Chubb & Son, Inc. (“Chubb”), as subro-gee of Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. (“Samsung Semiconductor”), appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Lorretta A. Preska, Judge) entered September 28, 1998, granting partial summary judgement to Asiana Airlines (“Asia-na”) and thereby limiting its liability to $706.00.
On this appeal we must determine under customary international law whether this dispute is governed by a treaty of the United States. Initially operating under the assumption that the dispute was governed by the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Transportation by Air, Oct. 12, 1929, 49 Stat. 3000 (1934), 137 L.N.T.S. 11, reprinted in note following 49 U.S.C. § 40105 (the “Original Warsaw Convention”), the parties cross-moved for partial summary judgment as to whether Asiana could invoke Article 22(2) of the Original Warsaw Convention to limit its liability to $20.00 per kilogram of cargo lost, or $706.00. Sometime thereafter, Asiana sought leave to file a supplemental motion for summary judgment, asserting that the United States and South Korea 1 were not in treaty relations with regard to the Original Warsaw Convention because South Korea did not adhere to the Original Warsaw Convention, but adhered only to the amending agreement, known as the “Hague Protocol” and officially entitled “Protocol to Amend the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air signed at Warsaw on 12 October 1929.” Adhering to the Hague Protocol had the effect of adherence to the Convention as amended by the Protocol (the “Amended Warsaw Convention”). See Hague Protocol, Sept. 28, 1955, 478 U.N.T.S. 371, 387, art. XXI-11(2). The court- below concluded that the United States and South Korea were parties to a treaty consisting of the articles common to the Original Warsaw Convention and the Amended Warsaw Convention, and applied that treaty to limit Asia-na’s liability to $706.00. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the order of the district court and remand for further proceedings.
I. BACKGROUND
A. The Undisputed Facts of the Underlying Dispute
The facts relevant to the determination of this appeal are undisputed. In 1995, Asiana, a South Korean corporation, agreed with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”), another South Korean corporation, 'that Asiana would ship seventeen parcels of computer chips from Seoul, South Korea, to San Francisco, California pursuant, to Asiana air waybill No. 988-0497-2951 (the ‘Waybill”), with Samsung Semiconductor as the intended recipient. The Waybill provided that shipment of the seventeen parcels would be made on Asia-na Flight 214 from Seoul, South Korea to San Francisco, California on August 10, 1995. The Waybill did not refer to any other stops en route and Flight 214 had no other scheduled stops.
The seventeen parcels were delivered to. Asiana for shipment. Due to an excess of goods to be shipped, however, Asiana transported the parcels on Asiana Flight 202 from Seoul, South Korea to Los Ange-les, California, and thereafter trucked the parcels to San Francisco. Asiana did not inform Samsung or Samsung Semiconductor in writing of this change, nor did it conform the Waybill to this change. Upon *304 delivery in San Francisco, two of the seventeen parcels were missing. Neither party has been able to locate the parcels. The two missing parcels weighed a combined 35.3 kilograms and contained $583,-000 worth of computer chips.
The owner and intended recipient of the computer chips, Samsung Semiconductor (a subsidiary of Samsung), had insured the chips against loss or damage through a cargo insurance policy issued by Chubb. Upon Samsung Semiconductor’s claim of loss, Chubb paid Samsung Semiconductor $583,000 plus an additional amount based on the terms of the cargo insurance policy.
B. The Proceedings Below
On July 3, 1996, Chubb, as subrogee of Samsung Semiconductor, commenced this action against Asiana in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking to recover the value of the lost computer chips, plus the remaining amount paid by it under the terms of the cargo insurance policy. The parties cross-moved for partial summary judgement on the issue of whether Asiana could invoke Article 22(2) of the Original Warsaw Convention to limit its liability. Judge Preska referred the motion to Magistrate Judge Peck for a report and recommendation.
Asiana argued that it could invoke Article 22(2), which limits' an air carrier’s liability to $20.00 per kilogram of cargo lost, here $706.00, and offered $800.00 to settle the case. Chubb argued that Asiana could not avail itself of the liability limitation in Article 22(2) because it failed to comply with Article 8(c) of the Original Warsaw Convention. Article 9 of the Original Warsaw Convention precludes an air carrier from availing itself of the liability limitation in Article 22(2) if “the air waybill does not contain all the particulars set out in article 8(a) to (i), inclusive, and (q).” Original Warsaw Convention,
supra,
art. 9,
While the parties’ objections to the Report and Recommendation were pending before the district court, Asiana sought leave to ■ file a supplemental motion for summary judgment, questioning the court’s subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. Up until this point, the parties and the court had assumed subject matter jurisdiction based on their belief that the dispute arose under a treaty of the United States, i.e., the Original Warsaw Convention. Because this issue potentially affected subject matter jurisdiction, the district court granted leave.
