Convention on Air Law: What It Is Like to Be

Abstract

It’s for many years that the revision of the Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation of 1944 is discussed. Still more acute is the need for the Convention on Air Law (CAL) from the point of view of united legal regime for any flights and any kinds of activity in airspace which constitute the interdependent system. The experience of European Union in this respect is mostly successful. Less successful are the CIS member-States, which just formally declared United Airspace (UAS). Still in both cases we have just Functional Airspace (FAS) declared for certain flights and activities.The States-members of Pact of Ands created FAS for commercial aims.FAS is declared by all regional organizations in the sphere of air navigation: ASECNA, EUROCONTROL, COCESNA etc. It is possible to use the term “United Airspace of the Convention on Air Law” keeping in mind (among all) the idea of creation of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) based on GPS, GLONASS and GALILEO.CAL will help to settle a number of “frozen” (traditional) problems (disputes) of air law, as well as new ones, with the help of a new Global Organization on the Use of Air Space (GOUAS). It will also promote the creation of stable legal base for the functional “flight cyber space”.As to the procedural aspects of the problem it advisable to use the experience of Convention on the Law of the Seas of 1982 and of Draft Convention on the Law of Outer Space proposed by Russia in 2000.In any case it should be kept in mind that many States oppose the idea of global agreement on exchange of commercial rights in air transport.So the CAL should be mostly devoted to the public aspects of International Air Law.