Liability for air carriage under the Warsaw system in municipal courts

Abstract

This thesis examines the interpretation of the Warsaw Convention and its amendments and supplement by the courts of several countries. The Warsaw Convention was chosen as the vehicle for comparison because it is one of the oldest treaties unifying a certain area of private law and consequently has a time span sufficient to allow the appearance and development of problems in the application of a uniform law convention and their analysis in proper perspective. The thesis attempts to explain why the courts of the several countries examined often arrived at conclusions which differed although they were applying a text which, apart from the difficulties and errors of translation, was identical. This examination reveals many problems that arise in the application of uniform law conventions. The underlying causes for these problems are explained and analyzed. The examination of the interpretations given to the Warsaw Convention by the courts of the countries examined and the analysis of the reasons for divergencies in these interpretations enabled the isolation of a number of factors which led to these differences. Finally, the thesis offers a number of proposals for reducing the extent of this divergence in the interpretation of present and future uniform law conventions. Show more