lem became evident. It centered on differences in the concepts of the United States and United Kingdom of how pickup traffic on long hauls should be controlled. The problem revolved about the Fifth Freedom of the Air, the right of an airline to take on and discharge passengers at intermediate points along a through route traversing a number of countries.

The United States and United Kingdom Delegations were both agreed that this right should be limited so that the airlines of nations comprising the links of a through route could have reasonable opportunity to compete with an airline traversing the whole route. They diverged, however, on the formula to achieve the limitation.

Whether agreement on ultimate goals could be reached depended on the solution of that problem. Otherwise it would be necessary to revert to the Conference's original plan of arranging for world routes through bilateral negotiations between nations rather than through a blanket grant of commercial transit privileges by each member nation to all others.

Exhaustive discussions revealed that no one formula could be found to satisfy all points of view and all situations. The United States then proposed that separate agreements embodying the extent to which nations would grant each other reciprocal air rights, referred to as the "Freedoms of the Air", be prepared by the Conference and made available for signatures, by these states which wished to exchange the rights.

These Five Freedoms of the Air are:

1. Freedom of peaceful transit.

2. Freedom of non-traffic stop (to refuel, repair, or refuge). 3. Freedom to take traffic from the homeland to any country. 4. Freedom to bring traffic from any country to the homeland. 5. Freedom to pick up and discharge traffic at intermediate points. It is clear that the unqualified granting of all of these Five Freedoms to any other nation involved such a multitude of factors, many of which had nothing to do with aeronautics, that it was impossible for agreement to be reached. It was in endeavoring to achieve this difficult task that protracted discussions on plan and counterplan took place and created the entirely false impression that the Conference had failed.

On the contrary, the positive gains of the Chicago conference were outstanding. They included:

1. A permanent international act of great importance, the Convention on International Civil Aviation, was concluded and opened for signature. Although lacking the controverted economic articles, this instrument provided a complete modernization of the basic public international law of the air. It was intended to replace the Paris Convention on Aerial Navigation of October 13, 1919, and did so when it came into effect on April 4, 1947. It also provided the constitution for a new permanent international organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, which has now replaced the previous international organization of more limited scope, the International Commission for Air Navigation.

2. The International Air Services Transit Agreement, commonly

known as the Two Freedoms agreement, was concluded and opened for signature. This agreement had been accepted by 36 states as of June 30, 1947. It has done much to strike the shackles previously limiting the development of world-wide air commerce.

3. The International Air Transport Agreement, commonly known as the Five Freedoms agreement, was also concluded and opened for signature. Although it was known at the time that this agreement would not be acceptable to a number of states, it served a temporary useful purpose for the states that did accept it. The number of accepting states reached a maximum of 17, but it is now declining, 4 having denounced the agreement. The United States gave notice of denunciation of its acceptance on July 25, 1946, and ceased to be a party to this agreement on July 25, 1947.

4. A standard form of bilateral agreement for the exchange of air routes was prepared and recommended by the Conference as part of its final act. This standard form has subsequently been widely used and has done much to bring a measure of consistency into the many new bilateral agreements which have been necessary.

5. An Interim Agreement on International Civil Aviation was completed and opened for signature. It came into effect on June 6, 1945, thereby providing an interim basis for many phases of international civil aviation and a constitution for the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization. The interim agreement was replaced when the convention came into effect on April 4, 1947.

6. Finally, a world-wide common basis was established for the technical and operational aspects of international civil aviation. The technical contributions of the Conference, as printed in the present volume under the title "Drafts of Technical Annexes", run to some 188 pages of recommendations on such matters as airworthiness of aircraft, air traffic control, and the like. This comprehensive body of technical material undoubtedly represents the most striking advance ever achieved at a single conference in the field of international technical collaboration. The technical recommendations prepared at Chicago and the later revisions prepared by the Provisional International Čivil Aviation Organization have served as a guide to practice throughout the world and have been of basic importance in the extraordinary expansion of international civil aviation which has occurred since 1945.

In the light of this record of achievement, it can safely be said that the International Civil Aviation Conference at Chicago was one of the most successful, productive, and influential international conferences ever held.

II. Drafting History of the Convention

on International Civil Aviation

In convening the International Civil Aviation Conference at Chicago, beginning November 1, 1944, as previously noted, it was not the original intent of the United States Government to obtain final agreement upon a new permanent convention, but to seek agreement in principle only, referring the matter for further study to the proposed interim organization. It soon developed, however, that

other nations represented at Chicago, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, attached the greatest importance to agreement on the organization and functions of a permanent aeronautical body. In the end, in addition to the interim agreement a permanent convention embodying 96 articles was completed, as well as two separate agreements, the International Air Services Transit Agreement and the International Air Transport Agreement.

