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Aviation History
1910
1910 - 1006.PDF
THE INTERNATIONAL THE International Conference* on Aerial Navigation, which first met in Paris in May last to draw up a Convention defining the international law of the air, now seems finally to have broken up without any very definite decisions having been arrived at. It will be remembered that the Conference adjourned at the end of June on the proposal of the British delegate, Rear-Admiral Gamble, who was instructed that his Government considered the high importance of the questions treated by the Conference to be such as to make it necessary for the Government to study carefully those questions before the draft Convention was approved. The adjournment was approved and the members of the Conference arranged to meet again on Tuesday of last week; but when that date arrived nothing further was done though it was announced that the assembling of the Conference had been postponed sine die. So far as information is forthcoming upon the cause of what is really a break-up of the Conference—for the time being, at any rate—it seems to have been caused by the attitude of certain Powers, including Great Britain, who desire to retain the right to close their frontiers against the aerial vessels of one or all nationalities when they see fit, without any obligation to give a reason for taking such action. Negotiations are now said to be in progress between the various Governments with a view to finding a way out of the impasse in which the Conference finds itself. Whatever the ultimate result of these negotiations may be, we think it a cause for congratulation that the British Government appears fully to recognise the imperative importance of starting well in this matter of the codifica tion of international aerial law. There may be no great importance attaching to the exact point which happens to have brought the Conference lo an untimely end. It is rather the principle underlying the action leading up to continued postponement with which we are concerned. Too long has the Government appeared to look upon aerial navigation as something too far removed for serious notice, and to regard the aerial enthusiast as a person with "a bee in his bonnet." The measured words of Admiral Gamble's resolution, anent profound study on the part of the Government, indicates very clearly that the old-time policy of laissez /aire in matters aerial is past and done with. The Times, in its issue of November 29th, publishes a summary of the draft Convention as it stood when the Conference adjourned in June last, which has all the appearance of being at least a semi-official document. This draft Convention deals with the law of the air in its broader principles of international application, what we may term the more local principles being applied through the rules contained in the Reglement de la Circulation Aerienne which is apparently annexed to the Convention but of which, unfortunately, the full text is not available. The Convention appears to have been drafted almost entirely upon the provisions of international maritime law. There are the same requirements as to registration and nationality of air-vessels, certificates of fitness of the craft and the competence of its navigators and navigation in- territorial waters—using the maritime phrase for the sake of convenience—and the same regulations applying to the sojourn of alien craft in distress. There are, of course, some inevitable differences between the terms of the Convention and the text of the maritime law which are DECEMBER 10, 191a LAW OF THE AIR. rendered necessary by the differences in navigational circumstances. For instance, it is laid down that aerial navigators must keep a very detailed log, giving the names, nationality and domicile of all persons on board, and embodying a record of the course, altitude and all the events of the voyage. This log must be preserved for at least two years from the date of the last entry, and must be produced on the demand of the authorities. Each State would have to exercise the right of police and Customs supervision in the atmosphere over its territory. It would have power to regulate passenger and goods traffic between points in its own territories, and it could prohibit navigation in certain zones of reasonable extent. These zones would have to be indicated with sufficient precision to permit of them being shown on aeronautical charts of the scale of 1-500,000 at least. Dealing with the question of aerial vessels coming to land in foreign territories, the Conference agreed that they should be exempt from duty and that provisions and working materials should enjoy the customary tolerance, while passengers' luggage should be treated as though it had arrived by way of a land or sea frontier. The carriage of merchandise can only be undertaken by virtue of special conventions or in virtue of internal legislation. A noteworthy point is that the aerial transport of explosives, firearms, ammunition and carrier birds is prohibited; and that of photographic apparatus is to be regulated by each State within its own territory. A State may cause the photographic negatives found on board an airship coming to earth in its territory to be developed, and if necessary may seize them and the photographic apparatus. Wireless telegraphic apparatus, too, carried by an airship may not be used, without special permission, for any other purpose than to secure the vessel's safety. These regulations, of course, apply oniy to privately owned vessels. The regulation of public and military airships is provided for in a separate section of the Con vention. While vessels of this character are exempt from many of the general regulations, they are naturally enough bound down by special conditions of their own. The departing or landing of military airships of one State in the territory of another is prohibited, unless with the authorisation of the State whose territory is involved; while each contracting State is at liberty to prohibit or regulate in accordance with its interests the passage over its territories of military airships belonging to other contracting States. A clause in the Convention relating to the extra-territoriality of military airships and their crews while within the limits of jurisdiction of a foreign State, appears not to have met with the full approval of the delegates of several Powers, Great Britain and Austria 'being among those who reserved their adhesion. Finally, the Convention stipulates that nothing it contains shall interfere with the liberty of action of belligerents or with the rights and duties of neutrals. The above are the principal points of this most interesting draft Convention—which, however, is not really a Convention since it has not received the formal approval of the interested Powers. And, in the light of the indefinite adjournment of the Conference, it is perhaps doubtful if it stands much chance of being embodied in the Law of Nations just yet. However that may be, it has the supreme interest of being the first document dealing with the law of the air as between the nations. IOO4
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