• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.45-85
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• 2005

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of "accident" under the Warsaw system including the Warsaw Convention for the Unification of certain Rules for International Carriage by Air of 1929 and the Montreal Convention of 1999. Most leading case on this subject is Air France v. Saks(470 U.S. 392 (1985)). In the Saks case, it was held that the definition of an accident must be applied flexibly, and most courts have adhered to the definition of accident in Saks case, the application of accident has been less than consistent. However, most cases have held that if the event is usual and expected operation of the aircraft, then no accident has occurred. Courts have also held that where the injury results from passenger's own internal reaction to the usual, normal, and expected operations of the aircraft, it is not caused by an accident. As the Warsaw drafters intended to create a system of liability rules that would cover all hazards of air travel, the carrier should liable for the inherent risks of air travel. It is right in that the carrier is in a better position than the passenger to control the risks during air travel. Most US courts have held that carriers are not liable for one passenger's assault on the other passenger. The interactions between passengers are not part of the normal operations of the aircraft and are therefore not covered by the word "accident" under Art 17 of the Warsaw Convention. It is regretful that the Montreal Convention did not attempt to clarify the concepts of accident in itself. In the light of an emerging tendency to hold the air carrier liable for occurrences that do not exactly go to the operation of the aircraft, it is desirable to regulate that the carrier is liable for an "event" instead of an "accident" in accordance with the Guatemala City protocol.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.3-51
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• 2017

From a historical point of view, while the Warsaw Convention was passed in 1924 to regulate the unified judicial responsibility in the global air transportation industry, protection of airline consumers was somewhat lacking in protecting air carriers. In principle, the air carrier does not bear any obligation or liability when the aircraft is not operated normally due to natural disasters such as typhoon or heavy snowfall. However, in recent years, in developed countries such as the US and Europe, there has been a movement in which regulates the air carriers' obligation to protect their passengers even if there is no misconduct or negligence. Furthermore, the legislation of such advanced countries imposes an obligation on the airlines to compensate the loss separately from damages in case the abnormal operation of the aircraft is not caused by force majeure but caused by their negligence. Under this historical and international context, Korea is also modifying the system of aviation consumer protection by referring to other foreign legislation. However, when compared with foreign countries, our norm has a few drawbacks. First, the airline's protection or care obligations are mixed with the legal liability for damages in the provision, which seems to be due to the lack of understanding of the airline's passenger protection obligation. The liability for damages, which is governed by the International Convention or the Commercial Act, shall be determined by judging the cause of the airline's liability in respect of the damage of the individual passenger in the course of the air transportation. However, the duty to care and the burden for compensation shall be granted to all passengers who feel uncomfortable with the abnormal operation regardless of the cause of the accident. Also, our compensation system for denied boarding due to oversale is too low compared to the case of foreign countries, and setting the compensation amount range differently based on the time for the re-routing is somewhat unclear. Regarding checked-baggage claim, it will be necessary to refund the fee only from the fact that the baggage is delayed without asking whether there is any damage occurred from the delayed baggage. This is the content of the duty to care, which is different from the current Commercial Act or the international convention, in which responsibility is different depending on whether the airline takes all the necessary measures in order to prevent delaying of the baggage. The content of force majeure, which is a requirement for exemption from the obligation to care passengers on the airplane, shall be reconsidered. Maintenance for safe navigation is not considered to be included in force majeure, and connection to airplanes, airport conditions are disputable. According to the EC Regulation, if the cause of the abnormal operation of the airline is force majeure, the airline's compensation obligation is exempted but the duty to care of airline company is still meaningful. Furthermore, even if the main role of aviation consumer protection is on an airline, it is the responsibility of government agencies to supervise the fulfillment of such protection obligations. Therefore, it is necessary for the Korean government to actively take measures such as enforcing incentives for airlines that faithfully fulfill their obligation to care and imposed penalties on the contrary.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.43-77
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• 2010

