LLM International Maritime Law and Sustainability: Assessment 2 — Research Essay on Dry Ports, Hinterland Connectivity, and the Legal Framework for Multimodal Integration

Institution: Liverpool John Moores University | Programme: LLM International Maritime Law and Sustainability | Module: International Trade and Finance Law (Level 7) | Assessment Type: Individual Research Essay | Weighting: 60% of module grade | Word Count: 4,000 words, excluding references and footnotes | Referencing: Harvard Cite Them Right | Submission: PDF via Canvas | Deadline: Week 12, Semester 2

Assessment Context and Rationale

Liverpool John Moores University LLM International Maritime Law and Sustainability students on the International Trade and Finance Law module complete Assessment 2 as an individual research essay. The assessment requires independent legal research into the regulatory architecture that governs dry ports and hinterland connectivity in landlocked developing countries. The essay tests whether existing international instruments, regional agreements, and domestic legal frameworks provide a coherent basis for multimodal integration or whether regulatory fragmentation and conflicting liability rules undermine the commercial function that dry ports are meant to serve. The brief assumes no access to the module’s Canvas site; all instructions and criteria appear below. Confirm module-specific formatting requirements against your Module Guide before submission.

Task Description

Write a 4,000-word legal research essay answering the following question: To what extent do existing international and domestic legal frameworks support the effective operation of dry ports as multimodal nodes for landlocked developing countries, and what legal reforms are required to resolve conflicts between customs law, carrier liability regimes, and hinterland connectivity obligations?

The essay must address four elements. First, explain the legal character of the Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports and assess whether it creates enforceable obligations or operates as a framework for voluntary coordination. Second, analyse the conflict between carrier lien rights under multimodal transport law and customs priority over abandoned goods at inland dry ports, using the Ethiopian case study as a concrete legal example. Third, evaluate the emerging legal infrastructure for multimodal transport documents, including the UNCITRAL Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents adopted in December 2025, and assess whether that instrument resolves or reproduces existing liability fragmentation. Fourth, propose and defend specific legal reforms, specifying whether domestic legislation should grant multimodal operators priority over customs claims, whether regional dry port agreements should be given binding force, or whether harmonised liability rules should be adopted across corridors serving landlocked states.

Requirements

• Use the Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports (ESCAP), the UNCITRAL Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents (2025), and relevant domestic multimodal transport legislation as primary legal sources; cite instrument titles and provision numbers precisely.
• Analyse the Ethiopian Federal Democratic Republic Customs Proclamation and the multimodal transport lien provisions at issue in Takele and Jaleta (2023), explaining the legal conflict and its commercial consequences.
• Engage with the systematic review of African dry port research (2026) and at least two additional peer-reviewed analyses of dry port governance, multimodal liability, or hinterland connectivity published between 2020 and 2026.
• Include a dedicated section on governance fragmentation, addressing overlapping mandates, inconsistent regulatory frameworks, and the impact of concessioning practices on legal certainty.
• Identify specific implementation weaknesses documented in empirical or institutional research, such as the finding that multimodal operators in Ethiopia lost an estimated USD 1.5 million annually from abandoned containers.
• Cite a minimum of 15 authoritative sources; at least 10 must be peer-reviewed, primary legal materials, or official institutional publications.
• Format the essay with numbered headings. Include a title page, word count declaration, and reference list in Harvard Cite Them Right format.
• Submit through Turnitin. A similarity score above 15% (excluding references) triggers academic integrity review.

Marking Rubric

Criteria align with the LJMU Generic Master’s Marking Criteria and the module’s learning outcomes.

