Category: Regulation
Area of Effect: Transportation
The World Assembly,
Affirming it is in the interest of every nation to ensure the sovereignty of its territory, of which a nation's airspace is a vital part;
Understanding it is internationally desirable to protect said sovereignty in order to promote development and prevent conflicts arising over intrusion upon such;
Noting the efforts of prior legislation to protect the sovereignty of national airspace;
Aware of the increasing automation of flight, through such technology as autopilots and flight control systems;
Recognizing the absence of legislation protecting the sovereignty of airspace as pertaining to aircraft utilizing such technology;
Hereby,
- Instructs the International Transport Safety Committee (ITSC) to create and maintain a reasonable definition for the altitude at which the atmosphere for the purposes of airfoil-based powered flight ends and outer space begins, to be used by this and future international legislation;
- Defines for the purposes of this legislation:
- "Airspace" as the above-surface region of the atmosphere below the aforementioned altitude;
- "National airspace" as airspace above the area encompassed by a nation's recognized territorial borders on land and water, as well as any additional airspace assigned to that nation through international agreement;
- "International airspace" as any airspace not meeting the above conditions;
- An "automated aircraft" as any flight-capable object, which possesses systems or devices whose effect is to make the object not entirely controlled by a sapient operator;
- A "state aircraft" as any automated aircraft whose function is military, police, or customs in nature;
- A "civil aircraft" as any automated aircraft which does not fit the above definition;
- Recognizes the complete and exclusive sovereignty of every member-nation over its national airspace as pertaining to the movement of automated aircraft, except as otherwise noted by international law;
- Clarifies that, except as otherwise noted by international law:
- No state aircraft of a member-nation may fly over the national airspace of another without prior authorization by agreement between the two member-nations or otherwise;
- No civil aircraft not containing a sapient operator may fly over the national airspace of a member-nation without prior authorization from said nation;
- No civil aircraft following a predetermined flight path may enter the national airspace of a member-nation without prior authorization from said nation;
- Permits:
- A civil aircraft with a sapient operator present within itself following a predetermined flight path to enter the national airspace of a member-nation, so long as the appropriate authorities of the member-nation in question are notified as soon as is reasonably possible and the civil aircraft in question is not being used for purposes inconsistent with international law;
- A member nation to require the landing of any civil or state aircraft over its territory, so long as this requirement is adequately communicated to the operator or operators of the automated aircraft in question, and the automated aircraft is not impounded unnecessarily;
- Any automated aircraft compliant with ITSC regulations to operate in international airspace.