The development of the aviation industry has exponentially increased the volume of passengers and cargo and gradually expanded the damage scope of all kinds of accidents in the process of transportation. As a result, the need for aviation insurance has accordingly grown bigger and bigger every day. That is why most nations have a law to force mandatory insurance on the aviation industry. However, the Montreal Convention of 1999, which Korea also signed and today has the most extensive effect in the international civil aviation community, offers no clear interpretations about the coverage of aviation insurance along with the Air Transport Business Promotion Act of Korea. The advanced nations of air transport business such as EU, the U. S. A. and Canada prescribe the coverage of aviation insurance and have a law that makes it mandatory for all the passengers and third parties to cover air carrier's liability. EU requires them to include cargo and baggage in scope of coverage, and the U. S. A. and Canada recommend insuring by having a shipper receive a written notice containing information about whether the concerned cargo is insured or not. Making the scope of coverage of aviation insurance clear by law serves several purposes including diversifying risks for air transport companies, providing the victims with enough protection, observing the international accountability required in the air transport industry, and promoting the productive and sustainable growth of the aviation industry. Thus problems with Korea's aviation insurance should be resolved by clearly stating the coverage of aviation insurance that the Korean air carriers and operators need to insure according to the current state of Korea's air transport by consulting the legislations of the advanced nations in air transports. and enacting a law to comprehensively govern Korea's aviation insurance.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.1
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• pp.147-162
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• 1989

The current status of the application and interpretation of the Warsaw Convention and its subsequent Protocols in Asian countries is in its fredgling stages compared to the developed countries of Europe and North America, and there is thus little published information about the various Asian governments' treatment and courts' views of the Warsaw System. Due to that limitation, the accent of this paper will be on Korea and Japan. As one will be aware, the so-called 'Warsaw System' is made up of the Warsaw Convention of 1929, the Hague Protocol of 1955, the Guadalajara Convention of 1961, the Guatemala City Protocol of 1971 and the Montreal Additional Protocols Nos. 1,2,3 and 4 of 1975. Among these instruments, most of the countries in Asia are parties to both the Warsaw Convention and the Hague Protocol. However, the Republic of Korea and Mongolia are parties only to the Hague Protocol, while Burma, Indonesia and Sri Lanka are parties only to the Warsaw Convention. Thailand and Taiwan are not parties only to the convention or protocol. Among Asian states, Indonesia, the Phillipines and Pakistan are also parties to the Guadalajara Convention, but no country in Asia has signed the Guatemala City Protocol of 1971 or the Montreal Additional Protocols, which Protocols have not yet been put into force. The People's Republic of China has declared that the Warsaw Convention shall apply to the entire Chinese territory, including Taiwan. 'The application of the Warsaw Convention to one-way air carriage between a state which is a party only to the Warsaw Convention and a state which is a party only to the Hague Protocol' is of particular importance in Korea as it is a signatory only to the Hague Protocol, but it is involved in a great deal of air transportation to and from the united states, which in turn is a party only to the Warsaw Convention. The opinion of the Supreme Court of Korea appears to be, that parties to the Warsaw Convention were intended to be parties to the Hague Protocol, whether they actually signed it or not. The effect of this decision is that in Korea the United States and Korea will be considered by the courts to be in a treaty relationship, though neither State is a signatory to the same instrument as the other State. The first wrongful death claim in Korea related to international carriage by air under the Convention was made in Hyun-Mo Bang, et al v. Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd. case. In this case, the plaintiffs claimed for damages based upon breach of contract as well as upon tort under the Korean Civil Code. The issue in the case was whether the time limitation provisions of the Convention should be applicable to a claim based in tort as well as to a claim based in contract. The Appellate Court ruled on 29 August 1983 that 'however founded' in Article 24(1) of the Convention should be construed to mean that the Convention should be applicable to the claim regardless of whether the cause of action was based in tort or breach of contract, and that the plaintiffs' rights to damages had therefore extinguished because of the time limitation as set forth in Article 29(1) of the Convention. The difficult and often debated question of what exactly is meant by the words 'such default equivalent to wilful misconduct' in Article 25(1) of the Warsaw Convention, has also been litigated. The Supreme Court of Japan dealt with this issue in the Suzuki Shinjuten Co. v. Northwest Airlines Inc. case. The Supreme Court upheld the Appellate Court's ruling, and decided that 'such default equivalent to wilful misconduct' under Article 25(1) of the Convention was within the meaning of 'gross negligence' under the Japanese Commercial Code. The issue of the convention of the 'franc' into national currencies as provided in Article 22 of the Warsaw Convention as amended by the Hague Protocol has been raised in a court case in Korea, which is now before the District Court of Seoul. In this case, the plaintiff argues that the gold franc equivalent must be converted in Korean Won in accordance with the free market price of gold in Korea, as Korea has not enacted any law, order or regulation prescribing the proper method of calculating the equivalent in its national currency. while it is unclear if the court will accept this position, the last official price of gold of the United States as in the famous Franklin Mint case, Special Drawing Right(SDR) or the current French franc, Korean Air Lines has argued in favor of the last official price of gold of the United States by which the air lines converted such francs into us Dollars in their General Conditions of Carriage. It is my understanding that in India, an appellate court adopted the free market price valuation. There is a report as well saying that if a lawsuit concerning this issue were brought in Pakistan, the free market cost of gold would be applied there too. Speaking specifically about the future of the Warsaw System in Asia though I have been informed that Thailand is actively considering acceding to the Warsaw Convention, the attitudes of most Asian countries' governments towards the Warsaw System are still wnot ell known. There is little evidence that Asian countries are moving to deal concretely with the conversion of the franc into their own local currencies. So too it cannot be said that they are on the move to adhere to the Montreal Additional Protocols Nos. 3 & 4 which attempt to basically solve many of the current problems with the Warsaw System, by adopting the SDR as the unit of currency, by establishing the carrier's absolute liability and an unbreakable limit and by increasing the carrier's passenger limit of liability to SDR 100,000, as well as permiting the domestic introduction of supplemental compensation. To summarize my own sentiments regarding the future, I would say that given the fact that Asian air lines are now world leaders both in overall size and rate of growth, and the fact that both Asian individuals and governments are becoming more and more reliant on the global civil aviation networks as their economies become ever stronger, I am hopeful that Asian nations will henceforth play a bigger role in ensuring the orderly and hasty development of a workable unified system of rules governing international commercial air carriage.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.5
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• pp.53-75
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• 1993

