We provide a unified framework for modeling LIBOR rates using general semimartingales as driving processes and generic functional forms to describe the evolution of the dynamics. We derive sufficient conditions for the model to be arbitrage-free which are easily verifiable, and for the LIBOR rates to be true martingales under the respective forward measures. We discuss when the conditions are also necessary and comment on further desirable properties such as those leading to analytical tractability and positivity of rates. This framework allows to consider several popular models in the literature, such as LIBOR market models driven by Brownian motion or jump processes, the Lévy forward price model as well as the affine LIBOR model, under one umbrella. Moreover, we derive structural results about LIBOR models and show, in particular, that only models where the forward price is an exponentially affine function of the driving process preserve their structure under different forward measures.2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. 91G30, 60G44. Key words and phrases. LIBOR, forward price, semimartingales, LIBOR market models, Lévy forward price models, affine LIBOR models.Financial support from the PROCOPE project "Financial markets in transition: mathematical models and challenges" and the Europlace Institute of Finance project "Post-crisis models for interest rate markets" is gratefully acknowledged.