Nation states, be they federal or unitary, monist or dualist, must incorporate the norms and precepts of international law into their domestic legal orders and implement its requirements. The constitutional or equivalent courts of Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain have provided solutions to these and related problems. While some of the topic states have undergone decentralizing or federalizing reforms simultaneous with their involvement in the European Communities and Union, all have experienced centralizing pressures, some of which involve negative implications for democratic accountability. Overall, their constitutional and governmental systems have tended to converge with enhanced contact and cooperation. They also influence and are in turn influenced by European institutions and structures, which include most recently expanded Parliamentary powers and a new Committee of the Regions representative of subnational interests and aspirations at the supranational level. How these related, complementary and at times antagonistic spheres will continue to evolve and react in the future may involve Europe's greatest challenge.

The Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air of 1929 is a multilateral treaty that seeks to unify the legal regime the international carriage of passengers, baggage and cargo by air. One aspect of this regime is the regime of liability imposed on air carriers, which is characterised by a presumption of fault and liability on the carrier, thereby reversing the burden of proof, while at the same time imposing monetary limits to the damages for which the carrier is liable. / In the sixty-one years that the Convention has been in force, several points of controversy have arisen in the interpretation of the Convention. Of these, the main controversies are whether carriers are liable for mental injury under Article 17, whether punitive damages may be awarded to victims, and what is meant by willful misconduct under Article 25. / Since there are 126 States party to the Convention, the investigation of the above issues is necessarily multi-jurisdictional. The conclusion of the investigation is that in the course of judicial interpretation by the various courts, applying various approaches and guided by different policy considerations, the Convention has unfortunately become disunified.

International air travel is the chosen means of transportation for hundreds of millions of people around the globe. At the same time, international civil aviation has witnessed a systemic threat from terrorists, who consider aircraft and other aeronautical facilities as surrogate targets. Among others, innocent travellers and passengers dissociated entirely from terrorists' personal or political ambitions are the victims. The Warsaw Convention, and subsequent modifications thereto, devised to regulate the civil liability of the air carrier vis a vis its passengers, falls short of recognizing this particular class of victims and may not be seen as an efficient legal instrument for the resolution of the consequences of terrorist related aviation disasters.

Despite the hitherto unsettled political and legal status of Taiwan, air transportation between Taiwan and Mainland China has experienced tremendous growth since 1987. To date, this air transport has been effected through the use of an intermediate stop station in Hong Kong, in order that both States may avoid the recognition of the other as the legitimate "Chinese Government". However, Hong Kong will revert to the PRC in 1997. As a result, the issue of nonstop flights between Taiwan and the Mainland takes on an added urgency. / This issue is not merely political. In terms of air carrier liability, Taiwan is party to the Warsaw Convention and the Warsaw Convention as Amended by the Hague Protocol, only through its tenuous link with Mainland China. Is the Convention applicable to Taiwan in this case? A number of arguments favoring applicability of the Convention are discussed and found to be wanting. In the alternative, the principle of conflict of laws is proposed as an applicable solution. Since Taiwan and the PRC have a civil law system while Hong Kong has a common law system, the respective legal regulations governing damage compensation in aviation cases differ. The case of liability following a hijacking is used to demonstrate how regulations of the three jurisdictions differ significantly. This leads to a serious problem, namely, "forum shopping". The fact that judicial assistance is not yet practiced between the three jurisdictions creates a further problem in that decisions coming from the different courts cannot be recognized and enforced in the other jurisdictions. In light of all of the foregoing, the existing legal systems cannot adequately address the legal problems of air carrier liability in this region. / As a result of these inadequacies, an alternative mechanism for resolving the issue of air carriers' liability is suggested. This suggested pragmatic approach may also be found applicable for updating existing air transport legal systems elsewhere in the world.

The liability regime to which air traffic services (ATS) providers are subject is being significantly changed with the implementation of satellite-based technologies as exemplified by the ICAO Communications, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) systems, and by the movement from state to corporate provision of services. / These new systems will result in less individual state control than currently exists. With multiple service providers crossing sovereign airspace boundaries, a space-based component and a greater role for pilots in selection of flight profiles, these new systems will create an increasingly complex ATS liability environment. / Statutes governing and limiting the liability of state ATS providers will thus have less relevance than in the past with the withdrawal of the state as provider of ATS and its replacement by corporate service providers. Liability insurance and contractual liability limitation thus assume greater importance. / This thesis examines the impact of these important technological and organizational changes on the legal regime governing ATS provider liability.