This article is concerned with the comment on "Some New Problems of International Aviation Security-Considerations Forcused on its Legal Aspects". Ever since 1970, in addition to the problem of failure to accept the Tokyo, Hague and Montreal Conventions, there has been also the problem of parties to them, failing to comply with their obligations under the respective treaties, in the form especially of nominal penalties or the lack of any effort to prosecute after blank refusals to extradite. There have also been cases of prolonged detention of aircraft, passengers and hostages. In this regard, all three conventions contain identical clauses which submit disputes between two or more contracting States concerning the interpretation or application of the respective conventions to arbitration or failing agreement on the organization of the arbitration, to the International Court of Justice. To the extent to which contracting States have not contracted out of this undertaking, as I fear they are expressly allowed to do, this promision can be used by contracting States to ensure compliance. But to date, this avenue does not appear to have been used. From this point of view, it may be worth mentioning that there appears to be an alarming trend towards the view that the defeat of terrorism is such an overriding imperative that all means of doing so become, in international law, automatically lawful. In addition, in as far as aviation security is concerned, as in fact it has long been suggested, what is required is the "application of the strictest security measures by all concerned."In this regard, mention should be made of Annex 17 to the Chicago Convention on Security-Safeguarding International Civil Aviation against Acts of Unlawful Intereference. ICAO has, moreover, compiled, for restricted distribution, a Security Manual for Safeguarding Civil Aviation Against Acts of Unlawful Interference, which is highly useful. In this regard, it may well be argued that, unless States members of ICAO notify the ICAO Council of their inability to comply with opecific standards in Annex 17 or any of the related Annexes in accordance with Article 38 of the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, their failure to do so can involve State responsibility and, if damage were to insure, their liability. The same applies to breaches of any other treaty obligation. I hope to demonstrate that although modes of international violence may change, their underlying characteristics remain broadly similar, necessitating not simply the adoption of an adequate body of domestic legislation, firm in its content and fairly administered, but also an international network of communication, of cooperation and of coordination of policies. Afurther legal instrument is now being developed by the Legal Committee of ICAO with respect to unlawful acts at International airports. These instruments, however, are not very effective, because of the absence of universal acceptance and the deficiency I have already pointed out. Therefore, States, airports and international airlines have to concentrate on prevention. If the development of policies is important at the international level, it is equally important in the domestic setting. For example, the recent experiences of France have prompted many changes in the State's legislation and in its policies towards terrorism, with higher penalties for terrorist offences and incentives which encourage accused terrorists to pass informations to the authorities. And our government has to tighten furthermore security measures. Particularly, in the case an unarmed hijacker who boards having no instrument in his possession with which to promote the hoax, a plaintiff-passenger would be hard-pressed to show that the airline was negligent in screening the hijacker prior to boarding. In light of the airline's duty to exercise a high degree of care to provide for the safety of all the passengers on board, an acquiescence to a hijacker's demands on the part of the air carrier could constitute a breach of duty only when it is clearly shown that the carrier's employees knew or plainly should have known that the hijacker was unarmed. The general opinion is that the legal oystem could be sufficient, provided that the political will is there to use and apply it effectively. All agreed that the main responsibility for security has to be borne by the governments. A state that supports aviation terrorism is responsible for violation of International Aviation Law. Generally speaking, terrorism is a violation of international law. It violates the sovereign rights of states, and the human rights of the individuals. We have to contribute more to the creation of a general consensus amongst all states about the need to combat the threat of aviation terrorism. I think that aviation terrorism as becoming an ever more serious issue, has to be solved by internationally agreed and closely co - ordinated measures.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.137-162
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• 2004

