Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF)
The Intergovernmental Organization for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) was established on 1 May 1985 following the 1980 Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF 1980), which was subsequently amended by the Vilnius Protocol of 3 June 1999 (now COTIF 1999). COTIF is OTIF’s foundational text, governing the organization's operations, objectives, relations with member countries, and general activities.
The Uniform Rules Concerning the Contract of International Carriage of Goods by Rail provides a legal basis for the electronic consignment note. Indeed, “the consignment note and its duplicate may be established in the form of electronic data registration which can be transformed into legible written symbols. The procedure used for the registration and treatment of data must be equivalent from the functional point of view, particularly so far as concerns the evidential value of the consignment note represented by those data”.
Provisions relevant to the cross-border paperless trade : Uniform Rules Concerning the Contract of International Carriage of Goods by Rail (CIM - Appendix B to the Convention)