For instance, although Article I(c) of the Rules exempts live animals and deck cargo, section 1(7) restores those items into the category of "goods".
A controversial provision exempts the carrier from liability for "neglect or default of the master ... in the navigation or in the management of the ship".
When, after 44 years of experience, the 1924 rules were updated with a single minor amendment, they still covered only carriage wholly by sea (thereby ignoring multi-modal transport), and they barely acknowledged the container revolution of the 1950s.
[4][5] Also, UNCTAD felt that they had actually diluted the protection to shippers once provided by English common law, and proposed instead the more modern Hamburg Rules of 1978, which were embraced by many developing countries, but largely ignored by ship-operating nations.
The modern Rotterdam Rules, with some 96 articles, have far more scope and cover multi-modal transport but remain far from general implementation.