Research On The Legal Issues Of Liberalization Of The International Air Transport

With the incredible development of international air transport, the network has been globally taken shape, which needs a multilateral legal system to meet the international requirement. Unfortunately, the existing legal system established by 1944 Chicago Convention cannot keep up with the pace of economic development because it substantially is a bilateral legal system. In 1950s, bilateral legal system can protect the infant aviation industry. With the development of global economic integration, many countries have to adopt various ways to reform it, such as bilateral reform, regional reform, the multilateral reform. For analysis of the legal issues in this reform process, this dissertation is divided into six chapters:The first chapter is an introduction. After analyze the status quo, meaning, purpose and methods, this chapter explore the concept of liberalization of international air transport and related conceptions, aviation liberalism, deregulation, open skies. With deeply analyze the object of air transport liberalization, the author suggest that traffic rights should be understood in a broad way. Lastly, this chapter summary the major legal issues of liberalization, such as market access, ownership and effective control, the application of anti-competition law, doing business rights, the conflict of laws and its solution, the principle of the transparency and so on.ChapterⅡfirstly analyze the establishment of modern international legal framework of air transport, especially its foundation of sovereignty and the rigid principles of reciprocity, but they were initially breakthrough by the Bermuda Agreement, and heavily ruined by the series open skies agreement signed by U.S. after 1970s. The model agreements of liberalization are signed by U.S.-EU and U.S.-China in 2007, which fully exposed the defects of the bilateral legal framework, because it limits the freedom of competition and the air transportation network.ChapterⅢexplores the gradually development of the regional liberalization. As it is very difficult to reach a multilateral aviation agreement, regional liberalization is gradually prosperous in the countries which have the similar political and economic interests or geographical character. There are good prospects for liberalization in Asia-Pacific region, such as Auckland Declaration, Southeast Asia air Transport Markets, unified market between Austrian and New Zealand. A unified European air transport market began to shape up in the signs of "the EU air carrier", because EU had took many measures from "the first package of liberalization program" in 1988 to "the third package of liberalization program" in 1993. In addition, the process of liberalization has also been accelerated in other areas, such as the integration of the North American transportation market, the Southern Common Market and so on.Chapter IV firstly examines the limited multilateral legal framework of current international air transportation, because only the first and second freedom rights can implement multilateral mechanism in the Chicago Convention system. IATA only enjoys the right of tariff regulation in a limited way, while the WTO has no way to cover hard rights of air transport. The airline alliances gradually make up a multilateral framework of soft law because of its gradual penetration into traffic right. At the pressure of WTO, ICAO has also done a large contribution to the liberalization in the fourth and fifth air transport conferences, although it has no substantive impact. As existing multilateral system cannot meet the development of air transportation, the author advocates establishing a multilateral legal framework to promote the development of liberalization.Chapter V discusses the penetration of WTO to air transport service, but there is a very limited coverage because WTO can only regulate 3 items:aircraft repair and maintenance services, air transport sales and marketing services, computer reservation system (CRS) services. With more commitment of WTO members to Air Transport Services Annex, WTO can regulate more air transport service. Although have both favorable factors and inherent difficulties, WTO has a better future to fully regulate air transport because it has a powerful mechanism of periodic review. The author believes that the implementation of reciprocal MFN principles is a good measure to eventually realize the true multilateral legal system.Chapter VI points out the difficulties of China’s air transport liberalization after the analysis of the three stage of the China’s reform. Although outdated civil aviation management system has brought the backward of airlines and infrastructure, China’s government is deregulating the airline and opening up Chinese market of air transport. Especially after the China’s accession to WTO, China has a better future to liberalize air transport market. Finally the author gives some legal proposals for the China’s reform of the liberalization of air transport.