Issues of Interpretation under the Cape Town Convention and its Protocols

The 2001 Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment and its associated Protocol on aircraft objects are among the most successful private commercial law instruments to have been adopted in recent years. Together with the other Protocols on railway rolling stock, space assets and mining, agricultural and construction equipment they are also the most complex, raising acute issues of interpretation which can sometimes be resolved only by departing from the strict language of the text. Though the instruments have stood up well to rigorous analysis they do contain errors, omissions, inconsistencies and ambiguities which the various Official Commentaries prepared by the writer have sought to address, with helpful input from the aviation industry, and there is also the difficulty of reconciling multi-language official texts which on occasion are not wholly consistent with each other. This article addresses the main problems of interpretation encountered.