Asiana argued that the United States and South Korea were not in treaty relations with regard to the Original Warsaw Convention because the United States adhered only to the Original Warsaw Convention and South Korea adhered only to the Hague Protocol, which had the effect of adhering to the Amended Warsaw Convention. Asiana argued that the district court nevertheless had jurisdiction under a treaty consisting of all of the articles common to the Original Warsaw Convention and the Amended Warsaw Convention (hereinafter referred to as the “Truncated Warsaw Convention”). Chubb agreed that the district court had jurisdiction, but contended that the Original Warsaw Convention applied. On September 18, 1998, the district court granted Asiana’s supplemental motion for partial summary judgment, agreeing with Asiana that the United States and South Korea were parties to this Truncated Warsaw Convention, and finding that Asiana’s liability under this “treaty” was limited to $706.00. As a re- *305 suit, the district court denied the prior-cross motions as moot.
The district court discussed the interplay between the Original Warsaw Convention and the Hague Protocol and reasoned that the United States and South Korea had agreed to be bound by all of the provisions of the Original Warsaw Convention to which they both adhered.
See Chubb & Son, Inc. v. Asiana Airlines,
In reaching this conclusion, the court relied on
In re Korean Air Lines Disaster of September 1, 1983,
Article 18 of the Original Warsaw Convention, which provided that the carrier shall be liable for damages sustained in the event of loss of goods, had not been amended.
See id.
at 16. Article 22 had been amended in form, but retained the same liability limitation.
See id.
at 18-20. Despite that Article 8(c) of the Original Warsaw Convention was implicated by the facts and invoked by the plaintiff in this case, because it had been amended, the court held that Article 8(c) was not part of the agreement between the United States and South Korea and therefore could not be invoked by Chubb.
See Chubb,
Chubb moved in the district court to certify for appeal the questions decided in the September 18, 1998 Memorandum & Order. On December 14,1998, the district court certified the questions. By Mandate issued May 28, 1999, this Court granted Chubb’s petition for permission to appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).
II. DISCUSSION
A. Relations between the United States and South Korea within the Warsaw Convention “System”
The Warsaw Convention “system” includes the various laws, treaties and individual contracts governing the international transportation of persons, baggage, and goods by air. No one treaty or contract governs the relationships of one State with other States. A single State might be bound to one version of the Warsaw Convention with one State, another version of the Warsaw Convention with another State, a separate bilateral treaty with another State, and a separate contract with a private party.
See Korean Air Lines Di
saster;
In 1934, the United States adhered to the Original Warsaw Convention and the Senate ratified the treaty. The treaty entered into force for the United States on October 29, 1934.
See
United States Department of State, Treaties in Force 342 (1999);
With the growth of the world economy and the air industry, however, the liability limitation, and particularly the per-passenger limitation, became increasingly unpopular in this and other countries. In 1955, a conference convened at the Hague to resolve the question of whether the liability limits remained at an appropriate level. The result was the Hague Protocol. The Hague Protocol, inter alia, changed some outdated language, doubled the per-passenger liability limitation to $16,600, and *307 removed most of the exceptions to limited liability for shippers of goods. See generally International Air Transport Association, supra.
The United States was not satisfied that the increase in per-passenger liability was sufficient, and did not ratify the Hague Protocol. See Treaties in Force, supra, at 342 n. 1; Senate Comm, on Foreign Relations, Message from the President of the United States Transmitting Two Related Protocols to the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air, as Amended, Sen. Exec. Doc. No. B, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. V (1977) (“Message Transmitting Two Related Protocols ”). On July 13, 1967, South Korea adhered to the Hague Protocol, but did not separately adhere to the Original Warsaw Convention. See id.; M.J. Bowman and D.J. Harris, Multilateral Treaties: Index and Current Status 202 (1984). In sum, in 1995 when this dispute arose, the United States had ratified the Original Warsaw Convention but not the Hague Protocol, while South Korea had adhered to the Hague Protocol but not the Original Warsaw Convention. 4
Whether this dispute arising out of the international carriage of goods by air is governed by a given substantive treaty, such as the Original Warsaw Convention or the Amended Warsaw Convention, depends on whether the places of departure and destination are within the territories of two contracting parties to that treaty.
