Transport insurance of goods has all the elements of an international transaction. The goods themselves move from one country to another, frequently on the high seas. The supplier is in one country, the buyer in another and the carrier may belong to a third country. Consequently, restrictive measures affecting transport insurance inevitably have a direct effect on international trade. It is therefore international trade as a whole which suffers from restrictive measures imposed in relation to transport insurance; and the economy of the country which imposes them loses the benefits to be derived from a free choice of the transport insurance arrangements. If, furthermore, other countries adopt a similar attitude in retaliation, this leads to the paradoxical situation where no commercial transaction remains possible between two countries without violating the law of one or the other.