Convention
The Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) is OTIF’s basic text. It governs the running of the Organisation, as well as its objectives, attributions, relations with the Member States and its activities in general.
COTIF enables legal interoperability to be extended and technical interoperability to be improved and contributes to the development of multimodal transport. It contains seven Appendices setting out:
- technical functional requirements,
- model contracts for the carriage of passengers and goods.
The model contracts in accordance with COTIF are developed and disseminated by the International Rail Transport Committee.The European Union acceded to COTIF in 2011.
COTIF comprises two parts:
- the Convention itself, which governs the running of OTIF
- the seven Appendices that establish uniform railway law.