Criterion	Weight	Distinction (70–100)	Merit (60–69)	Pass (50–59)	Fail (Below 50)
Legal knowledge and accuracy	25%	Precise, authoritative use of dry port agreements, multimodal liability instruments, and domestic customs legislation; nuances in the binding/non-binding distinction correctly identified and applied to concrete legal conflicts.	Sound grasp of core instruments; minor imprecisions do not undermine analysis.	Basic understanding; some instruments misapplied or the scope of the Dry Ports Agreement overstated.	Material legal errors; failure to distinguish framework agreements from enforceable obligations.
Critical analysis of regulatory fragmentation	25%	Original, evidence-based critique of the conflict between lien rights and customs priority; identifies non-obvious weaknesses such as the incentive effects of legal uncertainty on private investment and corridor performance.	Clear analysis with adequate evidence; some descriptive passages but competent critique.	Limited critique; largely descriptive account of instruments and case law.	No substantive analysis; summary of sources without evaluation.
Reform proposals and legal reasoning	20%	Proposals are specific, legally coherent, and grounded in doctrinal or comparative evidence; addresses implementation barriers, sovereign resistance, and the relationship between regional and domestic law.	Reasonable proposals with adequate legal justification; some practical gaps.	Generic reform suggestions; weak connection to identified legal conflicts.	No viable proposals or proposals inconsistent with existing treaty architecture.
Research and sourcing	15%	Broad, current, authoritative sources; skilful synthesis of treaty text, domestic legislation, peer-reviewed literature, and institutional data; traceable citations.	Good range; mostly authoritative; adequate synthesis.	Limited range; overreliance on secondary summaries or policy commentary; some unverified claims.	Insufficient sources; unreliable materials; poor citation practice.
Structure, writing, and referencing	15%	Fluent, precise academic prose; logical paragraphing; flawless Harvard Cite Them Right referencing.	Clear writing; minor referencing errors; coherent structure.	Understandable but imprecise; some structural weaknesses; inconsistent referencing.	Poor organisation; frequent errors; referencing absent or incorrect.

Sample Answer: The Lien and Customs Priority Conflict

Ethiopia’s inland dry ports serve as extended destinations for sea cargo, yet the legal rules that govern abandoned goods create a direct conflict between carrier recovery rights and state revenue claims. Takele and Jaleta (2023) demonstrate that Ethiopia’s multimodal transport law grants carriers lien rights to detain cargo and documents to recover sums payable under multimodal contracts, while the customs proclamation grants customs the right to sell abandoned goods by auction and collect duties and taxes before any other payments (https://doi.org/10.4102/jtscm.v17i0.889). The proceeds of sale often prove insufficient to satisfy both claims, and the carrier bears the shortfall. The empirical consequence is substantial: the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise lost an estimated USD 1.5 million annually from abandoned containers in multimodal transport (Takele & Jaleta, 2023). That loss is not an operational inefficiency that better management could eliminate. It follows from a legal priority rule that subordinates private recovery to public revenue. A carrier that anticipates unrecoverable charges will price the risk into its rates or decline certain cargo, which reduces the commercial viability of the dry port as a multimodal node. Legal analysis should therefore treat the priority question as a structural determinant of dry port performance, not as a peripheral dispute about auction proceeds.

Sample Answer: Framework Agreements and Enforceability

The Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports provides a regional framework for coordinating dry port development, yet its legal force depends on ratification and domestic implementation. The Working Group on Dry Ports reported that the number of Parties had increased to 19 by May 2025, with amendments to Annex I entering into force on 5 January 2024 (ESCAP, 2025). Those numbers indicate growing participation, though they do not establish that the Agreement creates enforceable obligations on dry port operations or multimodal liability. The Agreement’s function is coordinative: it identifies dry ports of international importance and encourages harmonisation, but it does not prescribe liability rules or resolve conflicts between domestic customs law and carrier claims. The UNCITRAL Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents, adopted by the General Assembly on 15 December 2025, may fill part of that gap by providing a uniform instrument for multimodal transport documents (ESCAP, 2025). Its entry into force requires ratification by ten States, and its interaction with existing liability regimes remains untested. A framework agreement that facilitates coordination without settling substantive legal conflicts leaves the harder commercial problems to domestic legislatures and courts.

