EU and Japanese regulations on unmanned aircraft systems – comparative analysis

Unmanned aircraft vehicles have been gaining massive popularity, especially in developed countries such as EU Member States or Japan. To ensure safe and competitive growth of this sector of civil aviation, appropriate legislation needs to be drafted. Hereby paper discusses key legal provisions concerning certification and registration of drones, as well as categorization of operations adopted by the EU and Japan. Comparative analysis of both systems allows to answer questions whether those two entities accurately tackle the problem of regulating drones’ market. In the study, much stress is put on safe usage of unmanned aircraft vehicles, “friendliness” of regulations for drones’ operators, as well as uniform character of legal provisions regardless of their territorial scope.