Closure of airspace has become a new topic on the aviation agenda of the twenty-first century. States adopted this measure to begin with on 11 September 2002. The US closed its airspace for about five days after the occurrence of this tragedy in New York for all air traffic. European States did the same after the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull in 2010. Pakistan shut its airspace in February 2019 after India carried out an air strike against a presumably terrorist training camp in Pakistani territory.
While the above measures could be labelled as ‘incidental’ in terms of time period, the closures of airspace implemented in the second half of the second decade of this century are more ‘systematic’. They last longer and have a deeper background. Reference is made to the closure of airspace in the Middle East, and in practically all States following the outbreak of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
This brief paper will focus on the closure of airspace in the Middle East, which came to an end in January 2020, and pay attention to the regulatory proceedings surrounding it. These can only be understood against the wider political, historical and perhaps also religious background. Those factors contribute to the fragility of the legal arrangements underpinning the diplomatic deal.
Air and Space Law