Governance Fragmentation and Private Investment

Systematic review evidence confirms that governance arrangements determine dry port outcomes more reliably than infrastructure investment alone. The review of African dry port research finds that inconsistent regulatory frameworks, overlapping mandates, and fragile concessioning practices undermine efficiency and deter private investment (ScienceDirect, 2026). Those findings align with the Ethiopian case: a carrier facing unclear priority rules and uncertain recovery prospects will discount the value of using an inland terminal. Fragmentation operates at two levels. Vertical fragmentation separates international framework agreements from domestic implementing legislation. Horizontal fragmentation separates customs authorities, port authorities, and transport regulators within the same jurisdiction, each applying its own rules to the same cargo. A dry port that sits at the intersection of these regimes becomes a legal risk point rather than a logistics solution. Reform proposals should therefore address coordination mechanisms as well as substantive rules. A national dry port statute that designates a lead authority, specifies the applicable liability regime, and establishes a dispute resolution procedure would reduce the uncertainty that deters investment.

Does the UNCITRAL Convention Resolve Liability Fragmentation?

A student searching for guidance often asks whether the new UNCITRAL Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents will resolve the liability conflicts that plague multimodal transport. The Convention provides a uniform legal framework for negotiable cargo documents that cover carriage by more than one mode, which addresses a genuine gap in the existing architecture. It does not, however, resolve the priority conflict between carrier lien rights and customs claims, because that conflict arises under domestic revenue law rather than under the law of carriage documents. A carrier holding a negotiable document may still find that the proceeds of an abandoned goods auction go first to customs. The Convention’s contribution lies in standardising the documentary framework, not in reallocating substantive priorities among creditors. Reform proposals should therefore pair support for the Convention’s ratification with domestic legislative amendments that address the priority question. Ratification alone will not change the commercial calculus for a carrier operating into a landlocked hinterland where customs claims outrank its lien.

Corridor Integration and Legal Harmonisation

Regional corridor frameworks offer a practical route to legal harmonisation that global conventions cannot deliver quickly. The ESCAP Working Group has encouraged Parties to integrate dry ports into multimodal transport corridors and to align national laws on multimodal transport (ESCAP, 2025). Corridor-based harmonisation allows a group of States that share a trade route to adopt common rules on liability, documentation, and customs treatment without waiting for global consensus. The risk is that corridor rules may diverge across regions, producing a patchwork that complicates long-haul multimodal movements. A regional agreement that adopts the UNCITRAL Convention as its baseline and adds corridor-specific priority rules would reduce that risk. Legal analysis should assess whether corridor harmonisation can operate alongside the global convention framework or whether it will create competing regimes. The evidence from African dry port research suggests that regional integration frameworks already shape dry port development, which makes corridor-level legal reform a realistic proposition rather than an abstract aspiration.

Conclusion

The legal framework for dry ports and hinterland connectivity remains fragmented between coordinative regional agreements, unratified global conventions, and conflicting domestic rules. The Ethiopian case demonstrates that a priority conflict between carrier lien rights and customs claims can impose measurable annual losses on multimodal operators and undermine the commercial logic of inland terminals. The Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports facilitates coordination without settling substantive conflicts. The UNCITRAL Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents standardises documentary practice without reallocating priority among creditors. Reform should proceed on three tracks: domestic legislative amendments that grant multimodal operators a defined priority over abandoned goods proceeds, ratification and implementation of the UNCITRAL Convention to standardise documentation, and corridor-level harmonisation that addresses the specific legal conflicts arising along shared trade routes. Students who ground their essays in specific provisions, empirical losses, and the distinction between framework coordination and enforceable obligation will satisfy the rubric at the highest band.

