The Warsaw Convention and the Washington Compromise

Extract

Half a year has passed since the major airlines of the world, in a burst of energy, rallied round to “save” the Warsaw Convention. The Convention had as its principal effect a limitation of $8300 (not quite £3000) on liability of air carriers to international passengers for death or injury, and the United States had given formal notice that it could no longer accept this. The effort to update the Warsaw Convention of 1929 had, essentially, failed so far as the United States was concerned, in that the revision proposed at the Hague Conference in 1955 was only double, the Warsaw limit—$16 600 or £6000— still far below an acceptable ceiling on recoveries for accidental death caused by common carriers. The United States Senate had not ratified the Hague Protocol, it clearly was not going to, and all attempts by the United States Executive Branch to supplement the Warsaw/Hague limits—such as by compulsory trip insurance or voluntary waiver of limits by the carrier—had come to naught.