International Carriage and Goods Group Assignment
International Carriage and Goods Group Assignment
International Carriage and Goods Group Assignment
CARRIAGE OF GOODS
This report comprises of a general overview of the international legal liability framework
applicable to international carriage of goods by air, which is Warsaw Convention of 1929 and
Warsaw Convention 1955. On the other hand, this report will be explaining briefly on its definition,
the history regarding its implementation and development as well as the international views on the
application of this convention will be explained accordingly in this report. There are also reported
law cases regarding to our topic that will be summarized.
BACKGROUND AND HISTORY OF WARSAW
CONVENTION 1929 AND WARSAW CONVENTION 1955
The Warsaw Convention is an international civil aviation convention which regulates
liability, in the event of accident, for international carriage of passengers, luggage or goods
performed by aircraft for reward. It was the first comprehensive legal framework governing
aviation at the international level, playing an essential and a momenteous role in supporting the
development of the sector and establishing a set of principles, most of which are still effective and
constitute the basis of modern aviation law. By the same token, this convention spell out the
essential provisions in which specified the conditions under which airline could be liable for the
death or injury to passengers, loss or damage to baggage and delay, a specified to the limitation of
amount in regard of the compensation that could be claimed, and excluded resort to national laws.
It is also known as a landmark multinational treaty which laid the ground rules for passenger
recovery against air carriers resulting from damage substained on international flights. On the other
hand, the Convention resolved many of the transnational difficulties dacing the budding air
transporation industry, including the possibility disastrous effects of a single, large crash, the lack
of uniform international standards the need for ensuring comparable treatment for similary situated
passengers, and the pontentially serious problem of jurisdiction. The facts that have been stated
above have proven that this Convention is an important and a essential part of aviation history,
since it offers valuable protection around the world, to be more specified, in regard on international
carriages.
Turning to its history and development, by the year of 1923, the government of France
attempted to adopt national laws relating to liability in the carriage by air and realized that the
complex foreign elements of such issue called for unification of law on a wide international level
to prevent the unforeseeable conflicts of law and conflicts of jurisdiction. The purpose of the
Warsaw Convention was to ensure uniform application of certain rules relating to international air
transportation. The need to establish such uniform rules resulted in the First International
Conference on Private Aeronautical Law at Paris on 6th October 1925 where they decided to create
the Comité International Technique d'Experts Juridiques Aériens (CITEJA), a committee assigned
the task of drafting international agreements relating to all aspects of international air law. The
committee delegates a draft relating to the rights and liabilities of air carriers, passengers,
consignors and consignees of goods. After eight days of debate, the draft finally took its final form
as the Warsaw Convention.
As what have been explained aboved, this Committee held several sessions to draft a
convention for consideration at the Second International Conference on Private Air Law held in
the Royal Castle at Warsaw, Poland from 4 to 12 October 1929. It was finally signed on 12 October
1929, and on that day, Warsaw Convention was known as an entitled Convention for the
Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air, has evolved into one of the
most important instruments of private international law. Over the years, several amending
protocols, supplementary instruments, rules, and regulations have been added which, collectively
with the original Convention, are called the Warsaw System. 65 delegates from thirty-three nations
attended this Conference; perhaps, the location of the Conference and the fact that it was
independent of the League of Nations induced an important number of countries to send their
delegations to Warsaw.
As results, The Convention has since been revised by the Hague Protocol in 1955, the
Guadalajara Convention in 1961, the Guatemala Protocol in 1971 and most recently the four
additional Montreal Protocols in 1975. Therefore, their practical effect on the Warsaw Convention
has been to create a web of approximately fourteen liability schemes.