References

Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. (2025). Report of the Working Group on Dry Ports on its sixth meeting. Bangkok: ESCAP. https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/d8files/event-documents/ESCAPDP6_5_E.pdf

ScienceDirect. (2026). Dry ports research on African countries: A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis. Case Studies on Transport Policy, 23, 101694. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213624X25003311

Takele, T. B., & Jaleta, M. E. (2023). Conflict of lien laws relating to the sale of abandoned goods carried by multimodal transport in Ethiopia. Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management, 17, a889. https://doi.org/10.4102/jtscm.v17i0.889

United Nations. (2025). Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents. Adopted by the General Assembly, 15 December 2025.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. (2022). Training manual on operational aspects of multimodal transport. UNTTF. https://unttc.org/sites/unttc/files/2022-06/Training%20Manual%20on%20Operational%20Aspects%20of%20Multimodal%20Transport.pdf

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. (2024). Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports, as amended. Bangkok: ESCAP.

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Dry Ports, Hinterland Connectivity and the Limits of Multimodal Legal Integration

Introduction

Dry ports can reduce the economic distance between landlocked developing countries and seaports, but their commercial value depends as much on law as on infrastructure. An inland terminal that connects rail, road, customs inspection and storage will attract cargo only where traders, carriers and financiers can predict who controls the goods, who may sell them after abandonment, and whose claim takes priority over sale proceeds. The central argument is that existing law supports dry ports as coordinating infrastructure but does not yet support them as reliable multimodal commercial nodes. The Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports encourages coordinated planning, while the United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents standardises documentary practice; neither instrument resolves the priority conflict between carrier liens and customs claims. Ethiopia illustrates the resulting problem: a multimodal transport operator may hold a statutory lien, but customs law can require duties and taxes to be paid before other claims from the proceeds of an abandoned-goods sale (Takele and Jaleta, 2023).

The Legal Character of the Dry Ports Agreement

The Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports, adopted under the auspices of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), defines a dry port of international importance as an inland logistics centre connected to one or more transport modes for handling, storage and regulatory inspection (ESCAP, 2013). Article 2 adopts the list in Annex I as the basis for coordinated development of important nodes in an international intermodal transport and logistics system. Article 3 provides that listed dry ports “should” conform to the guiding principles in Annex II. The drafting choice matters. “Should” signals a cooperative expectation rather than a precise, justiciable duty to build, upgrade or operate a terminal in a particular way.

The Agreement is formally binding between Parties after ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, and it entered into force on 23 April 2016 (ESCAP, 2013). Its obligations, however, are deliberately qualified. Parties must make “every possible effort” to develop listed dry ports consistently with national laws and regulations, while Article 14 makes clear that nothing in the Agreement requires a Party to permit goods to move across its territory (ESCAP, 2013). Annex II likewise directs Parties to establish favourable institutional, administrative and regulatory frameworks, but it leaves the content of customs control and inspection procedures to domestic law. The Agreement therefore creates a framework for coordination, not a self-executing code for multimodal liability or creditor priority.

That design has advantages and costs. It respects state control over borders, revenue collection and infrastructure planning, which makes ratification politically feasible. Conversely, it leaves the commercially decisive questions unresolved: whether a carrier may detain cargo, how long goods may remain at an inland terminal, which authority controls disposal, and how competing claims share auction proceeds. A dry port agreement can identify a node on a map; it cannot by itself make that node bankable.

Ethiopia: Lien Rights Against Customs Priority

Ethiopia demonstrates how a formally integrated dry port can still fail commercially when domestic rules conflict. Article 39 of the Multimodal Goods Transport Proclamation No. 548/2007 gives the multimodal transport operator a lien over goods and transport documents for outstanding payments, including freight and storage charges (Takele and Jaleta, 2023). The lien is intended to protect the operator that advances logistics costs before final delivery. In principle, it gives the carrier a practical remedy: retain control of cargo or documents until the debtor pays.

Customs law points in the opposite direction. Under Ethiopia’s Customs Proclamation No. 859/2014, customs may treat goods abandoned at an inland dry port as forfeited and sell them by auction; the legislation gives customs priority to collect duties and taxes from the proceeds before other payments (Takele and Jaleta, 2023). The conflict is therefore not merely interpretive. If sale proceeds are insufficient, the carrier’s lien may yield nothing after customs satisfies its revenue claim. Takele and Jaleta (2023) conclude that multimodal operators’ uncollected charges should take priority over tax and duties, precisely because the current allocation shifts logistics losses onto private operators.

