Opinion ID: 768923
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Relations between the United States and South Korea within the Warsaw Convention System

Text: 16 The Warsaw Convention system includes the various laws, treaties and individual contracts governing the international transportation of persons, baggage, and goods by air. No one treaty or contract governs the relationships of one State with other States. A single State might be bound to one version of the Warsaw Convention with one State, another version of the Warsaw Convention with another State, a separate bilateral treaty with another State, and a separate contract with a private party. See Korean Air Lines Disaster, 664 F. Supp. at 1469 (United States bound to at least a portion of Warsaw Convention with South Korea and bound to separate contract with Korean Air Lines); cf. In re Air Disaster at Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988, 928 F.2d 1267, 1270 (2d Cir. 1991) (So much has been written concerning the Convention since its adoption over 50 years ago that we must take care not to get lost in a wilderness of words.). For purposes of this case, we are concerned only with the actions of the United States and South Korea. 17 In 1934, the United States adhered to the Original Warsaw Convention and the Senate ratified the treaty. The treaty entered into force for the United States on October 29, 1934. See United States Department of State, Treaties in Force 342 (1999); 49 Stat. at 3013. At the time the Senate ratified the treaty, the United States (and the world) was in the midst of the Great Depression and the liability provisions in the treaty were thought to provide some benefit to carriers, passengers, and shippers alike. See Jon P. Martin, Tseng v. El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd.: The Second Circuit Further Weakens the Warsaw Convention, 31 Conn. L. Rev. 297, 300 & nn.14-17 (1998); Andreas F. Lowenfeld & Allan I. Mendelsohn, The United States and the Warsaw Convention, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 497, 499-500 & n.12 (1967) (quoting Senate Comm. on Foreign Relations, Message from the President of the United States Transmitting a Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules, Sen. Exec. Doc. No. G, 73d Cong., 2d Sess. 3-4 (1934)). In order to help the then-fledgling air industry, Article 22 of the Original Warsaw Convention limited the liability of air carriers to $8,300 per passenger and $20 per kilogram of goods or baggage. See Original Warsaw Convention, supra, art. 22, 49 Stat. at 3019; Lockerbie, 928 F.2d at 1270-71 (discussing the goal of protecting infant airline industry). In exchange for this limitation, Article 20 created a rebuttable presumption of liability, and other articles created exceptions to Article 22's limited liability. Articles 8 and 9, for example, together created an exception where the air waybill did not contain certain particulars. See Original Warsaw Convention, supra, arts. 8, 9, 20, 22, 49 Stat. at 3016-17, 3019. 18 With the growth of the world economy and the air industry, however, the liability limitation, and particularly the per-passenger limitation, became increasingly unpopular in this and other countries. In 1955, a conference convened at the Hague to resolve the question of whether the liability limits remained at an appropriate level. The result was the Hague Protocol. The Hague Protocol, inter alia, changed some outdated language, doubled the per-passenger liability limitation to $16,600, and removed most of the exceptions to limited liability for shippers of goods. See generally International Air Transport Association, supra. 19 The United States was not satisfied that the increase in per-passenger liability was sufficient, and did not ratify the Hague Protocol. See Treaties in Force, supra, at 342 n.1; Senate Comm. on Foreign Relations, Message from the President of the United States Transmitting Two Related Protocols to the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air, as Amended, Sen. Exec. Doc. No. B, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. V (1977) (Message Transmitting Two Related Protocols). On July 13, 1967, South Korea adhered to the Hague Protocol, but did not separately adhere to the Original Warsaw Convention. See id.; M.J. Bowman and D.J. Harris, Multilateral Treaties: Index and Current Status 202 (1984). In sum, in 1995 when this dispute arose, the United States had ratified the Original Warsaw Convention but not the Hague Protocol, while South Korea had adhered to the Hague Protocol but not the Original Warsaw Convention. 4 20 Whether this dispute arising out of the international carriage of goods by air is governed by a given substantive treaty, such as the Original Warsaw Convention or the Amended Warsaw Convention, depends on whether the places of departure and destination are within the territories of two contracting parties to that treaty. See Original Warsaw Convention, supra, art. 1(1)-(2), 49 Stat. at 3014 (This convention shall apply to all international transportation of persons, baggage, or goods . . . [where], according to the contract made by the parties, the place of departure and the place of destination . . . are situated . . . within the territories of two High Contracting Parties . . . .); Amended Warsaw Convention art. 1(1)-(2) (Original Warsaw Convention art. 1(1)-(2), as amended by the Hague Protocol, supra, art. I, 478 U.N.T.S. at 373, 375) (same). In this case, the carriage occurred between South Korea and the United States. Thus, if South Korea and the United States are both parties to the same one of these substantive treaties, they are in a treaty relationship that governs this dispute. 21 We determine whether States are parties to a substantive treaty by applying the customary international law of treaties, which governs the making, interpretation, amendment, modification, enforcement, etc., of treaties. Customary international law results from a general and consistent practice of states followed by them from a sense of legal obligation. Restatement § 102(2). In some cases, the customary international law of a certain area is itself codified in a treaty. Such is the case with the customary international law of treaties, which to a large extent has been codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, May 23, 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331 (the Vienna Convention).