International Aviation Law Institute Director Brian Havel
and Adjunct Professor Dean Gerber addressed the University of Oxford's third annual academic conference on the Cape Town Convention and its attached protocol on aircraft corporate financing. The convention, which has had a major impact on the multibillion dollar aircraft purchasing and leasing sector, facilitates the registration of international security interests in mobile equipment such as aircraft.
Professor Havel discussed the potential consequences of the fact that national courts will be responsible for interpreting and applying the provisions of the convention and the aircraft protocol, both of which lack independent international mechanisms to settle disputes between private investors and the participating States.
Warning against a process of “re-nationalization” by local courts of the provisions of the convention and protocol, he called for the creation of international arbitration panels that would displace national courts in resolving investor/state disputes under the Cape Town Convention system.
Gerber, who is the author of several key texts in this field and chairs the aircraft corporate finance group at Chicago law firm Vedder Price, teaches the Institute's International Aircraft Finance Law course.
The conference was held at Oxford's Faculty of Law on September 10.