Law Commons^™

The U.K.’S ‘Appetite’ For Space: An Increased Craving!, Sarah Jane Fox

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Launching into space was once the pursuit of super-power nations, who, during a period of international tensions, competed to be the first—the first into space and the first to the Moon. While the United Kingdom (U.K.) had a similar appetite it never achieved a space launch from its national soils, often thwarted by political and economic constraints. This said, the U.K. has played a key role, working alongside other nations in technological advancements related to space. This paper revisits the historical legacy of the U.K.’s space ventures and its space policies before comment is made to the current strategy …

On Who Should Pay When Orbital Debris “Trickles-Down” In A Tragedy Of The Low Earth Orbit Commons, Michael B. Runnels

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

In March 2023, NASA released the most rigorous and wide-reaching orbital debris analysis in the space law literature that provides a cost-benefit analysis of removing orbital debris from low Earth orbit (LEO), a region of the Earth’s environment with no environmental regulation. NASA contextualized the motivation in releasing this report as rooted in the exponential growth of the commercial satellite industry, noting that “the number of tracked and untracked debris in LEO is projected to grow . . . even if no new satellites are launched into space, yet launch traffic is likely to increase in the coming decade compared …

The Cape Town Convention Offers Registered International Interests Providing Maximal Security To American Lessees Of Aircraft, B. Patrick Honnebier

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

This paper focuses on the acquisition of aircraft by United States-based airlines. At present in the U.S., airlines are faced with a fierce competition, and to commercially survive, they keep advertising that they operate modern and safe aircraft. Since the beginning of aviation, there does not exist a fully state-owned “flag carrier” in the U.S. On the contrary, the commercial airlines market has always been in the hands of private undertakings. Traditionally, the airlines themselves have arranged the acquisition of their fleets of aircraft. For this purpose, they have to obtain loans from private banks and other non-governmental financial institutions. …

Navigating Through Cloudy Skies: The Montreal Convention & Article 17 “Accidents” Post-Moore, Elan Wilson

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

The Montreal Convention is a multilateral treaty that comprehensively regulates international air carriers. Specifically, Article 17 of the treaty allows passengers to recover against air carriers for injuries or deaths on international flights, so long as certain requirements are met. In Air France v. Saks, the Supreme Court held that “accident”—a controlling term in Article 17—describes an event that is external to the passenger and “unexpected or unusual.” Last year, in Moore v. British Airways PLC, the First Circuit purported to identify a split over what this language means. According to Moore, there are courts who (correctly) …

When Federal Standards Crash And Burn: The Need To Distinguish Aviation Product Liability Claims From In-Air Operations Cases, Olivia Cahill

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

If you are injured in an aviation disaster or lose a loved one in a plane crash, may you seek recovery under state law? Do federal regulations provide adequate opportunities to compensate aviation crash victims? These are questions few people think to ask themselves. A more common query is what entity regulates the more than 16 million flights that occur yearly in the U.S., and how do you know whether the aircraft you fly on are safe?

The tragic Boeing 737 MAX crashes initiated a federal oversight investigation into the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Industry whistleblowers revealed severe lapses in …

Delayed Flights And Delayed Rights: It Is Time For The United States To Follow The European Union’S Lead And Enact More Regulations To Protect Airline Passengers, Hannah Foote

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Since Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, travelers have benefitted from airline deregulation through discounted prices and greater access to air travel, but these benefits have largely been offset by the reality that many airline passengers are unsatisfied with the airline industry’s customer service, or lack thereof. This Comment argues that the United States should follow the European Union’s lead and, in accordance with Regulation EC 261, require airlines to compensate passengers when their flights are delayed or canceled. The concentrated aviation industry has created a market that does not adequately protect airline passengers, and the courts have …

Deregulating Consumers From The Airline Industry—Dot’S Proposed Rule In Response To U.S. Airlines’ Refusal To Refund Unused Tickets During Covid-19, Alicia L. Hinton, Diana Hyunjin Malcolm

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant delays and cancellation of airline tickets without proper refunds to consumers by U.S. airlines. In response to an unprecedented number of consumer complaints, in August 2022, the Department of Transportation (Department or DOT) proposed new rules regarding airline ticket refunds and consumer protections.Does this rule go far enough?

This article provides a summary of the events and policy changes leading up to the Airline Deregulation Act (ADA) of 1978 and challenges the scope of federal preemption over the field of airline regulation that has created a boon to air carriers while essentially eliminating …

On Launching Environmental Law Into Orbit In The Age Of Satellite Constellations, Michael B. Runnels

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

In September 2022, the Federal Communications Commission adopted a new rule changing the deorbiting timeframe for satellites ending their missions in low Earth orbit from a twenty-five-year recommendation to a five-year legal requirement. The adoption of this rule, which seeks to cultivate a sustainable orbital environment for satellites, followed the United States’ July 2022 National Orbital Debris Implementation Plan, which tasked federal agencies with reviewing the effectiveness of their orbital debris-related rules. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 West Virginia v. EPA decision, however, federal rulemaking in the area of orbital debris may not survive judicial scrutiny …