See
Original Warsaw Convention,
supra,
art. l(l)-(2),
We determine whether States are parties to a substantive treaty by applying the customary international law of treaties, which governs the making, interpretation, amendment, modification, enforcement, etc., of treaties. “Customary international law results from a general and consistent *308 practice of states followed by them from a sense of legal obligation.” Restatement § 102(2). In some cases, the customary international law of a certain area is itself codified in a treaty. Such is the case with the customary international law of treaties, which to a large extent has been codified in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, May 23, 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331 (the “Vienna Convention”).
B. The Vienna Convention
In resolving the question of whether a treaty relationship exists between the United States and South Korea with regard to the international carriage of goods by air, we apply the rules enunciated in the Vienna Convention. According to a widespread legal conviction of the international community, the Vienna Convention is largely a restatement of customary rules, “binding States regardless of whether they are parties to the Convention.” Maria Frankowska, The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties Before United States Courts, 28 Va. J. Int’l L. 281, 286 (1988) (citing opinions of the International Court of Justice); see Vienna Convention, supra, 1155 U.N.T.S. at 333 (stating its purpose to be, inter alia, the “codification and progressive development of the law of treaties”). 5
The United States recognizes the Vienna Convention as a codification of customary international law. The United States Department of State considers the Vienna Convention “in dealing with day-to-day treaty problems” and recognizes the Vienna Convention as in large part “the authoritative guide to current treaty law and practice.” Frankowska, supra, at 298 (quoting Assistant Legal Advisor for Treaty Affairs at the Department of State and Secretary of State Roger’s Report to the President, Oct. 18, 1971, 65 Dep’t St. Bull. 684, 685 (1971)). In addition, the Department of State has stated that where it has not recognized the Vienna Convention as codifying customary international law, it has adopted it as customary law going forward. See id. at 300.
United States courts have also cited the Vienna Convention as an authoritative codification of customary international law.
See Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc.,
We therefore treat the Vienna Convention as an authoritative guide to the customary international law of treaties. Although a number of the Vienna Convention’s provisions reflected “progressive development of international law” when the treaty was opened for signature in 1969, the parties do not dispute that the articles directly implicated in this case reflect customary international law as it was in 1967 when South Korea adhered to the Hague Protocol. Rather, the parties dispute the interpretation and application of these articles.
C. The United States and South Korea Are Not in a Treaty Relationship Pursuant to the Original Warsaw Convention
Article 40(5) of the Vienna Convention concerns the effect of becoming a party to a treaty after an amending agreement has entered into force:
5. Any State which becomes a party to the treaty after the entry into force of the amending agreement shall, failing an expression of a different intention by that State:
(a) be considered as a party to the treaty as amended; and
(b) be considered as a party to the unamended treaty in relation to any party to the treaty not bound by the amending agreement.
Vienna Convention, supra, art. 40(5), 1155 U.N.T.S. at 342.
Chubb argues that South Korea “bec[ame] a party to the treaty” by adhering to the Hague Protocol. By operation of Article 40(5)(b) then, South Korea would be considered a party to the unamended treaty in relation to any party to the treaty not bound by the amending agreement, in this case, the United States. See Dr. Rene H. Mankiewicz, The Liability Regime of the International Air Carrier 2 (1981) (“[T]he original Convention applies not only to carriage between countries parties to it, but also to carriage between a State that has ratified the Hague Protocol and a State that is a party only to the original Convention. It is immaterial whether the former State had previously ratified the original Convention.... ”). The language of Article 40(5) is ambiguous, however, as to the meaning of “becomes a party to the treaty.” It is unclear whether a State may “become[ ] a party to the treaty” simply by adhering to the amending agreement or whether a State must adhere to the original treaty to “beeome[] a party to the treaty.”. Compare id. with Frankowska, supra, at 364-65 (arguing that Article 40(5)(b) applies only when a State adheres to the original treaty after it has been amended by fewer than all of the parties to the original treaty and does not apply when a State adheres to the treaty as amended because “[t]he drafters of article 40 did not contemplate such a situation, nor did the Vienna Convention commentators”).
Asiana argues that this Court need not determine the meaning of “becomes a party to the treaty” because South Korea expressed a “different intention” when it
*310
adhered to the Hague Protocol. We agree with Asiana that the parties to the Hague Protocol expressed an intention not to be bound to the Original Warsaw Convention. The Hague Protocol created a new treaty: “As between the Parties to this Protocol, the Convention and the Protocol shall be read and interpreted together as
one single instrument
and shall be known as the
Warsaw Convention as amended at The Hague, 1955.”
