Law Commons^™

A Further History Of The Smu Air Law Symposium, Don G. Rushing

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

A Primer On Opposing Construction Of Wind Farms Near Public-Use Airports, Alan Armstrong

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

We are witnessing an explosion in the construction of wind turbine generators, cell phone towers, and television/radio broadcast towers around the United States. The statutes, rules, regulations, and police guidance addressing when and where such structures can be erected near public-use airports are complex and intricate. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) focuses more on subjective than objective criteria in assessing whether an obstruction to air navigation is a hazard to air navigation.

To the extent the FAA conducts studies to determine whether an obstruction is a hazard, the courts are not uniform in assessing the effects of FAA studies. In …

Claim Splitting In The New World Of Several Liability And Personal Jurisdiction, Jonathan M. Hoffman

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

General aviation accident litigation has recently become more complicated, with multiple lawsuits filed in multiple venues to litigate the same crash. An informal poll at the Air Law Symposium indicated that a large percentage of the attendees had been involved in such cases.

Two primary forces likely give rise to these multiple lawsuits. First, with the demise of joint and several liability, plaintiffs are often forced to sue more defendants and for defendants to add more third-party defendants. Second, the more rigorous personal jurisdiction standards articulated by the United States Supreme Court in the past decade have tightened both general …

Delivery Drones: Inapt For Application Of Current Negligence Theory, Hyewon Hannah Choi

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Immunity Doesn’T Fly: The Case For Federal Responsibility For Torts Committed By Transportation Security Officers, Courtney Rimann

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) are the Transportation Security Administration’s first line of defense against terrorism in U.S. airways. The American flying public puts their safety, and their luggage, in the hands of these officers, who execute searches that range from metal detectors to physical pat-downs. Since the federal government has mandated searches and screening for airport security, passengers should be able to seek recovery from the federal government where a TSO commits certain intentional torts in the course of duty. Currently, only the Courts of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Eighth Circuit have cleared the runway for such recovery …

Front Matter

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

No abstract provided.

Profit Or Safety: Where Is Outer Space Headed?, Paul B. Larsen

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

The space powers (the U.S., the European Space Agency (ESA), China, and Russia) are now preparing national space traffic regimes with insufficient regard for the Outer Space Treaty’s (OST) agreed “Principles Governing the Activities of States in Exploration and Use of Outer Space.” The rapidly growing traffic of satellites, resulting in space debris, and the scarcity of radio frequencies and related orbits create obvious dangerous situations. States, including the U.S., agreed in the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS) on twenty-one Guidelines for Long-Term Sustainability of Space, some of which relate to space traffic management …

International Aviation Law And Pandemic, Timothy Ravich

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Commercial airplanes are vectors of infectious disease, advancing, if not sparking, global epidemics and potentially pandemics by exporting pathogens from endemic areas of the world to non-endemic places. For example, according to the global scientific community, the Zika virus was introduced to the Americas by air travel. Researchers also believe that infected mosquitos on international flights contributed to the worldwide spread of malaria, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, and the West Nile virus. Most recently, governmental authorities worldwide, in addition to issuing national or local shelter-in-place orders, closed their borders and grounded nearly all international air travel on account of the …

Using The Artemis Accords To Build Customary International Law: A Vision For A U.S.-Centric Good Governance Regime In Outer Space, Walker A. Smith

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

International space law is a relatively undeveloped field primarily occupied by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (Treaty). This Treaty, while long on general principles, is short on details. With the United States’ recent push to return to the Moon by 2024 and send humans to Mars as soon as practicable after that, the time has come to fill in the gaps of the Outer Space Treaty out of necessity. The U.S. seeks to do this through the Artemis Accords (the Accords).

This Comment argues that the U.S. should use the Accords to develop a U.S.-centric legal and good governance regime …

In Flight Management - Committing To Destination, Aldo Bien, Daniel Ribas, Paulo Pacheco, Rodrigo Garcia, Leila Halawi

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The present Brazilian regulation is not precise whether the alternate fuel could or could not be used to proceed to the original destination without compromising the emergency fuel, once exact specific requirements are met. As a result of unclear directrices, each major airline in Brazil comprehends and applies the ICAO recommendation in its way. Such a non-standardized interpretation of the current regulation certainly compromises both the airline industry's safety and efficiency in the country. Therefore, this research proposes a more comprehensive and clear text for the Brazilian rules, encouraging airlines to adhere to what the ICAO recommendation preconizes widely.

Innovative Thinking: Modernizing Outer Space Governance, Diane M. Janosek

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Space security is essential to global safety and prosperity. International treaties should modernize and reflect the world’s innovation in space and governance needs. One must look back to 1967 for the inaugural “Outer Space Treaty,” the first and only binding multilateral agreement for peaceful space use and exploration. In 50 years, technologies and space capabilities have evolved; an updated global treaty and agreement should be developed and evaluated. Both China and Russia have demonstrated their capability to degrade and/or destroy adversaries’ satellites in space. Space wars are no longer a hypothetical. The future once discussed and anxiously anticipated after Sputnik …

Who Owns The Skies? Ad Coelum, Property Rights, And State Sovereignty, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In light of the history of the doctrine of ad coelum, as well as the states’ preeminent role (secured by the Tenth Amendment) in regulating property and airspace up to the 500-foot level, it is remarkable that the federal government has begun to claim that it controls everything above the blades of grass. This chapter challenges those statements, demonstrating that history and law establish that property owners, and the states, control the airspace adjacent to the land.