| As the saying goes, "the importance of insurance, like many of life's essentials, is most evident when it is not available". The fateful terrorist events of September 11, 2001, amply demonstrated the indisputable fact that, as a risk management tool, conventional insurance has inherent limitations so far as coverage of the air transport industry's exposure to the most catastrophic risks -- aviation war and terrorism risks -- is concerned. September 11, 2001, also demonstrated the fact that states and their governments have a role to play in the provision of insurance coverage for aviation war and terrorism risks to the air transport industry and, by logical extension, to all other areas of economic endeavor. On the strength of these revelations, a global search for a viable and sustainable means of providing the global air transport industry with insurance or other equivalent financial coverage for aviation war and terrorism risks began in earnest in 2001. Several concepts and ideas were (and are still being) proposed and implemented in that regard, and ultimately, an international treaty addressing the issue (albeit from a different perspective) was adopted and opened for signature in May 2009 under the auspices of ICAO. This dissertation explores the central problems underlying the insurance by conventional means of aviation war and terrorism risks. It then analyzes some of the most prominent concepts and ideas proposed and/or implemented in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, to determine whether (and how) they avoid the pitfalls that are responsible for the inability of conventional insurance markets to provide coverage for aviation war and terrorism risks in a sustainable manner. The dissertation constitutes an original contribution to the development of legal knowledge in the sense that it applies analytical principles derived from the disciplines of law and economics and behavioural law and economics to determine the sustainability and viability of new/proposed legal regimes governing the insurance of catastrophic aviation war and terrorism risks. |
