International transportation of goods across the region is covered by numerous international legal instruments, including international conventions, other multilateral, including subregional, as well as bilateral agreements.
Having faced the pandemic crisis in 2020, most of ESCAP member States had to urgently issue ad-hoc policies and domestic regulations in attempts to prevent or limit the spread of COVID-19 disease through their borders, often without warning or consulting their counterparts. These measures and policies were introduced and implemented often in breach of the rules for international transportation established under international legal instruments.
This situation showcased that existing legal instruments covering international carriage of goods and passengers may lack provisions on cooperation while dealing with critical situations such as the current crisis or other potential extraordinary situations which may be disrupting the usual way of operation of international supply and logistics chains.
Based on this lesson and with a view to elaborate recommendations on coordinated response for potential future crises, the UNESCAP took stock of the current bilateral and multilateral agreements on international transport available in Asia and the Pacific Region (road and rail), and analysed the availability of clauses related to crisis response and mutual assistance in emergency situations in those legal instruments.
In this context, the UNESCAP Transport Division is organizing this Webinar as part of the UN-wide project on Transport and trade connectivity in the age of pandemics to present and discuss the key findings of the above-mentioned work, both for road and rail transport, and related next steps, which may include formulation of proposals for crisis-response provisions in regional and bilateral transport agreements of the ESCAP member States and/or elaboration of a model bilateral agreement with insertion of such recommended clauses.
It will conclude by discussing the collaborative actions at the regional level that may be necessary to support this process in Asia and the Pacific.
For more information please access: https://www.unescap.org/events/2021/capacity-building-webinar-road-and-rail-transport-agreements-context-covid-19-crisis