무인항공기 드론 사고의 법적 책임과 보험제도

Drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle which is made and utilized to perform designated mission by equipping various devices such as infrared radar through radio wave guidance. While drone has been mainly used for maintaining national security, monitoring, surveillance, and military duties, the commercial drone market got active recently and the utilization of drone is expanding to various fields such as distribution (shipping), agricultural use (pesticide, pest control), sports, news gathering (filming video), and leisure activity. However, for the safe operation of unmanned aerial vehicle, it is necessary to solve legal liability issue and arrange insurance system. Drone accident involves accident due to mistake of operator, accident due to defect of drone, and accident due to hacking or system virus. In addition, drone may infringe other’s privacy due to intentional mistake of operator or drone may collide with other drones. When such drone-related accident happens, it applies to civil liability and involves liability for damages in life, body, or property. Although there is a Rome Convention as the international agreement for regulating the liability, Rome Convention is not fulfilling its roll. Thus, it is likely for the drone-related accident to be settled by the domestic law of each country. The drone accident caused by the mistake of operator may be applied with civil law or commercial law and the drone accident caused by the defect from manufacturer, system malfunctioning, and network error may involve controversies over applying the product liability. Thus, to recognize the liability relationship between the related parties through various drone-related accidents, legal liability and controversies and to develop various effective insurance system, it is necessary to review the insurance terms related to drone damage and response actively toward the development of insurance system for drone.