COMMITTEE ORGANIZATION AT CHICAGO

At the second plenary session of the Conference, held November 2, 1944, it was agreed, at the request of Canada, that the Committee on Multilateral Aviation Convention and International Aeronautical Body be renumbered Committee I, instead of Committee III, as originally proposed by the United States. The following day an organizing meeting of Committee I was held, and three subcommittees established: Subcommittee 1, International Organization; Subcommittee 2, Air Navigation Principles; and Subcommittee 3, Air Transportation Principles.

At the outset there were four basic proposals before Committee I, by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, the first two of which were in the form of draft conventions. The steering committee of Committee I, composed of the chairman, John Martin (Union of South Africa), and the respective chairmen of the three subcommittees-Viscount Alain du Parc (Belgium), L. Welch Pogue (U. S.), and H. J. Symington (Canada)-recommended, and the subcommittees agreed, to use the Canadian draft convention as the basis of discussion in Subcommittees 1 and 3 and the United States draft as the basis of discussion in Subcommittee

2.

After several subcommittee meetings, it became apparent that the fundamental issues of international organization and air-transport regulation could not easily be resolved in the large meetings of Subcommittees 1 and 3. These were accordingly suspended while extensive discussions took place between the Canadian, United Kingdom, and United States Delegations during the week of November 12. The results of their discussions were embodied in a tripartite proposal (doc. 358) entitled "Section of an International Air Convention Relating Primarily to Air Transport", issued November 20. Instead of being referred to old Committee I, this document was referred to a joint plenary meeting of Committees I, III, and IV held Wednesday, November 22, at which a new Joint Subcommittee of the three Committees was created to consider the new document and related proposals.

Ten meetings of the Joint Subcommittee were held in the period beginning November 24 and ending December 4. In all, three complete revisions of the tripartite proposal were made; these were embodied respectively in documents 402, 422, and 442. After discussion of the latter had been completed, the drafting committee of the Joint Subcommittee met with the drafting committee of Subcommitee 2, and they consolidated their work into the first draft of the convention, document 454, as noted below.

Of the original subcommittees of Committee 1, Subcommittee 2 was the only one to continue in existence after the tripartite talks and to complete its assignment. Their work was of considerable importance, not only because it covered practically the entire subject matter of the Paris and Habana conventions but also because it provided the means by which the work of Committee II and its 10 technical subcommittees on the so-called "annexes" could be implemented. Prior to the tripartite talks, six meetings of Subcommittee 2 were held, at which a first and second reading of the assigned portions of the United States draft convention and related proposals were completed. When it became known that the tripartite proposal did not cover airnavigation principles, the drafting committee of Subcommittee 2 renewed its efforts and produced an interim report (doc. 356), which was considered at the seventh and eighth meetings of the Subcommittee, held November 21 and 23. A ninth and final meeting was held November 30 in order to consider and revise documents 414, 423, and 443, the second interim report of the drafting committee and supplements thereto.

CONSOLIDATION OF THE CONVENTION

The final task of putting together in a new convention the work of Subcommittee 2 with that of the Joint Subcommittee was largely the work of the several drafting committees: the drafting committee of Subcommittee 2, composed of John Cooper (U. S.), Chairman; Joseph Nisot (Belgium); Luis Machado (Cuba); and Sir Frederick Tymms (India); and the drafting committee of the Joint Subcommittee,1 composed of F. C. Aronstein (Netherlands), Chairman; Lieutenant Colonel Hodgson (Australia); E. P. Barbosa da Silva (Brazil); J. R. Baldwin (Canada); R. Aglion (France); G. G. FitzMaurice (U. K.); and S. W. Morgan (U. S.). Virginia C. Little served as the secretary of the former committee and Paul T. David as the secretary of the latter. Sir Frederick Tymms was responsible for working out a complete outline of the proposed new convention into chapters and articles. This was revised slightly by the other members of the drafting committee of Subcommittee 2 and was used as the basis of the first consolidated draft of the convention, issued December 1. After being considered and further revised in joint meetings of the subcommittees of Committee I held December 2 and 4, the convention as amended was approved at a plenary meeting of Committee I held December 4, and adopted at a plenary session of the Conference the following day.2

OMITTED ARTICLES

As originally submitted, the tripartite proposal contained certain blank articles: article II, section 3. Freedoms of the Air; article XI, Adjustment of Capacity to Traffic Offering; article XII, United Nations Participation, and article XXI, Denunciation or Termination.

1 Originally appointed as the joint drafting committee of Subcommittees 1 and 3 of Committee I, with the exception of Messrs. Aronstein and Morgan.

2 A commentary on the development of the individual articles of the Convention on International Civil Aviation has been included as appendix 2.

Separate proposals on some or all of these articles were presented by the interested governments, but, except for the last mentioned, sufficient agreement could not be reached to include them in the convention, nor to include article X, Tariffs. The first omitted article, Freedoms of the Air, was however embodied in the two separate multilateral agreements previously referred to. This article, as well as the other three "omitted" articles, was referred to the Interim Council of the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization for further study.