L'étude de toute question se rapportant à la navigation aérienne nous amène inévitablement à examiner des domaines très divers. Les problèmes techniques et juridiques sont intimement lies, aussi bien sur le plan international que national et il n'est pas possible d'étudier séparément las problèmes da droit aérien privé en ne tenant pas suffisamment compte des problèmes da droit aérien public. De plus, la perpétuelle évolution des techniques aéronautiques apporte un élément qui doit être reconsidéré périodiquement.

With such intriguing terms as Cosmic Law; Space Law; Metalaw; Anthropocentric Law being quite common place today, it seems that a thesis on the freedom of flight over the high seas is somewhat tame and terribly out of fashion. However, activity in space and flight over the high seas have one big thing in common - they are both badly in need of an international agreement. The main purpose of this thesis is to attempt to prove the great need of a multi-lateral Convention covering flight over the high seas. Despite the phenomenal increase of activities in and claims to the airspace over the high seas during the last twenty years, it is still being regulated by legal thinking which was popular in 1919.

The need to revise the provisions of Swedish Public air law became urgent when, on September 27, 1946, Sweden ratified the Convention on International Civil Aviation, signed at Chicago on December 7, 1944. In November, 1946, the King ordained that such a revision should now be made, and that the work should, as far as possible, be carried out in co-operation with the other Scandinavian States. An expert was charged with making a preparatory analysis, and a secretary was appointed to assist him in this task. The secretary's duties were entrusted to the present writer. [...]

The first aviation law was promulgated in 1784, just one year after the first successful balloon flight was made by the Montgolfier Brothers in 1783. This was a decree by the Prefect of Police, Paris, forbidding balloon flights without police permits. This indicates the prompt response of law to the new invention. The first regulation for safety in aerial navigation was made by the Prefect of Seine in 1819, which prohibited the flights of the Montgolfiers (named after the pioneer flyers), required all balloons to be equipped with parachutes and forbade ascents until after the harvest time. The first reported case of tort in aviation was decided in 1822, in the United States of America.

This study is primarily concerned with the historical development of legal remedies for surface damages caused by foreign aircraft. Progress has been made since the early days of aviation law and it has been my pleasure to reflect upon the studies, proposals, drafts, and conventions in this field prepared by the legal men of our century.

A little more than half a century has elapsed since the first flight of a power drlven aircraft. On December ,17, 1903, the Wright brothers made their now historic flights in an aircraft which they had designed and built themselves. On the fourth attempt that day, a distance of 852 feet was covered during a flight which lasted 59 seconds. [...]

When man first conquered the air, only a few could foresee all the implications involved in such an act. Within less than half a century, flight became as common as any other medium of transportation, with almost unlimited potentialities. The aircraft became capable of spanning continents and oceans in a matter of hours, reaching every spot on the globe. Geographical distance had shrunk until few areas remained inaccessible. [...]

The twentieth century has seen the realization of many of man's oldest dreams by means of new inventions and the perfection of old ones. The radio, the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, television and the more recent harnessing of atomic energy have changed the way of life and the habits of the present generations. Of these, the greatest and, perhaps, the most important in the first half of the century is without any doubt the realization of controlled flight.

“In a generic and primary sense, jurisprudence includes the entire body of legal doctrine. It is jurisprudentia - the knowledge of law - and in this sense all law books are books of law” (1). According to this nomenclature all books, notes and thesis on Air Law including the Rome and Warsaw Conventions that embody the legal doctrine are subjects of jurisprudence. "From jurisprudence in its generic sense, as including the entire body of legal doctrine, it is necessary to distinguish jurisprudence in a more specific sense, in which it means a particular department of such doctrine exclusively.

Il y a trente ans exactement la Deuxième Conférence Internationale de Droit Privé Aérien adoptait un texte destiné à régir la responsabilité du transporteur aérien international : la Convention de Varsovie du 17 Octobre I929. Abandonnant parfois des préjugés nationalistes, renonçant aussi i à des principes juridiques traditionnels, les délégués de nombreux pays se mettaient d'accord sur un système de responsabilité afin de parvenir à une unification nécessaire du Droit des transports. En I929, l'aviation était encore dans l'enfance, utilisé par un nombre assez minime de personnes que l'on considérait volontiers comme des "casse-cou" ou des "sportifs".