What are the rules about flying in another nation’s airspace, intercepting airliners, and general good behaviour in the sky.

A thread 👇

The principles of international air travel were agreed at the 1944 Chicago Convention. WW2 had revolutionised aircraft development and forward-thinking people realised that the rules needed to catch up to accommodate airline travel after the war.

Delegates from 54 countries attended (at considerable personal risk for some) to thrash out a treaty. They had to balance national sovereignty against the co-operation needed for this new means of rapid global transport to work.

Germany, Italy and Japan were not invited (it was 1944) but signed afterwards along with pretty much everyone else. There are now 193 members of ICAO (the body Chicago established) including

Article 1 of the Convention recognises that states have sovereignty over the airspace above them (although the development of another new technology: space means the rules need to catch up again and agree an upper limit).