Hague Protocol,
swpra,
art. XIX, 478 U.N.T.S. at 387 (emphasis altered). Those States that adhered to the Hague Protocol specifically adhered to the Warsaw Convention as amended at the Hague, not the Original Warsaw Convention.
See id.
at art. XXIII(2), 478 U.N.T.S. at 387 (“Adherence to this Protocol by any State which is not a Party to the Convention shall have the effect of adherence to the Convention
as amended by this Protocol.”)
(emphasis added). Thus, when South Korea adhered to the Hague Protocol, it indicated its intention not to be bound to the Original Warsaw Convention. Although it could have adhered separately to the Original Warsaw Convention, South Korea never exercised that option. South Korea is not therefore in a treaty relationship with the United States pursuant to the Original Warsaw Convention.
See
Treaties in Force,
supra,
at 342 n. 1 (“Korea (Rep.) [is a party] to the convention as
amended;
the United States is
not
a party to the amending protocol.”);
cf. Korean Air Lines Disaster,
D. The Actions of the United States and South Korea Did Not Create a Treaty Relationship
Relying on the reasoning of
Korean Air Lines Disaster
and
Hyosung,
the court below held that ratification by the United States of the Original Warsaw Convention and adherence by South Korea to the Amended Warsaw Convention created a treaty relationship between the United States and South Korea consisting of the portions of each version of the treaty to which both countries agreed.
See Chubb,
bind the parties neither [to] the original unamended Convention, nor to the Convention as amended by the Protocol, but rather to a third, hybrid treaty that does not in fact exist — one consisting of only those items from the original Convention that were not later amended by the Protocol _ [T]his a la carte approach ... effectively negates the agreement by the United States to those portions of the treaty to which Korea did not accede.
Chubb,
In Korean Air Lines Disaster, the defendant Korean Air Lines was carrying passengers between South Korea and the United States. Prior to the flight, Korean Air Lines had signed the Montreal Inter-carrier Agreement. The plaintiffs argued that no treaty relationship existed between South Korea and the United States and further argued that
the absence of a treaty relationship prevents the Court from exercising any of the Convention’s provisions in favor of Defendant, Korean Air Lines, a corporate citizen of Korea. Instead, Plaintiffs would have the Court “enforce” the Montreal Agreement, as though it were a separate contract, without regard to the Warsaw Convention.
Korean Air Lines Disaster,
The court first stated that the Hague Protocol offered nations a choice to “adopt the Warsaw Convention as originally for *311 mulated in 1929 or [to] adopt the amended version as formulated in 1955.” Id. at 1469. However, instead of either (1) finding that South Korea became a party to the Original Warsaw Convention and applying that treaty, or (2) finding that South Korea became a party to the Amended Warsaw Convention and dismissing the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the court held that it had jurisdiction because the United States and South Korea were parties to the same treaty “[ajt least with respect to the unamended portions of the Convention.” Id. (emphasis added). Having made that holding for purposes of conferring jurisdiction, the court then proceeded to apply Article 3 of the Original Warsaw Convention, see id. at 1474-75 (quoting original Article 3), despite that Article 3 was substantively amended by the Hague Protocol, see International Air Transport Association, supra, at 4, and therefore was not an “unamended portion of the Convention.”
To the extent that the Korean Air Lines Disaster court found the United States in treaty relations with South Korea with respect to the Original Warsaw Convention, we have already rejected that theory of jurisdiction. To the extent the court found the United States in treaty relations with South Korea with respect to the Truncated Warsaw Convention, or in that court’s words, “the unamended portions of the Convention,” as discussed below, we reject that as well.
In
Hyosung,
the plaintiff hired defendant Japan Air Lines to transport cargo from South Korea to the United States. The cargo was damaged, and the plaintiff sued under the Original Warsaw Convention alleging willful misconduct and negligence in the defendant’s handling of the cargo. The defendant moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, arguing that the dispute did not arise under a treaty of the United States for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1331 because no treaty relationship existed between the United States and South Korea with regard to the international carriage of goods by air.
Hyosung,
The court concluded that “adherence to the Hague Protocol includes adherence to the Convention.”
