A Study Of International Airworthiness Liability

From design, production, maintenance, to permanently retirement,airworthiness laws, regulations and rules regulate each civil aircraft inevery second. As an essential criteria measuring aircraft safety,airworthiness regime gains momentum from its popularity in theinternational aviation industry.An unairworthy aircraft would be result from the owner or user violatingrelevant provisions, negligent of authorities, or force majeure. It is atechnical issue to judge an aircraft is airworthy or not. While,“decidingunairworthiness would bring what kind of legal liability to whom”,“howto decide the liability” and “whether there is a limitation or waiver for theliability” are the legal problems raised in practice. Under the internationallegal regime leading by the Chicago Convention, national legislationsinterpret airworthiness liability in different ways. Without plain and feasible legal resource, we should clarify them from the perspective oflaw first. Due to different interpretation in each country, conflict of lawsexists in practice. Besides, the specificity of airworthiness liability shouldbe addressed in the distinction between itself and other liability relate tocivil aircraft.Unairworthiness would bring civil liability, administrative liability,criminal liability, even, and state responsibility on the premise ofemphasizing the principle of continuing airworthiness. Under the existinginternational legal framework, the Chicago Convention and its Annexeslead as major applicable rules when discussing airworthiness. Whilst,bilateral or multilateral airworthiness agreements would help contractingstates implement the Chicago Convention more often. With thisunderstanding， it is necessary to clarify the relationship betweeninternational agreements and national legislations.Cases directly caused by unairworthiness are rarely refereed in the realworld, while, abundant judicial experience touch upon liability forunairworthiness and its accountability exists. The US, EU and Chinesepractice presents their characteristics in four field, which are,responsibility for airworthiness certification, continuing airworthinessliability, the onus of proof and identifying airworthiness liability in aircraft leasing.Under the Chicago Convention system, the liability regime ofInternational airworthiness presents a uniform trend. Nowadays, Chinarebooted Large Aircraft Program, attempt to liberalize low-altitude zone,and promote aviation finance in Shanghai, Tianjin, etc. It might involveairworthiness liability in a large sum of cases. On the basis of currentlegal framework, combined with analyzing vital cases in US, EU andChina, this thesis is aimed to provide insight into internationalairworthiness liability. At the end, I will draw my personal suggestionsspecific to China as a conclusion.