L'article 29 de la Convention de Montreal, clef de voute de la responsabilite du transporteur aerien international

The present thesis deals with Article 29 of the Convention for Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, signed at Montreal on 28 May 1999 ("Montreal Convention"). Article 29 is a central provision in the scheme of liability of the interna-tional air carrier, because it assigns the respective roles of treaty and domestic law in this area. The provision exercises its interface-function between the Convention and the underlying domestic law in three ways: firstly, it deals with the basis of the claims in in-ternational carriage by air; secondly and mainly, it sets the principle of exclusivity of the Convention's liability scheme, with regard to any other basis of claim however founded; thirdly, as an exception to the former principle, it reserves the application of domestic law as to the questions of the standing to sue and the definition of recoverable damages under the Convention. The present work will examine in turns these three aspects and the legal issues they raise.