The aim of this thesis is to view the convention on the marking of plastic explosives for the purpose of detection as a preventive means against aerial sabotage. After having identified the terrorist phenomenon (Preliminary chapter), we have to know if the studied convention can fight against these well-organized groups who have already showed their violence with deadly success. / A preventive and deterrent action seems to be the best legal way to improve the detection of the explosives these groups use (First chapter). The institution of an international criminal law can be envisaged as a means of intimidation but I.C.A.O. has developped other measures and the convention is one of them. To be effective, this convention and its annex have to have a universal and compulsory application but these are conditions that they don't fulfill. Such negative observation is also to presented with regard to the conventional actors in the fight against sabotage (Chapter II). Indeed the international commission created by the convention still doesn't have the necessary supranational jurisdiction. Thus the sovereign States are keen on keeping their influence on the control of the marking. Obviously these States and other actors like U.N.O. can act in many ways on the international scene to fight against the aerial terrorism but new actors should exist. An international inquiring authority and an international court could reinforce this struggle. / Then this thesis has showed the gaps of the studied convention and consequently, the weakness of the detection systems in airports.

At present there are several instruments that regulate air carrier's liability in international transportation. These international treaties are collectively known as the Warsaw System. Unfortunately, not all States are parties to the same instruments. / In this thesis, four possibilities will be introduced for amendment of the System. These possibilities are as follows: ratification of the Guatemala City Protocol through the Montreal Protocol No. 3, an international treaty instrument, meant to update and amend the whole Warsaw System; the Italian solution, a national "remedy" taken without international consultations; the Japanese action, Japanese air carriers have waived entirely the Warsaw System's limits of liability; and finally, a recommendation to the EC Commission on a regional remedy in the form of a multilateral agreement where carriers raise the liability limits but otherwise the Warsaw provisions apply. / Each possibility will be thoroughly examined in order to determine whether it is the best solution to the present crisis that the System is facing. At the end of this thesis one solution will be recommended for Iceland and other States to update the System. Other solutions are available but will not be discussed since they are not considered desirable for the aim of unification of air carrier's liability in international air carriage. What must be kept in mind when the four possibilities are being examined is that the aim of this thesis is to find a solution that unifies the air carrier liability regime and sometimes, in order to reach a uniform solution, a compromise must be reached. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

One of the fundamental principles of the Chicago Convention is the principle of nationality of aircraft. It is the means by which the Convention attaches most of the rights and obligations that it creates to aircraft and state of registry, irrespective of who owns or operates the aircraft. Yet the rules of the Convention on nationality and registration can give rise to serious practical problems when an aircraft registered in one state is cooperatively arranged to be operated by an operator belonging to another state. / This thesis takes a closer look at the principle of nationality of aircraft in international aviation law and gives an outline of the history of this concept. Further, it explains how nowadays this principle is applied to aircraft operated by international operating agencies, and to aircraft registered in one state and leased, chartered or inter-changed by operators belonging to other states. / The concept of 'nationality of aircraft' should not be confused with the concept of 'nationality of airlines'. Another part of my thesis is dedicated to this concept of 'nationality of airlines', which is of major importance in aviation too. / This part contains a general explanation on this concept as well as some examples of the ownership and control requirements in different national laws. Besides introducing the Community Air Carrier concept, it focusses on the question if the ownership and control clauses included in bilateral agreements are compatible with today's trend towards global carriers and international mergers. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the practical utility of international norms to indigenous peoples. In recent decades, indigenous peoples have looked increasingly to international fora to secure what they see as their rights. It becomes important, then, to evaluate the potential utility of these efforts. Two conclusions dominate my assessment of the role of international law. Firstly, the lack of enforceability of the norms means that international law is unlikely to achieve change in the face of state resistance. Secondly, the vagueness of the norms, coupled with the complexity of self-government regimes, severely limit the principles' ability in achieving specific change. Instead, the utility of international law is seen to lie in changing attitudes amongst the general public and governments, by establishing common standards of treatment to which all indigenous peoples are entitled, creating new channels of communication and broadening the context of indigenous disputes.

This thesis deals primarily with the air carrier's liability in the case of passenger death or bodily injury under Warsaw System. It analyzes the problems of today and tries to offer solutions for the present crisis of the Warsaw System for the future. / The first chapter concentrates on an brief introduction of the development of the Warsaw System from the original Warsaw Convention, to the 1996 ICAO new draft instrument. The chapter gives the trend of development and explains the different characteristics of each Warsaw instrument. / The second chapter analyses the shortcomings of the original Warsaw Convention by comparing the rationales of the air carrier's limited liability in 1929 and the requirements of today. In this way, this thesis seeks to present the limited liability of air carriers as unreasonable and out of date. / In order to offer the suggestions and possible solutions for the future, the third chapter analyses the merits and shortcomings of the Warsaw Instruments, unilateral or group action, the ECAC recommendation, the IATA Intercarrier Agreement and its implementing Agreement, and the ICAO new draft instrument. Finally, for the integrity of the air carrier's liability, this thesis also briefly criticizes the shortcomings of baggage liability under the present Warsaw System and offers a better solution for baggage liability in the future. / In the last chapter, the author introduces the related legal regime of the Republic of China, compares it with the Warsaw System and attempts to develop a method to link the Republic of China with the rest of world in the field of private air law.