By the 1920s, commercial traders had developed a set of
trade terms to describe their rights and liabilities with
regards to the sale and transport of goods. These trade
terms consisted of short abbreviations for lengthy contract
provisions. Unfortunately, there was no uniform
interpretation of them in all countries, and therefore
misunderstandings often arose in cross-border transactions.
To improve this aspect of international trade, the
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris developed
Incoterms or
Internacional Commerce Terms, a
set of uniform rules for the interpretation of international
commercial terms defining the costs, risks, and obligations
of buyers and sellers in international transactions. First
published in 1936, these rules have been periodically
revised to account for changing models of transport and
document delivery. These rules reflect state of the art
transportation practices and closely corresponds to the U.N.
Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.
The current version is Incoterms 2000.
Incoterms deal with
the questions related to the delivery of the products from
the seller to the buyer. This includes the carriage of
products, export and import clearance responsibilities, who
pays for what, and who has risk for the condition of the
products at different locations within the transport
process. Incoterms are always used with a geographical
location and do not deal with transfer of title.
They are devised and published by the International
Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The English text is the original
and official version of Incoterms 2000, which have been
endorsed by the United Nations Commission on International
Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Authorized translations into 31
languages are available from ICC national committees.