Id.
at 728-29 (citing Article XXIII of the Hague Protocol and
Korean Air Lines Disaster,
[s]ince each country has adhered to unamended portions, the Convention does provide the substantive law governing air carriage disputes concerning carriers from the Republic of Korea and the United States which are within the scope of these sections. To require Korea to execute the Convention in addition to the Protocol adopting the Convention would be to exalt the formality of treaty signatories over the substance of the two nations’ agreement regarding this air carriage contract. Absent a finding that these unamended portions are inseverable from the rest of the treaty because of prejudice to either nation, the unamended sections will be considered a treaty agreement between the United States and Korea.
Id. at 729.
Requiring South Korea to execute the Original Warsaw Convention in addition to the Hague Protocol would not, however, “exalt the formality of treaty signatories over the substance of the two nations’ agreement regarding” international carriage by air; it would create the agreement between the United States and South Korea. And that agreement would place South Korea in treaty relations with the United States as to the entire Original Warsaw Convention, not the Truncated Warsaw Convention fashioned by the court. Even if it could be said that South Korea agreed to be bound by a subset of the Original Warsaw Convention when it adhered to the- Hague Protocol, the United States did not agree to be bound by that *312 same subset of provisions when it ratified the Original Warsaw Convention.
Article 17(1) of the Vienna Convention supports this conclusion that the United States is not in treaty relations with any State that adhered to only a portion of the Original Warsaw Convention. Article 17(1) states that “the consent of a state to be bound by part of a treaty is effective only if the treaty so permits or the other contracting States so agree.” Vienna Convention, supra, art. 17(1), 1155 U.N.T.S. at 336; Restatement § 312 cmt. f (“A state may consent to be bound by part of an agreement only, if that is permitted by the agreement or if the other contracting states consent.”). The Original Warsaw Convention does not provide for partial adherence and the United States has not consented to partial adherence by any State, including South Korea. Under Article 17(1) of the Vienna Convention then, partial adherence by South Korea to the Original Warsaw Convention has no effect vis-a-vis the United States, and did not create treaty relations between the United States and South Korea.
The
Hyosung
court rejected the argument that Article 17(1) dictated that the United States and South Korea were not in treaty relations with regard to a portion of the Original Warsaw Convention, reasoning that Article 17(1) was inapplicable because the issue was “not whether it is proper to allow one state to adhere to a portion of a treaty but whether both states’ adherence to portions of a treaty may be deemed to constitute an agreement between those two nations.”
Hyosung,
In short,
there seems to be little, if any, authority for [the Hyosung court’s] theory in the law of treaties. In fact, a general principle of international law-enunciated by the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Lotus — prohibits any presumption of restrictions on the freedom of States, and thus points in the opposite direction. Unless it can be proven that a State consented to be bound by an international obligation, the presumption that it is not bound prevails.
Frankowska, supra, at 365. The court’s creation of a Truncated Warsaw Convention simply is not supported by the customary international law of treaties.
The creation of a Truncated Warsaw Convention is also a violation of the doctrine of the Separation of Powers. The treaty-making powers are vested in the executive and legislative branches of the United States Government, and not in the judicial branch.
See
U.S. Const. Art. II, § 2, cl. 2 (“[The President] shall have the Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties.... ”). Thus, “to alter, amend, or add to any treaty, by inserting any clause, whether small or great, important or trivial, would be, on our part, an usurpation of power, and not an exercise of judicial functions. It would be to make, and not to construe a treaty.”
In re The Amiable Isabella,
19 U.S. (6 Wheat) 1, 71,
The
Hyosung
court recognized that the executive branch of the United States Government maintained that South Korea was not in treaty relations with the United States with regard to international carriage by air because South Korea had adhered only to the Warsaw Convention as amended by the Hague Protocol.
Hyo-sung,
Put simply, “it is not within the province of the judiciary to alter the
quid pro quo
agreed to by the political branches [in the Original Warsaw Convention.]”
Korean Air Lines Disaster,
provide ... that if the relevant document (ticket, baggage check or air waybill) has not been delivered (or, in the case of air waybill, “made out”), the carrier “shall not be entitled to avail himself of the provisions of this convention which exclude or limit his liability” .... [U]nlike [Article 3, however, the other Articles] specifically impose [that] sanction for failure to include in the documents certain particulars.... .
Id.
at 131,
A review of the facts of this case illustrates how use of the Truncated Warsaw Convention violates the foregoing principle. The United States adhered to the Original Warsaw Convention, which, as the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation indicated, would provide no limitation on liability because of Asiana’s failure properly to include the particulars on the Waybill. By applying the Truncated Warsaw Convention, however, the district court placed the United States in a treaty that did provide limited liability, despite Asiana’s failure to include the particulars. This Truncated Warsaw Convention lacks a provision to which the United States adhered — a fundamental alteration of the Original Warsaw Convention resulting in an entirely different outcome.
