iz

The international treaties relating to aviation security set forth several bases of extraterritorial jurisdiction and necessitate state parties to implement them in their national laws. The extraterritorial application of national laws is required for their suppression since the offenses acknowledged by these treaties cut across international boundaries. Whereas some of these bases incorporate consensual principles of customary international law, the others represent ambitious claims embracing controversial doctrines. State cooperation requires uniformity in the laws of the requesting and requested states because it is a reciprocal process, including uniformity in the extraterritorial reach of national laws. The validity of a state of jurisdiction can be assessed on its proximity or remoteness to a customary rules of jurisdiction, in particular the consensual one. Applying this test to the bases supplied by the aviation treaties, it can be suggested that only a few bases embody consensual rules of customary international law. Hence, states may face difficulties in procuring law enforcement cooperation from their treaty partners owing to reciprocal nature of these proceedings. Therefore, it is unlikely that states will use these treaties as the foundation for cooperation; instead, they will continue to rely on bilateral treaties to seek interstate cooperation in extradition and proceedings involving mutual legal assistance. This will frustrate the objective of aviation treaties to facilitate multilateral, rather than bilateral cooperation among states.

Keywords: Aviation Security, Extraterritoriality, Customary rules of Jurisdiction, Quasi Universality, Passive Personality and Effects Doctrine.