WEAPONISED SKIES: AIRSPACE BANS AND THE EROSION OF AVIATION NEUTRALITY

The Chicago Convention, 1944, envisioned civil aviation as a mechanism for global friendship, but in modern practic e, they have increasingly repurposed aviation infrastructure to advance their own coercive foreign policy. This article critically analyses the “weaponisation” of sovereign airspace by applying the framework of “Weaponised Interdependence” to the legal regime of the air. It argues that States are exploiting the Chicago Convention’s structural vulnerabilities to create zones of “exceptional” jurisdiction by juxtaposing the “active” coercion of airspace bans with the “interventional” coercion of safety protocols. This article employs Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA) and recent jurisprudence from the MH17 trial to scrutinise and demonstrate that the recent airspace restrictions fail the legal tests of proportionality and non-punitive intent required for lawful countermeasures. It concludes that unless the International Civil Aviation Organisation clarifies the limits of Article 9, the global aviation network risks fragmenting into competing spheres of geostrategic exclusion.