Generally the aircraft accident caused a great loss of lives, severe property damages including aircraft's total loss and thus, affect enormous emotional and economic damages to the public. We, therefore, should try every efforts to prevent the re-occurrence of aircraft accident by examining the cause of accident closely and discovering it through aircraft accident investigation. Though the object of an accident investigation is not to apportion blame but to discover a cause or causes of an accident to prevent future accidents, the cause of an accident would play a vital role in determining the liability of the carrier, legal relationship with the third party and jurisdiction, etc. in the aviation litigation. Therefore, it is very important that aircraft accident investigation are carried out by a professional and independent agency. Also, it needs for us to be careful in applying investigation results in the courts not to be deterrent to discovering the cause of accident. Korea now has the Aviation Accident Investigation Agency Board under the Korean Ministry of Construction and Transportation, but unfortunately it is often pointed out that it lacks professionalism and independency due to the bureaucratism of the Government. We, therefore, should establish a professional and independent aircraft accident investigation agency like United States' NTSB and reflect the issues mentioned-above on the new Act.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.177-200
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• 2017

This writer have thus far reviewed the civil and criminal obligations of the directors of a parent company that sponsored financially troubled affiliates. What was discussed here applies to logistics companies in the same manner. Hanjin Shipping cannot expect its parent company, Korean Air to prop it up financially. If such financial aid is offered without any collateral, under Korean criminal law, the directors of the parent company bears the burden of civil and criminal responsibility. One way to get around this is to secure fairness in terms of the process and the content of aid. Fairness in terms of process refers to the board of directors making public all information and approving such aid. Fairness in terms of content refers to impartial transactions that block out any possibilities of the chairman of the corporate group acting in his private interest. In the case of Korean Air bailing out Hanjin, the meeting of board of directors were held five times and a thorough review was conducted on the risks involved in the loans being repaid or not. After the review, measures to guard against undesirable scenarios were established before finally deciding on bailing out Hanjin. As such, there are no issues. In terms of the fairness of content, too, there were practically no room for the majority shareholder or controlling shareholder to pocket profits at the expense of the company. This is because the continued aid offered to a financially troubled company (i.e. Hanjin Shipping) was a posing a burden to even the controlling shareholder. This writer argues that the concept of the interest of the entire corporate group needs to be recognized. That is, it must be recognized that the relationship of control and being controlled between parent company and affiliate company, or between affiliate companies serves a practical benefit to the ongoing concern and growth of the group and is therefore just. Moreover, the corporate group and its affiliates, as well as their directors and management must recognize that they have an obligation to prioritize the interests of the corporate group ahead of the interests of the company that they are directly associated with. As such, even if Korean Air offered a loan to Hanjin Shipping without collateral, the act cannot be treated as an offense to law, nor can the directors be accused of damages that they bear the responsibility of compensating under civil law.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.37-81
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• 2015

