The Protocol to amend the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air, signed at Warsaw on 12 October 1929, was done at The Hague on 28 September 1955. The English, French and Spanish texts are authentic; in case of inconsistency, French, the language of the Convention, prevails. Depositary: the Government of the People’s Republic of Poland. It is not the Warsaw Convention itself, nor the 1954 Hague Protocol on cultural property, nor the 1999 Montreal Convention, which later replaced the Warsaw system for many States.

Chapter I amends the Convention. Article I of the Protocol redefines “international carriage”: the places of departure and destination, even with a stop, are in the territories of two High Contracting Parties, or in the territory of one with an agreed stopping place in another State. Successive carriage is one undivided carriage if the parties have regarded it as a single operation. Article II excludes mail and postal packages. Article III requires, for passengers, a ticket showing the places, any agreed stop and a notice that the Warsaw Convention may limit liability. Articles IV to X update baggage, the air waybill and other formalities, as a framework, without a claims form.

Article XI replaces Article 22: the limit for each passenger rises to two hundred and fifty thousand Poincaré francs (a unit of sixty-five and a half milligrammes of gold of millesimal fineness nine hundred), against one hundred and twenty-five thousand in the 1929 text; registered baggage and cargo, two hundred and fifty francs per kilogramme; objects of which the passenger takes charge, five thousand francs. The carrier and the passenger may agree a higher limit. The figures are those of the Protocol; the article is not a damages calculator. Article XIII replaces Article 25: the limit does not apply if the damage results from an act or omission of the carrier or its servants, done with intent to cause damage or recklessly and with knowledge that damage would probably result.

Chapter II, Article XVIII: the Convention as amended applies only between Parties to this Protocol. Chapter III: they are to be read as one instrument, “the Warsaw Convention as amended at The Hague, 1955”. Article XX: open for signature until entry into force. Article XXI: ratification, deposited in Warsaw; ratification by a State not a Party to the Convention has the effect of adherence to the Convention as amended. Article XXII: entry into force on the ninetieth day after the thirtieth instrument — 1 August 1963. Article XXIV: denunciation effective after six months.

The text consulted is UNTS No. 6943, volume 478. The Protocol updates the 1929 liability system; it is not a handbook of aviation litigation.

Cover: the Peace Palace at The Hague, a landmark of the city when the Protocol was done; we do not claim the hall. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Hague Protocol; UNTS No. 6943 Protocol to amend the Warsaw Convention, done at The Hague.