Profile
The KOLT Center for Logistics and Transport Law was founded by Professor Andreas Furrer in autumn 2014, and is active in the field of national and international logistics and transport law.
The KOLT Center focuses on both transport law and logistics law. It was founded with the aim of bringing more structure into Swiss transport law, analysing individual questions and improving the knowledge of logistics and transport law in both teaching and practice.
The KOLT Center focuses on both transport law and logistics law excluding traffic law, the certificates of modes of transport or infrastructure projects.
Transport law takes into account all modes of transportation, including multimodal transportation. Despite its key role in the Swiss economy, transport law is rarely dealt with in Switzerland. Very few rulings on the subject have been passed in Switzerland to date. Aside from international sources, the majority of today’s legislation is outdated and incomplete, and most legal texts are vague.
Modelled on the commercial definition, the legal concept of logistics law encompasses the various value-adding steps within a supply chain management system. Logistics law looks at the effects this comprehensive economic approach could have on each of the relevant fields of law, and how this analysis could be used to develop an equally comprehensive legal approach. Logistics law is at the intersection of many legal areas including sourcing and distribution law, storage law, the law applicable to quality assurance, and legal issues related to additional services and products. It interfaces with both the public law and civil law aspects of customs and foreign trade law. While in practice, this overarching perspective can be observed in general terms and conditions and contracts it is rarely addressed in legislation and case law, or applied by German-language theory. As a legal concept, logistics law has yet to be established in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The KOLT Centre aims to establish the concept of “logistics law” in the German-speaking world.