MONTREAL CONVENTION
On November 4, 2003, the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules
for International Carriage by Air, signed at Montreal in 1999 ("the
Montreal Convention") came into force in Canada through amendments to the Carriage
by Air Act.
As part of its comprehensive regulatory program for Canada’s civil aviation
industry, Transport Canada ratified the Convention for the Unification of
Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, a new component of the
Montreal Convention on November 19, 2002. Transport Canada’s aim is to better
protect the interests of Canadians travelling and shipping cargo abroad.
The Montreal Convention is an international agreement that establishes a
liability regime for international air transportation and streamlines
documentation procedures for air cargo by encouraging the use of automated
information systems.
The Montreal Convention updates and modernizes the Warsaw Convention of 1929,
a widely recognized set of international rules governing the liability of an air
carrier in the event of the death or injury of a passenger, loss of baggage or
cargo or delay during international air transport.
The Montreal Convention preserves many aspects of the Warsaw Convention but
features a new two-tier system of determining carrier liability for the death or
injury of passengers in the event of an accident. This will allow for faster and
less costly resolution of legal actions should an accident occur.
Under the first tier of the two-tier system, the carrier assumes absolute
liability for all claims valued up to 100,000 Special Drawing Rights (SDR) - a
currency conversion measure used by the International Monetary Fund, where one
SDR is equivalent to approximately $.52 CDN. However, under the second tier,
carriers can mount a legal defence against any claims above 100,000 SDR.
The coming into force of the Montreal Convention also means that:
- carriers must maintain adequate insurance to cover their
potential liability;
- legal action for damages can be initiated in Canada for
Canadians involved in accidents while travelling outside of Canada, as
long as the carrier in question is active in Canada; and
- carriers are authorized to simplify and modernize documents
such as electronic tickets for passengers and waybills for cargo.
January 2006
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