Officially named the Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (Договор о дружбе, сотрудничестве и взаимной помощи Translit.: Dogovor o druzhbe, sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoy pomoshchi), the Warsaw Pact was a Soviet-made organisation of its puppet communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. It was established on 14 May, 1955 in Warsaw, Poland. The organisation de facto served as a tool for maintaining control over countries taken over after the Second World War by the Soviets and to intervene militarily against any attempts at independence from the Soviet Union, while the Soviets officially claimed that it existed to counter the potential threat from the NATO alliance and also to retaliate against the integration of a re-militarized West Germany into NATO on 9 May, 1955 via ratification of the Paris Peace Treaties. The treaty was signed in Warsaw on May 14, 1955 and official copies were made in Russian, Polish, Czech and German. This treaty was modeled on the NATO treaty, in that there was a political Consultative Committee, followed by a civilian secretary general, while down the chain of command there was a military commander in chief and a combined staff, although the similarities between the two international organizations ended there.
The Warsaw Convention is an international convention which regulates liability for international carriage of persons, luggage or goods performed by aircraft for reward.
Originally signed in 1929 in Warsaw (hence the name), it was amended in 1955 at The Hague and in 1975 in Montreal. United States courts have held that, at least for some purposes, the Warsaw Convention is a different instrument from the Warsaw Convention as Amended by the Hague Protocol.
In particular, the Warsaw Convention:
The sums limiting liability were originally given in Francs (defined in terms of a particular quantity of gold by article 22 paragraph 5 of the convention). These sums were amended by the Montreal Additional Protocol No. 2 to substitute an expression given in terms of SDR's. These sums are valid in the absence of a differing agreement (on a higher sum) with the carrier. Agreements on lower sums are null and void.
On April 1, 2007, the exchange rate was 1.00 SDR = 1.135 EUR or 1.00 SDR = 1.51 USD.
A court may also award a claiming party's costs, unless the carrier made an offer within 6 months of the loss (or at least 6 months before the beginning of any legal proceedings) which the claiming party has failed to beat.
The Montreal Convention, signed in 1999, will replace the Warsaw Convention system, once Montreal has been ratified by all states. Until then, however, there will be a patchwork of rules governing international carriage by air, as different states will be parties to different agreements (or no agreement at all).
