Aviation Security: The Role of Law in the War Against Terrorism

86 Pages Posted: 31 Mar 2011

Date Written: 2003

Abstract

Like few other commercial activities, an airline embodies the national symbol of the nation whose flag it flies. Its existence, its routes, and all of its commercial activities are a product of national oversight and regulation. For some nations, aviation is a symbol of national aspirations of pride, prestige, and global penetration.

Moreover, commercial aviation disasters - intentional or accidental - are uniquely treated by the news media as singular events, commanding the front pages of newspapers, the cover stories of news magazines, and the lead stories of television news broadcasting and electronic media sites. For all these reasons, commercial aircraft have been prominent targets of terrorist attacks. Terrorism has become the nightmare of the modern world. The means by which terrorism manifests itself are as brutal as they are imaginative. They include hijacking aircraft, firing heat-seeking missiles at aircraft, bombing aircraft or airport lounges, gunning down passengers at airports, and more recently, turning aircraft into guided missiles aimed at financial and governmental institutions.

Hijacking and other forms of aerial terrorism have developed as a means for the militarily weak to achieve political ends at the expense of the innocent. During the infancy of civil aviation, a passenger's principal concerns were the skill of the pilot and the condition of the aircraft. Recent decades have added a third concern: whether or not a fellow passenger intends to use the occasion to focus the media's attention on a revolutionary cause. The hijacking or destruction of aircraft is still among the most effective means of capturing a worldwide audience.

Hijackings account for the largest percentage of all attacks against civil aviation. Other criminal acts include: (1) airport attacks;7 (2) bombings, attempted bombings, and shootings on board civil aviation aircraft; (3) general and charter aviation aircraft incidents; (4) off-airport facility attacks; and (5) shootings at inflight aircraft.

This Article reviews how international and domestic laws have worked in a complimentary fashion to arrest aircraft hijacking, piracy, terrorism, and other forms of unlawful interference with commercial aviation. Part II examines the international resolutions and conventions on aerial terrorism, and Part III analyzes United States legislation. The discussion proceeds across time in order to facilitate a chronological understanding of the evolution of law and policy in aviation, which is particularly important because the development of aviation policy has long been a reactive, rather than a proactive, process. Neither international nor domestic law will effectively deter aerial terrorism without worldwide cooperation to strengthen airport and aircraft security, prosecute terrorists, and impose meaningful sanctions on states that provide safe havens for, or support, hijackers and other aerial terrorists.

Keywords: Aviation security, Terrorist attacks, Aircraft hijacking, Aircraft bombing, Shootings on board aircrafts, Vulnerability of US transportation system, International resolutions and conventions on aerial terrorism

Suggested Citation

Dempsey, Paul Stephen, Aviation Security: The Role of Law in the War Against Terrorism (2003). Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 41, No. 3, p. 649, 2003, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1799387

Paul Stephen Dempsey (Contact Author)

McGill University - Faculty of Law ( email )

3690 Peel Street
Montreal, Quebec H3AIW9
Canada

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