AirAsia QZ8501 Jet departed from Juanda International Airport in, Surabaya, Indonesia at 05:35 on Dec. 28, 2014 and was scheduled to arrive at Changi International Airport in Singapore at 08:30 the same day. The aircraft, an Airbus A320-200 crashed into the Java Sea on Dec. 28, 2014 carrying 162 passengers and crew off the coast of Indonesia's second largest city Surabaya on its way to Singapore. Indonesia's AirAsia jet carrying 162 people lost contact with ground control on Dec. 28, 2014. The aircraft's debris was found about 66 miles from the plane's last detected position. The 155 passengers and seven crew members aboard Flight QZ 8501, which vanished from radar 42 minutes after having departed Indonesia's second largest city of Surabaya bound for Singapore early Dec. 28, 2014. AirAsia QZ8501 had on board 137 adult passengers, 17 children and one infant, along with two pilots and five crew members in the aircraft, a majority of them Indonesian nationals. On board Flight QZ8501 were 155 Indonesian, three South Koreans, and one person each from Singapore, Malaysia and the UK. The Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8, 2014 at 00:41 local time and was scheduled to land at Beijing's Capital International Airport at 06:30 local time. Malaysia Airlines also marketed as China Southern Airlines Flight 748 (CZ748) through a code-share agreement, was a scheduled international passenger flight that disappeared on 8 March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing's Capital International Airport (a distance of 2,743 miles: 4,414 km). The aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, last made contact with air traffic control less than an hour after takeoff. Operated by Malaysia Airlines (MAS), the aircraft carried 12 crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations. There were 227 passengers, including 153 Chinese and 38 Malaysians, according to records. Nearly two-thirds of the passengers on Flight 370 were from China. On April 5, 2014 what could be the wreckage of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines was found. What appeared to be the remnants of flight MH370 have been spotted drifting in a remote section of the Indian Ocean. Compensation for loss of life is vastly different between US. passengers and non-U.S. passengers. "If the claim is brought in the US. court, it's of significantly more value than if it's brought into any other court." Some victims and survivors of the Indonesian and Malaysia airline's air crash case would like to sue the lawsuit to the United States court in order to receive a larger compensation package for damage caused by an accident that occurred in the sea of Java sea and the Indian ocean and rather than taking it to the Indonesian or Malaysian court. Though each victim and survivor of the Indonesian and Malaysia airline's air crash case will receive an unconditional 113,100 Unit of Account (SDR) as an amount of compensation for damage from Indonesia's AirAsia and Malaysia Airlines in accordance with Article 21, 1 (absolute, strict, no-fault liability system) of the 1999 Montreal Convention. But if Indonesia AirAsia airlines and Malaysia Airlines cannot prove as to the following two points without fault based on Article 21, 2 (presumed faulty system) of the 1999 Montreal Convention, AirAsia of Indonesiaand Malaysia Airlines will be burdened the unlimited liability to the each victim and survivor of the Indonesian and Malaysia airline's air crash case such as (1) such damage was not due to the negligence or other wrongful act or omission of the air carrier or its servants or agents, or (2) such damage was solely due to the negligence or other wrongful act or omission of a third party. In this researcher's view for the aforementioned reasons, and under the laws of China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Korea the Chinese, Indonesian, Malaysia and Korean, some victims and survivors of the crash of the two flights are entitled to receive possibly from more than 113,100 SDR to 5 million US$ from the two airlines or from the Aviation Insurance Company based on decision of the American court. It could also be argued that it is reasonable and necessary to revise the clause referring to bodily injury to a clause mentioning personal injury based on Article 17 of the 1999 Montreal Convention so as to be included the mental injury and condolence in the near future.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.3-29
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• 2015

In case of C-410/11, Pedro Espada $S\acute{a}nchez$ and Others v Iberia $L\acute{i}neas$ $A\acute{e}reas$ de $Espa\tilde{n}a$ SA., ECLI:EU:C:2012:747, the passengers of a flight between Barcelona and Paris, whose baggage had been lost, lodged a claim before a Spanish court, asking for compensation. More specifically, the claimants were a family of four (two adults and two children), and had stored all their personal items in two suitcases, which had been checked in and tagged but never returned to the passengers in question. The four claimants relied on the Montreal Convention, ratified by the EU, which provides that each passenger can claim up to 1,000 SDRs in compensation (i.e. ${\euro}1,100$) in case his or her baggage is lost; thus, they sought to recover ${\euro}4,400$ (4,000 SDRs, i.e. 1,000 SDRs x4). The preliminary reference issue raised by the Spanish court to the CJEU regarded the $Montr\acute{e}al$ Convention's correct interpretation; in particular, it asked whether compensation should be available only to passengers whose lost baggage had been checked in "in their own name" or whether it is also available to passengers whose personal items had been stored in the (lost) baggage of a different passenger. The CJEU held that compensation had to be granted to all passengers whose items had been lost, regardless of whether these had been stored in baggage checked in "in their own name." In fact, it maintained that the real aim of the $Montr\acute{e}al$ convention is to provide passenger-consumers with protection for the loss of their personal belongings, so the circumstance of where these were being carried is not relevant. Nevertheless, the CJEU clarified that it is for national courts to assess the evidence regarding the actual loss of an item stored in another passenger's baggage, and maintained that the fact that a group of people were travelling together as a family is a factor that may be taken into account.