The negotiable instrument, which is essentially a document embodying a right to the payment of money and which may be transferred from person to person, developed historically from efforts to make credit instruments transferable; that is, documents proving that somebody was in their debt were used by creditors to meet their own liabilities. Thus, a promise of A to pay B a certain sum at a specified date in the future could be used by B to pay a debt to C. This “negotiability of credit” was facilitated by the development of a variety of negotiable instruments including promissory notes, checks, and drafts (bills of exchange). These are in fact the most common negotiable instruments in use, and the following discussion will be confined to them.

Negotiable instruments are used for purposes of payment or credit and as security. Sometimes one instrument may perform all three functions. A typical “trade bill” used in connection with an inland or an export sale serves as an example of this: the seller, according to a clause of the contract of sale, may draw a bill on the buyer (that is, prepare a “promise to pay” that the buyer must sign) or, in the case of an overseas buyer, on a bank acting for the buyer, payment to be made within the agreed time (such as 30, 60, or 90 days after delivery). The buyer or his bank signs the bill as drawee and thereby becomes acceptor. On return of the instrument the seller may use this accepted bill to pay his own debts or may sell it to his bank (discounting). The buyer may also, although this is not typical for commercial transactions, draw a check on his own bank and send it to the seller.

The most common and most complex form of negotiable instrument is the draft, or bill of exchange. It has been defined in England as an unconditional order in writing addressed by one person to another, signed by the person giving it (the drawer), and requiring the person to whom it is addressed (the drawee) to pay on demand or at a fixed or determinable future time a certain sum of money to, or to the order of, a specified person (the payee) or to the bearer. In the United States the definition is the same, except that an instrument may only be made payable “to order or to bearer.” If the drawee assents to the order and accepts the bill, which is done by signing his name, or his name with the word “accepted,” across the face of the paper, he is called an acceptor. The person to whom a bill is transferred by endorsement is called the endorsee. Any person in possession of a bill, whether as payee, endorsee, or bearer, is termed a holder and, if he is a bona fide purchaser, a holder in due course.

The basic rule applying to drafts is that any signature appearing on a draft obligates the signer to pay the amount drawn. It is the characteristic feature of a draft that it is not limited to the three-cornered relationship among drawer, drawee, and the named or unnamed creditor. Rather, the creditor may transfer it (for purposes of payment or borrowing) to a fourth party, and the latter may transfer it to a fifth, and so on, in a long chain. The means of accomplishing a transfer from one creditor to another is by endorsement or delivery. If an instrument is payable “to order,” the signature (endorsement) of the transferor is required. The draft is then delivered to the new creditor. If the instrument is payable “to bearer,” delivery alone suffices. Endorsement transfers the rights of the endorser to the new holder and also creates a liability of the endorser for payment of the amount of the draft if the drawee does not meet payment when the draft becomes due.

A failure to pay a draft must be more or less formally ascertained (in continental Europe through a formal “certificate of dishonour”). Upon due notice of dishonour, the holder of the draft may claim payment from any endorser whose signature appears on the instrument, and he in turn may claim from prior endorsers, from the drawee, and from the drawer.

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The necessity of unifying the legal rules relating to negotiable instruments used in international trade has long been felt, and considerable success in this direction has been achieved. The principal rules in English law are laid down in the Bills of Exchange Act of 1882. This act spread through the whole Commonwealth and also influenced the United States Negotiable Instruments Act proposed in 1896 and eventually adopted throughout the United States. This latter act has since been replaced by article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code. On the Continent uniformity between the French and the German approach was first achieved at two conferences held at The Hague in 1910 and 1912 and finally by two Geneva conventions of 1930 and 1931 on uniform laws for drafts, promissory notes, and checks. These latter agreements included some uniform provisions on conflicts of law. These have been adopted by most European countries and by many states in other parts of the world. Neither England nor the United States accepted these conventions, however, partly for fear of upsetting the uniformity already achieved in the Anglo-American orbit.