In September, the International Chamber of Commerce released the latest version of the International Commercial Terms, or Incoterms, which go into effect Jan. 1. Among the less obvious changes are attempts by the ICC to better reconcile the issue of cargo security in international trade contracts. The ICC has also set out to better delineate which of the terms apply strictly to ocean-oriented trade and which are to be used for multimodal transactions.

But a key theme in Incoterms 2010 is that the ICC has placed a broader responsibility on buyers and sellers of goods to clearly define troublesome aspects of international transactions, and not to rely simply on the terms as a panacea.

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