Notwithstanding the above, the State over.own may refuse to accept as satisfac-tory insurance effected by an insurer who is not authorized for that purpose in a Contracting State. The Convention also provides that an appropriate cash deposit, a bank guarantee or a guarantee given by a Contracting State may suf.ce instead of insurance, for the purpose of Article 15. The State over.own may also require that the aircraft carrying the certi.cate of insurance issued by the insurer certifying that insurance has been affected in accordance with the Convention. Article 20 pre-scribes that actions under the Convention may be brought only before the courts of the Contracting State where the damage occurred. Exceptionally, however, the parties to an action under the Convention may consensually agree to bring the action in a court of another jurisdiction, provided such option does not impugn or jeopardise the right of the plaintiff to bring the action in a jurisdiction in which the accident occurred.
Perhaps the most signi.cant feature of the Rome Convention of 1952, which currently impacts the modernization process it is going through, is the nature of liability. It will be recalled that at the Rome Conference, the United States made a strong case for basing liability of the operator, on fault liability as accepted by common law to be rebutted by the operator in the absence of fault and not an absolute liability. The United States delegation contended that air transportation, whether commercial or private, served a great public purpose, both national and international. Therefore, it was proper to take every reasonable step to encourage its development bearing in mind that the development of aviation included a proper relation between the responsibility of the operator and the third parties who might be damaged as a consequence of an aviation accident. The opinion of the United States was that there was no necessity of imposing on aviation a heavier burden than
Article 15.
that imposed on other means of transportation. The draft Convention presented to the Conference made the operator liable even if it were evident that he had committed no fault. This principle was in contradiction with the basic principles of common law and seemed to be incompatible with the general principle applicable in civil law countries. The draft Convention provided that once an operator had put an aircraft in the air, if the aircraft crashed on the surface, the operator was liable up to the limits which might be included in the Convention, no matter what the cause of the accident, and that liability would exist no matter how far beyond the control of the operator might be the force which actually caused the accident. In this latter case the operator could not defend himself by proving that he was without fault.
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本文链接地址：Aviation Security Law 航空安全法(62)
