hr: Jets

Owning an aircraft offers one the freedom to go anywhere in the world, but this does not mean one can do this without having to abide by certain rules.

Photo Credit: *Robert*

Cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum et ad inferos (”he who owns the land owns what is above and below it”).  This maxim best reflects the principle of airspace sovereignty in international law.

Air Law is the body of law directly or indirectly concerned with civil aviation which applies to both heavier-than-air and lighter-than-air aircraft.  The earliest legislation in air law was a 1784 decree of the Paris police forbidding balloon flights without a special permit.  A basic principle of international air law is that every state has complete and exclusive control over the airspace above its territory, including its territorial sea.

In 1919, at the Paris Convention on the Regulation of Aerial Navigation, the principle of airspace sovereignty was reaffirmed and subsequently by various other multilateral treaties. In 1944, this principle is restated in the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation. Airspace is now generally accepted as an appurtenance of the subjacent territory and shares the latter’s legal status.  In 1958, under the Geneva Convention on the High Seas as well as under international customary law, the freedom of the high seas applies to aerial navigation as well as to maritime navigation. Vertically, airspace ends where outer space begins. 

(To Be Continued)