conventions relating to the international transportation of goods by the sea in order to be used as another alternative especially, for the International Convention of Consolidating some provisions relating to Bills of Lading (Brussels, August 25, 1924) "Hague Rules", and its related Protocols "The Hague-Visby Rules", and the United Nations Convention of the maritime transportation of goods "Hamburg Rules" (Hamburg, March 31, 1978).Actually, Rotterdam Rules provide a legal framework which includes many technological and commercial developments that have occurred in the field of maritime transportation during the adoption of those previous conventions including the containerization growth, the increase of "door-to-door" transportation services under a single contract and the development of electronic transfer documents. It is worth mentioning that CITL cooperated with the Arab Society for Commercial & Maritime Law and several organizations & agencies that were chaired by the United Nations Commission on the International Trade Law in organizing a conference at Alexandria Library on April 2009 that concerned with the Rotterdam Rules And for this Workshop, it will include the participation of the Transport and Tourism committees at the Arab League, the Arab labor unions in the fields of transportation, transferring goods and ports, many businessmen with their organizations, the concerned scientific societies and the faculties of commerce and law from the Arab the Republic of Egypt and from other Arab countries as well as the official delegations from the Arab League and the Secretariat of the League.
