Transportation Law Commons^™

Chan V. Korean Air Lines, Ltd.: Skirting The Legislative History Of The Warsaw Convention, Ian A. Schwartz

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

On September 1, 1983, over the Sea of Japan, a Soviet Union military aircraft destroyed a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 en route from Kennedy Airport in New York to Seoul, South Korea. All 269 persons on board the plane were killed. The Warsaw Convention ("Convention"), a multilateral treaty governing the international carriage of passengers, baggage, and cargo by air, provides a per passenger damage limitation for personal injury or death. The Convention further provides that passenger tickets must include notice of this limitation, and a private accord among airlines known as the Montreal Agreement ("Agreement") states that this notice …