The Fifth Jurisdiction of International Air Transport

The Fifth Jurisdiction is an important basis for determining the courts of international air transport cases. The Fifth Jurisdiction of the 1971 Guatemalan City Protocol was the predecessor of the Fifth Jurisdictional of the 1999 Montreal Convention. There were heated controversies in the process and the subsequent application process of the formulation of the Fifth Jurisdiction. From the perspective of balancing the interests between passengers and carriers, and the necessity of the existence of the Fifth Jurisdiction, it is concluded that the criticisms on the Fifth Jurisdiction by all parties is debatable. As the criticism were made on the basis of combining advantages and disadvantages of the Fifth Jurisdiction by way of logic analysis and example analysis. In order to determine the specific court figured out by the Fifth Jurisdiction, this study adopted the legal interpretation method of analysis and research. The results show that the Fifth Jurisdiction should apply the theory of "point of narrow definition". At the same time, due to the incomplete protection of passenger rights and interests of relevant laws in China, the Fifth Jurisdiction is worthy of reference in China's laws; however, needs appropriate modification.