From Geopolitics To Lunapolitics: A Response To Lee’S The Future Of The Law On The Moon, Andrea Harrington

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

The Department Of Transportation’S Failures In Regulating Emotional Support Animals, Jillian Doughty

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

In the past decade, the number of emotional support animals being used to treat a wide array of mental and emotional disorders has multiplied exponentially. This increase has been met with mixed reactions in the context of air travel. While some passengers are thrilled to sit next to a dog on their flight, others are frustrated due to the belief passengers with emotional support animals are exploiting a loophole to travel with their pet for free. Regardless of the differing perceptions, emotional support animals are a valid, affordable way to treat mental health illnesses without incurring negative side effects associated …

Aerospace And Defense Industries, Johny Chaklader, Michael Bealy, Neal Petro, Danish Hamid

The Year in Review

No abstract provided.

Aerospace And Defense Industries, Randy Cook, Francesca Harker, Waqas Shahid, Nicholas J. Spiliotes, Aki Bayz, Felix Helmstaedter, Tak-Kyun Hong, Philippe Shin, R. Locke Bell

The Year in Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Airport Noise As Public Bads: Comparative Remarks On Legal Challenges In Resolving The Neighbor Conflict Between The Airport And Landowners, Magdalena Habdas

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Incompatible uses of land create neighbor conflicts connected with the notions of civil law immissions (non-trespassory invasions) or common law nuisance. These traditional instruments of resolving the neighbor conflict have their limitations when pollution (such as noise pollution produced by aviation) interferes with the use and enjoyment of land that affects numerous landowners. Lawmakers seek to resolve the neighbor conflict with public intervention in such circumstances. Instead of relying on the market, the state allocates entitlements, indicates how parties must behave, and prescribes the conditions under which lawmakers should conclude an agreement.

Interestingly, although the nuisance caused by airport noise …

Understanding An Outlier: The U.S. System Of Airport Governance And Economic Regulation, Robert A. Hazel

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Unlike airports in many other countries which have been corporatized or privatized, nearly all U.S. airports continue to be operated by the public sector. They are subject to a system of economic regulation that provides little incentive to control costs or allocate capital efficiently. Yet, despite its apparent shortcomings, the current system has persisted over several decades. This Article explains the persistence of the current U.S. system of airport economic regulation based on price theory, regulatory economics, and public choice principles. It offers supporting empirical evidence for this equilibrium and identifies factors that might lead to a different outcome.

Elected …

Public Safety Concerns And Meeting The Dudenhoeffer Pleading Standard, Douglass G. Brown

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

This Comment analyzes the recent Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) stock drop cases against The Boeing Company (Boeing) and reviews the underlying pleading standard in these cases that the Supreme Court set forth in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer. With the tremendous amount of assets in retirement plans—and specifically in employee stock ownership plans—litigation under ERISA can be extremely costly to employers, especially those in the airline industry that offer these plans. The current pleading standard for stock drop cases has become a practically insurmountable barrier to plaintiffs, even when their employers know they are negligently creating products …

Front Matter

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Predicting Bearing Fault In The Drone Freight Industry: Legal Liability In Australia, Prue Vines, Anthony Song, Matthew Priestley, Elias Aboutanios

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Many people are now aware of drones or remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs), and several others have predicted the significant impacts that drones will bring across society. Today, there is an expectation that drones will play a pivotal role in industries such as surveillance, security, surveying, construction, and freight transport. However, in all these cases, whenever a drone is flying over a populated area, it poses a danger to people or things on the ground. Perhaps the sector where the greatest risk of injury to the everyday person exists is the drone delivery industry. The drone freight industry is proliferating fast, …

Front Matter

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Law To Address Space Debris Mitigation And Remediation: Looking Through A Science And Technology Lens, Annie Handmer, Steven Freeland

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Increasingly over the past six decades, space exploration and technology have revolutionized the world we live in. The landscape in outer space has continued to evolve rapidly, presenting new challenges for a much slower moving legal framework as well as for peaceful uses of space more generally. In particular, space debris has emerged as a pressing global threat. In response, states have shifted towards a more informal two-pronged approach to outer space, as reflected by non-binding instruments adopted by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), along with the development of technologies that aim to …

Pulsed Nuclear Space Propulsion And International Law: Some Preliminary, Glenn Reynolds, Leigh Outten

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Pulsed Nuclear Space Propulsion, researched in the 1950s and 1960s by such eminent physicists as Freeman Dyson, Ted Taylor, Theodore von Karman, and Hans Bethe, involves propelling large spacecraft using compact nuclear explosions from specialized atomic devices. This technology is often known by the name of the Air Force project in which it was developed: Orion. It has long been believed that the 1962 Limited Test Ban Treaty prohibits the use of nuclear pulse space propulsion. After a survey of the Orion project and its results and a review of the applicable law, this Article concludes that language in the …

3d Printing In The Aerospace Industry: Emerging Legal Issues For Counsel And Insurers, Lisa Savitt, Lauren L. Haertlein, Laura Dubois