Like the Supreme Court, this Court has held that “[t]he Convention represents an entire liability scheme, and was intended to serve as a uniform, international.law.”
Lockerbie,
In
Maritime,
this Court addressed the particulars of Article 8 of the Original Warsaw Convention and held that because the waybill was missing the “agreed stopping places” particular specified in Article 8(c), the carrier was not permitted to limit its liability.
See Maritime,
We recognize that it appears onerous to deprive Northwest of limited liability protection under Article 9 for its failure to include the agreed stopping places as required by Article 8(c).... The plain language of Article 9 does not make the loss of limited liability protection contingent on prejudice to the shipper or consignee .... Although this may seem commercially unreasonable today, “to engraft such an interpretation onto the plain language of [Article 9] would require an impermissible judicial amendment of the Convention.”
Tai Ping
In sum, no precedent in international law allows the creation of a separate treaty based on separate adherence by two States to two different versions of a treaty, and it is not for the judiciary to alter, amend, or create an agreement between the United States and other States. The Original Warsaw Convention created a liability scheme including quid pro quo provisions that cannot be severed without substantially changing the very scheme to which the political branches of the United States agreed. Rewriting the Original Warsaw Convention to omit the “agreed stopping places” requirement impermissibly encroaches upon the treaty-making power reserved to the political branches.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that the actions of the United States and South Korea did not create treaty relations with regard to the international carriage of goods by air and the court below erred in concluding otherwise. Because we find that the United States and South Korea are not in treaty relations with regard to the international carriage of goods by air, this dispute does not arise under a treaty of the United States and the district court is thereby deprived of subject matter jurisdiction. The judgment of the district court is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings to determine whether there exists some other ground for subject matter jurisdiction.
Notes
. On August 15, 1945, Korea was liberated from Japan, and on August 15, 1948, the Republic of Korea was established in the southern portion of Korea. See U.S. Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Background Notes: South Korea, October 1998 <http://www.state.gov/ www/background notes/south lcorea 1098 bgn.html. > The Republic of Korea is commonly referred to as South Korea. Id.
. The conclusion of the district court in Korean Air Lines Disaster regarding treaty relations between the United States and South Korea was not challenged or addressed on direct appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit or in the Supreme Court.
. This observation was incorrect as to
Korean Air Lines Disaster,
where the court was confronted with a provision substantively amended by the Hague Protocol.
See Korean Air Lines Disaster,
. In 1965, the United States announced that it would denounce the Original Warsaw Convention unless the liability limit was raised, by special contract or otherwise.
See Korean Air Lines Disaster,
After 1965, the United States made several failed attempts to adopt an amended version of the Original Warsaw Convention. It was not until September 28, 1998 that the United States finally ratified Montreal Protocol No. 4 to Amend the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air Signed at Warsaw on 12 October 1929 as amended by the Protocol done at the Hague on 28 September 1955, Sept. 25, 1975, Message Transmitting Two Related Protocols, supra, at 7-17 ("Montreal Protocol No. 4”), and thereby acceded to the Warsaw Convention as amended by the Hague Protocol and as amended by Montreal Protocol No. 4. See id. art. XVII(2), S. Exec. Doc. No. B at 15. Because the actions giving rise to this suit occurred in 1995, Montreal Protocol No. 4 does not affect this case. See Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations of the United States § 322(1) (1986) (the "Restatement”) ("[T]he provisions of an international agreement do not bind a party in relation to any act or fact that took place ... before the date of the entry into force of the agreement with respect to that party.”).
. The Vienna Convention does not apply as a matter of treaty law in this case because (1) the United States never ratified the Vienna Convention, see Basic Documents in International and World Order § 1.15 (Burns H. Weston et al. eds., 2d ed.1990) (showing that the United States signed but did not ratify and that South Korea ratified without qualification on April 27, 1977); and (2) the Vienna Convention is not retroactively applied to treaties in force, see Vienna Convention, supra, art. 4, 1155 U.N.T.S. at 334. The Vienna Convention may nevertheless be used as a guide to the customary international law of treaties before it became effective, because the customary international law it codified existed separately before the Vienna Convention. See id. (Convention applies prospectively "[wjithout prejudice to the application of any rules set forth in the present Convention to which treaties would be subject under international law independently of the Convention.”).
. As noted earlier, the issues discussed herein were not raised or addressed on appeal.