Opinion ID: 772932
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Hague Protocol

Text: 39 FedEx also contends that this case is not governed by the Original Warsaw Convention, but rather by the Warsaw Convention as modified by the international agreement referred to as the Hague Protocol. See Protocol to Amend the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air signed at Warsaw on 12 October 1929, Sept. 28, 1955, 478 U.N.T.S. 371 (Hague Protocol). The Hague Protocol, which eliminates some of the formalities required under Articles 8 and 9 of the Original Warsaw Convention, was ratified by Japan on November 8, 1967, but did not enter into force for the United States until another international agreement, Montreal Protocol No. 4, was ratified by the Senate on September 28, 1998 and became effective on March 4, 1999. See Montreal Protocol No. 4 to Amend the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air Signed at Warsaw on 12 October 1929 as amended by the Protocol done at the Hague on 28 September 1955, Sept. 25, 1975, Message Transmitting Two Related Protocols, reprinted in S. Exec. Rep. No. 105-20, art. XVII(2); Chubb, 214 F.3d at 307 n. 4. 40 As amended by the Hague Protocol, Article 9 deprives carriers of the Convention's limited liability protections only if cargo is loaded on board the aircraft without an air waybill having been made out or if the air waybill does not include the notice required by Article 8, paragraph (c). The revised version of Article 8(c) requires the carrier to give the consignor notice 41 to the effect that, if the carriage involves an ultimate destination or stop in a country other than the country of departure, the Warsaw Convention may be applicable and that the Convention governs and in most cases limits the liability of carriers in respect of loss of or damage to cargo. 42 Warsaw Convention, art. 8(c) (as amended by the Hague Protocol). FedEx argues that the adoption of the Hague Protocol prior to the decision of the trial court in this case effectively abated the operation of the provisions of the Original Warsaw Convention, or that, in the alternative, it would be able to avail itself of the liability limitations of the Convention under the terms as amended by the Hague Protocol. 43 In response, Fujitsu argues that applying the Hague Protocol to facts that took place almost two years before that agreement's entry into force for the United States would conflict with our recent conclusion in Chubb that the Hague Protocol not be given retroactive effect. See Chubb, 214 F.3d at 307 n. 4 (Because the actions giving rise to this suit occurred in 1995, Montreal Protocol No. 4 does not affect this case.) (citing 1 RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 322(1) (1987)). 44 However, FedEx's principal argument is not that the Hague Protocol should be given retroactive effect, but rather that the Original Warsaw Convention cannot prospectively be enforced following the Hague Protocol's entry into force. This theory is advanced under the common law doctrine of abatement, in which a court is without power to enforce inchoate rights or imperfect obligations under statutes that have been repealed or amended, but not explicitly saved or preserved at the time of repeal or amendment. See Hertz v. Woodman, 218 U.S. 205, 217-18 (1910); United States v. Mechem, 509 F.2d 1193, 1194-95 & n.3 (10th Cir. 1975); see also 1A SUTHERLAND STAT. CONST. § 23.33, at 424-25 (Norman J. Singer ed., 5th ed. 1993) (Under common-law principles, all rights, liabilities, penalties, forfeitures and offences which are of purely statutory derivation and unknown to the common law are eliminated by the repeal of the statute which granted them, irrespective of the time of their accrual.). 45 In order to avoid the potentially disruptive implications of this common law rule, Congress has enacted a general savings statute, 1 U.S.C. § 109, which provides that 46 [t]he repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred under such statute, unless the repealing Act shall so expressly provide, and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or liability. 47 1 U.S.C. § 109. This provision operates to preserve both civil and criminal statutory liabilities. See Hertz, 218 U.S. at 217-18. Whether the earlier statute has been amended or repealed outright is of no consequence; the general savings statute applies in either instance. See Mechem, 509 F.2d at 1194-95 & n. 3. Therefore, if the Hague Protocol and Montreal Protocol No. 4 were statutes rather than treaties, the provisions of the Original Warsaw Convention would remain applicable under the general savings statute in 1 U.S.C. § 109 to conduct that took place prior to the Hague Protocol's entry into force for the United States in March 1999. This is so notwithstanding the fact that neither the Hague Protocol nor Montreal Protocol No. 4 contains its own savings provision. 48 However, FedEx maintains that treaties do no fall within the ambit of 1 U.S.C. § 109, arguing that as a statutory exception to a traditional common law rule, the general savings clause must be interpreted narrowly so as not to apply to treaties but only to statutes. See e.g. Rodgers v. United States, 158 F.2d 835, 836-37 (6th Cir. 1947) (since predecessor to 1 U.S.C. § 109 prescrib[es] a rule differing from that of the common law, it cannot be interpreted to include repealed regulations, but must be strictly construed and limited to repealed statutes). FedEx argues that because courts cannot enforce any statutory or treaty remedy that is no longer in effect and has not been saved, the remedy under Article 9 of the Original Warsaw Convention, which provides for unlimited liability for clerical omissions in air waybills, was abated and extinguished upon entry into force of the Hague Protocol and Montreal Protocol No. 4 (and the concurrent repeal of the Original Warsaw Convention) on March 4, 1999. 49 While we resolved the retroactivity of the Hague Protocol in Chubb, this case presents a distinct issue of first impression: whether the rights and liabilities of the Original Warsaw Convention were abated and extinguished by entry into force of the Hague Protocol. As FedEx correctly argues, the answer to that question does not logically depend upon whether the Hague Protocol is to be given retroactive effect. Indeed, while FedEx does urge us to overrule our recent holding in Chubb and to give limited retroactive effect to the Hague Protocol to fill the gap it perceives to have been left by the repeal of the Original Warsaw Convention, it would be just as possible for us to fill that gap with a rule derived from the law that governed before the Warsaw Convention. C.f. Ruston Gas Turbines, Inc. v. Pan American World Airways, 757 F.2d 29, 30 (2d Cir. 1985) (holding that [d]eregulation of certain common carriers following enactment of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, 92 Stat. 1705, returns us to the common law). Fujitsu's mere recitation of our non-retroactivity holding in Chubb, therefore, is not sufficient to refute FedEx's abatement argument. 