| On 31 November 2003 the 1999 Montreal Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air entered into force. Its purpose was to consolidate and modernize the Warsaw system and to reunify the provisions of several international instruments of private international air law under one legal instrument. The Montreal Convention consolidates the positive elements of the Warsaw Convention, the Hague Protocol, the Guadalajara Convention, the Guatemala City Protocol and Additional Protocol Numbers 3 and 4. It also simplifies and modernizes the requirements of documentation relating to the carriage by air of passengers, baggage and cargo. Most importantly, the Montreal Convention modernizes of the liability regime for death and injury to passengers by adopting the passenger liability regime in the IATA Inter-carrier Agreement. It also modernizes the liability regime for damage to baggage and cargo and the delay. In spite of the foregoing, the Montreal Convention fails to advance the unification of private international air law any further than the Warsaw Convention.; This thesis analyzes the provisions of liability regimes under the Warsaw System and the 1999 Montreal Convention. Chapter one studies the liability regime established under the original Warsaw Convention and the subsequent attempts by states, air carriers and other interested entities to update it. Chapter two analyzes the new regime of unlimited liability established by the 1999 Montreal Convention. Chapter three examines the liability of the air carrier for damage caused by terrorist activities. In an effort to demonstrate the innovative elements of the new Convention and to encourage states to ratify it, chapter four surveys the main benefits that have accrued to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its national air carrier upon ratification of the 1999 Montreal Convention. |
