ABSTRACT
This chapter expresses that whatever promise the Paris Convention offered for the promotion of an efficient, uniform and safe international civil aviation system was compromised by the wider political context, which resulted in two tragic failures. The first was the Versailles Treaty itself. The second problem was the failure of the US Senate to ratify the Versailles Treaty, which, among other things, meant that the US was not party to the Paris Convention. In the inter-war period, it was the Americans and the Germans who did most to develop domestic and regional passenger services, while the British, Dutch and again the Americans pioneered vast long-range routes. Bilateralism was at the heart of international aviation in the inter-war period, but the Paris Convention did address and deal effectively with certain technical issues, such as aircraft registration and airworthiness.