50 However, FedEx's enticing argument suffers a crucial flaw: the issue of whether the provisions of a treaty have been abated or extinguished following the entry into force of a subsequent treaty is governed by neither the common law doctrine of abatement nor the general savings statute codified at 1 U.S.C. § 109. Rather, when resolving that question, we apply the rules of customary international law enunciated in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, May 23, 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331 (Vienna Convention). As we did in Chubb, we rely upon the Vienna Convention here as an authoritative guide to the customary international law of treaties. Chubb, 214 F.3d at 309. Because the United States recognizes the Vienna Convention as a codification of customary international law, it considers the Vienna Convention 'in dealing with day-to-day treaty problems' and acknowledges the Vienna Convention as, in large part, the authoritative guide to current treaty law and practice.' Id. at 308; see 1 RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES, pt. III, intro. note, at 144-45 (discussing Vienna Convention's codification of the customary international law governing international agreements and the acceptance of the Convention by the United States). 51 The ongoing effect of treaties under customary international law is not governed by the same rule governing the ongoing effect of statutes under the common law. Rather, customary international law, as recited by the Vienna Convention in some detail, supplies its own distinct set of rules concerning the amendment, modification, suspension, and termination of international agreements. See Vienna Convention arts. 39-41, 54-64. Unlike the common law relating to statutes, customary international law contains no baseline presumption that the provisions of a new agreement automatically abate and extinguish any prior treaty relating to the same subject matter. To the contrary, customary international law governing the effect of treaties furnishes almost the opposite baseline norm, pacta sunt servanda, which provides that a treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith unless the treaty has been affirmatively terminated or suspended. Vienna Convention art. 26; see 1 RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 321 & cmt. a, at 190 (stating that the doctrine of pacta sunt servanda, though subject to international law rules concerning the validity and termination of agreements, lies at the core of the law of international agreements and is perhaps the most important principle of international law); see also Vienna Convention art. 27 (A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.). 52 This contrary presumption is particularly relevant with respect to multilateral treaties such as the Warsaw Convention, because such treaties frequently are modified- but not thereby terminated- by 53 amend[ing] agreements binding only those parties that were willing to accept the amendment while leaving the original or earlier amended agreement still in force to govern relations between the other parties, as well as between the other parties and the amending group. As a result, it has become fairly common for several versions of a multilateraltreaty to exist simultaneously, with different sets of provisions operating between various groups of states. 54 Maria Frankowska, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties Before United States Courts, 28 VA. J. INT'L L. 281, 361-62 (1988). 55 Under Article 59 of the Vienna Convention, an international agreement is deemed to have been terminated by conclusion of a later treaty only if all of the parties to the first agreement conclude a later agreement relating to the same subject matter and either 56 (a) it appears from the later treaty or is otherwise established that the parties intended that the matter should be governed by that treaty; or 57 (b) the provisions of the later treaty are so far incompatible with those of the earlier one that the two treaties are not capable of being applied at the same time. 58 Vienna Convention art. 59. In this case, while the Hague Protocol and Original Warsaw Convention clearly relate to the same subject matter, it is equally clear that the Original Warsaw Convention was not terminated by enactment of the Hague Protocol. Not only were all of the parties to the Original Warsaw Convention not parties to the Hague Protocol, but we have already concluded that (a) the parties to the Hague Protocol did not intend for that treaty to govern conduct taking place before entry into force of that agreement, see Chubb, 214 F.3d at 307 n. 4; 1 RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 322(1); and (b) the two treaties are not so far incompatible that they are not capable of being applied at the same time. Vienna Convention art. 59(1)(b). To the fullest extent possible, treaty language is to be interpreted so as to avoid inconsistency. See 1 RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW OF THE UNITED STATES § 332 cmt. f, at 211. By giving effect to the Original Warsaw Convention for conduct taking place before entry into force of the Hague Protocol and effect to the Hague Protocol for conduct taking place after entry into force of that agreement, we easily avoid any possible inconsistency between the two agreements. 59 It is therefore not necessary for us to consider whether FedEx still would be able to invoke the liability limitation under the terms of the Amended Warsaw Convention, for notwithstanding the entry into force of the Hague Protocol in March 1999, we retain the authority to enforce the terms of the Original Warsaw Convention for conduct taking place prior to that date. We do, however, note our view that FedEx would not prevail even under the terms of the Amended Warsaw Convention. Upon its acceptance of the goods for shipment in Austin, FedEx permitted those goods to be loaded onto the aircraft for shipment without a new air waybill, apparently in violation of the requirements of even the amended version of Article 9. It was only upon arrival of the goods for shipment in Memphis that a new air waybill was generated for the return shipment to Narita. 60 Accordingly, we find that the entry into effect of the Hague Protocol during the pendency of this case did not preclude the application of the Original Warsaw Convention to the facts at issue here.