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

This Article covers the fast-growing use of additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, in the aerospace industry for critical and noncritical parts. The use of this technology raises regulatory and liability issues in the United States and Europe. Insurers of aerospace-related companies must also consider how to plan for the risks involved with the technology and the new entrants in the market who are designing, selling, and distributing additive manufacturing printers. Neither the regulatory bodies in the United States nor Europe have issued regulations aimed at additive manufacturing, as the law is even further behind. This Article informs lawyers …

Vertiports: Ready For Take-Off … And Landing, Benjamyn Scott

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

While aviation has been used in transportation for decades, the use of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft for large-scale, low-cost, green, sustainable, and integrated mobility in populated areas is a new phenomenon. Despite the importance of ground infrastructure for embarkation and disembarkation of passengers, cargo, and mail, questions remain on how these “vertiports” are or should be regulated and how they will relate to existing regulated ground infrastructure such as aerodromes, airports, and heliports. Therefore, several questions arise: what is a vertiport; how do vertiports relate to other aviation infrastructure; what are the legal implications of having different terms; …

The (Pfas)T And The Furious: Applying Hazardous Waste Management Frameworks To The Global Presence Of Pfas, Maggie Clark

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

International treaties governing transboundary hazardous waste are a result of the theory of sustainable development. These conventions have developed over several decades but still lack authority over one of the biggest waste exporters: the United States. As forever chemicals like GenX become a spotlight for future waste regulation, can these conventions project a framework to apply to the currently unregulated chemical that predominantly travels across the Atlantic Ocean between the Netherlands and the United States? This Article seeks to apply various transboundary waste international laws to the market for GenX, identify problems, and propose solutions.

Mining The Milky Way: How To Bring America’S Extraterrestrial Excursions Back Into Compliance With International Obligations, Braden N. Anderson

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

In November of 2015, the 114th United States Congress enacted the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 (Space Act) and, in turn, thrusted the door to outer space mining wide open for Americans. Unfortunately, while the Space Act provided a solution for corporations, it created a dilemma for the United States. As currently enacted, the Space Act directly conflicts with the world’s foundational and most basic framework for international space law: The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (Outer Space Treaty).

To …

Personal Jurisdiction On The Move, Kirsten M. Castañeda

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

In Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the standards for establishing specific personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant in federal court. The Court rejected previous interpretations of specific jurisdiction that required a causal connection between the defendant’s forum contacts and the plaintiff’s alleged facts. This reorientation has had a ripple effect on specific personal jurisdiction inquiries in federal and state courts across the nation, including courts in the Fifth Circuit and Texas. This Article passes through the basics of general jurisdiction en route to a more leisurely exploration of the clarified …

Regulating Science Fiction: The Regulatory Deficiencies In A Rapidly Growing Commercial Space Industry, H. Austin Simpson

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

This Comment explores the deficiencies of the legal framework governing commercial space with the advent of satellite mega-constellations. The scope and size of these so-called constellations are completely unlike anything the space industry has contemplated since the first rocket was launched into orbit. Moreover, these constellations are an extremely new phenomenon—the prime movers in the industry are just beginning to create these massive man-made wonders in space. As such, the legal framework was designed around space operations that are much smaller in scope. That framework has struggled to keep pace with the rapidly growing commercial space industry generally and the …

Put Away The Duct Tape And Bring Out The Prosecution: Combating The Unruly Passenger Crisis By Improving Federal Enforcement Procedures, Michael Mccluskey

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Unruly passengers aboard commercial flights have become a critical issue for consumer airliners, federal agencies, and other key commercial aviation stakeholders. In the past few years, unruly passenger confrontations rose exponentially. Through a patchwork of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulatory fines, civil penalties, and criminal sanctions, there are enforcement measures available to combat unruly passengers. However, this complex mix of regulations and statutes fails to clearly outline which agencies will be responsible for which types of conduct and what the appropriate penalty will be. Not only does this tangle of enforcement measures confuse and hinder prosecution of unruly passengers, it …

Customary International Law As A Vessel For Global Accord: The Case Of Customary Rules-Of- The-Road For Governing The Orbital Highways Of Earth, Hjalte Osborn Frandsen

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

In a time where the international community seems unable or unwilling to commit to binding instruments to solve global-governance issues, ranging from climate to cybercrime, increased reliance on customary norms presents a path forward. Using the case of space traffic, this author investigates if and how customary international law can emerge to govern complex transnational issues. The traditional approach to international custom is augmented with perspectives from the broader field of social science to accord for the influence of private actors and technological development on the formation of customary law.

Commercialization of the space sector has unleashed a tremendous proliferation …

Back To Air In Disarray?: Disparity In Practices And Interpretations On Adizs Disrupting The Safety Of Civil Aviation, Sanghoon Lee

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

The interconnectivity of civil aviation has been long praised with the success of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in harmonizing navigation standards and procedures, along with the utilization of Flight Information Regions (FIRs). However, continuing geopolitical tensions with different implementations of Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZs) have belittled the technical achievement. Among different State practices, some ADIZs have expanded beyond territorial airspace and even overlapped with other FIRs, requiring overflying air- craft to submit flight plans and abide by procedures separate or in addition to air traffic control obligations.

The purpose of this Article is to review the ongoing …