The commercial consequences are direct. Takele and Jaleta (2023) report that the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise lost an estimated USD 1.5 million annually from abandoned containers in multimodal transport. A carrier cannot recover that loss from cargo that has already been sold, particularly where proceeds cover little more than taxes and basic disposal costs. It must instead raise freight rates, restrict credit terms, avoid vulnerable cargo or withdraw from certain inland routes. Each response weakens the dry port’s function as a competitive gateway.

The priority rule also affects incentives beyond the immediate dispute. Importers may have less reason to clear goods promptly if the operator, rather than the state, absorbs much of the delay cost. Customs receives revenue first, but the wider economy may lose reliable logistics capacity, lower trade costs and private investment in inland terminals. Legal uncertainty thus operates as a hidden tax on hinterland connectivity.

Governance Fragmentation

Dry ports sit at the meeting point of customs, transport regulation, port administration, concession contracts and local planning. Fragmentation arises vertically when international agreements rely on domestic implementation, and horizontally when customs authorities, transport regulators and terminal operators apply different rules to the same consignment. The ESCAP Agreement contemplates coordination, but it does not create a single authority with power to resolve disputes between revenue agencies and multimodal operators (ESCAP, 2013).

Concessioning intensifies the problem. A private terminal operator may hold contractual rights to manage storage, handling and security, while the state retains customs jurisdiction and the carrier retains contractual lien rights. Where the concession agreement does not allocate risk for abandoned cargo, each party may assume another will bear the loss. The result is delay, disputed storage charges and reluctance to invest in equipment or digital systems. Research on African dry ports similarly identifies inconsistent regulatory frameworks, overlapping mandates and fragile concessioning practices as factors that undermine efficiency and deter private investment (Case Studies on Transport Policy, 2026).

The problem is not that states lack authority. It is that authority is distributed without a clear hierarchy. Customs legitimately protects revenue and prevents smuggling; carriers legitimately need security for advances; terminal operators need predictable cash flow. A workable dry port regime must reconcile those interests through express priority rules, not leave them to be settled after goods have been sold.

Negotiable Cargo Documents and Their Limits

The United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents, adopted by the General Assembly on 15 December 2025 and recommended as the “Accra Convention”, establishes a uniform framework for negotiable documents of title in paper or electronic form, regardless of transport mode (UNCITRAL, 2025). Its purpose is to extend the commercial functions associated with maritime bills of lading to multimodal carriage. A document that represents goods in transit can support transfer of control, financing and delivery against presentation, including in electronic form (UNCITRAL, 2026).

The Convention addresses a real gap. Landlocked trade often involves several carriers, border crossings and inland terminals, but documentary practice has historically been strongest at the maritime leg. A uniform negotiable cargo document may reduce documentary risk, improve financing opportunities and make it easier to transfer goods while they move through a corridor. UNCITRAL expressly links a sound legal framework to lower trade costs and better integration of landlocked countries into global supply chains (UNCITRAL, 2026).

Its limits are equally important. The Convention governs the issuance and use of negotiable cargo documents; it does not decide whether customs or a multimodal operator has priority over proceeds from the sale of abandoned goods. A carrier may hold a valid electronic document and still find that Ethiopian customs law directs auction proceeds first to duties and taxes. Documentary harmonisation therefore improves transactional certainty but does not reallocate creditor priority. Ratification should be paired with domestic amendments to customs and multimodal transport legislation.

Reform Priorities

Domestic law should first resolve the priority conflict. Legislatures should amend customs legislation to create a defined, capped priority for verified multimodal transport charges, including freight, demurrage, storage and reasonable disposal costs, before residual proceeds are applied to duties and taxes. The rule should not give carriers an unlimited claim against public revenue. It should protect the actual cost of preserving, handling and disposing of cargo, supported by invoices or a statutory tariff. This preserves customs’ primary claim to duties and taxes while preventing the state from transferring avoidable logistics losses to private operators.

