The Grounds for Limitation of Liability in Private Air Law

Abstract

The global limitation of the shipowner’s liability has been called the ‘cle de voute’, the ‘keystone’, of maritime law. International air law does not have a global limitation of liability, and if one had to characterize the importance of limitation of liability in the field of aviation it would be more appropriate to compare it with the ‘leitmotiv’ of some unfinished symphony. It certainly is not the only theme, but it is one that comes back every now and then and which makes international private air law, as it has developed in the last 25 years, unthinkable without a limitation of the carrier’s or operator’s liability.