The new ICAO CNS/ATM (Communication, Navigation, Surveillance/Air Traffic Management) concept, based on satellite use, entails globalisation of these new air navigation systems. / Concerning the communications, the concept's architecture includes those for security as well as administrative communications of airlines and public correspondence of passengers. / From this point of view, the requested globalisation will lead to regulatory and institutional changes, especially for non-security communications as they are regulated by each State overflown, according to Article 30 of the Chicago Convention. / Every legal solution, of course, must take into account the chosen technology. In this domain, the experience of INMARSAT, with the mobile maritime communications by satellites, will be of tremendous importance. / A period of transition, with regional initiatives, will be necessary too before the general implementation of the CNS/ATM concept.

Arguably one of the most aggressive financial and technological undertakings of recent years, the development of Global Mobile Personal Communications Services (GMPCS) and the supporting network infrastructures world-wide, has been the source of numerous issues and conflicts both legally and politically. The intentions of private enterprise to construct and operate satellite systems capable of providing service literally anywhere in the world has created a somewhat adverse political environment internationally, not to mention a supporting regulatory and legal structure completely devoid of definition. The present manuscript focuses to examine and discuss both the regulatory and legal issues surrounding GMPCS and their evolution towards globally accepted standards and protocols for the effective regulation and technical standardization of the GMPCS industry. Through identification and discussion of the principal regulatory issues, including concerns voiced by national telecommunications administrations, we can begin to seek solutions which will satisfy the diverse global nature of these proposed operations. By further examining pre-existing commitments of nations to liberalize telecommunications markets under the GATS and WTO, we go on to examine the interests of nations to accommodate and/or reject the global nature of GMPCS inclusive of the financial and social impact which the systems promise to impose.

This thesis presents an analytic review of the different definitions of "Open Skies Treaty". It mainly introduces American, Canadian and European views of Open Skies. We also propose our definition of Open Skies in a North American context including our NAFTA partner, Mexico. / Then, the thesis conducts a detailed study of the law and practice pertaining to regional Open Skies Agreements in Europe, Latin America, Australasia and in the Asia/Pacific region. / Afterwards, an analysis of the main provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement is made with reference to air transport. Follows, an overview of the state of the Canadian air transport industry and policy. / More importantly, a complete analysis of the New Air Transport Agreement Between Canada and the United States implementing an Open Skies regime as for 1995 is made in Chapter V. / Finally, a critical analysis of this Open Skies Agreement is made and perspectives are given as to the future inclusion of Mexico, Chile and, later on, of all of Latin America.

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.)