Second, states should enact a national dry port statute or designate a lead authority. The statute should identify the applicable customs, liability and document rules; establish a single procedure for declaring goods abandoned; set clear notice periods; require valuation and transparent auction processes; and create a fast-track administrative tribunal for disputes between customs, carriers and terminal operators. Such legislation would translate the ESCAP Agreement’s general call for favourable institutional frameworks into enforceable domestic arrangements (ESCAP, 2013).

Third, regional corridor agreements should become more binding in relation to specific operational rules. States sharing a corridor could adopt common rules on liability allocation, abandoned cargo procedures, electronic documentation and mutual recognition of customs controls. A regional instrument need not displace the ESCAP Agreement. It could operate as a corridor-level implementation protocol, using the Accra Convention as the documentary baseline and adding priority rules tailored to the corridor’s trade pattern. This approach reduces the risk that global harmonisation arrives too slowly while avoiding an uncoordinated patchwork of national rules.

Conclusion

Existing law supports dry ports as objects of coordinated planning, but it does not adequately support them as dependable multimodal commercial nodes. The ESCAP Agreement creates a useful regional framework, yet its qualified language leaves core operational and liability questions to domestic law. Ethiopia shows the cost of that gap: a carrier’s statutory lien can be defeated in practice by customs priority over proceeds from abandoned goods, producing recurring losses and weaker hinterland connectivity. The Accra Convention improves multimodal documentation but leaves the priority conflict untouched. Effective reform therefore requires three connected measures: domestic priority rules for verified logistics charges, a national dry port authority with clear dispute-resolution powers, and binding corridor agreements that harmonise customs treatment, liability and electronic documents.

References

Case Studies on Transport Policy (2026) Dry ports research on African countries: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213624X25003311 (Accessed: 4 November 2026).

Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) (2013) Intergovernmental Agreement on Dry Ports. Bangkok: United Nations. Available at: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3881683/files/E_ESCAP_69_L.9-EN.pdf (Accessed: 4 November 2026).

Takele, T.B. and Jaleta, M.E. (2023) ‘Conflict of lien laws relating to the sale of abandoned goods carried by multimodal transport in Ethiopia’, Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management, 17, a889. doi:10.4102/jtscm.v17i0.889.

United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) (2025) United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents (New York, 2025). Available at: https://uncitral.un.org/en/ncdconvention (Accessed: 4 November 2026).

United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) (2026) United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents with Explanatory Note. Vienna: United Nations. Available at: https://uncitral.un.org/sites/default/files/2026-05/ncd_convention_ebook_eng.pdf (Accessed: 4 November 2026).

Suggested Scholarly Resources

• Notteboom, T., Pallis, A. and Rodrigue, J.-P. (2022) Port Economics, Management and Policy. London: Routledge. Available at: https://www.routledge.com/Port-Economics-Management-and-Policy/Notteboom-Pallis-Rodrigue/p/book/9780367688258

• Wilmsmeier, G. and Monios, J. (2020) ‘Institutional structures and processes in port governance’, in The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Transport and Management. London: Routledge. Available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429466988-14/

• Roso, V., Woxenius, J. and Lumsden, K. (2019) ‘The dry port concept: connecting container seaports with the hinterland’, Journal of Transport Geography, 17(5), pp. 338–345. doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2008.10.008

• World Bank (2020) COVID-19 and the Maritime and Logistics Sector in Africa. Washington, DC: World Bank. Available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/f5c4e250-c62f-5bfc-b750-fafc5b72d2bf

• United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2022) Training Manual on Operational Aspects of Multimodal Transport. Available at: https://unttc.org/sites/unttc/files/2022-06/Training%20Manual%20on%20Operational%20Aspects%20of%20Multimodal%20Transport.pdf