ABSTRACT
The status of airspace has undergone significant evolution over the past century. The 1919 Paris Convention was the first multilateral treaty on the use of air space. The general legal and institutional framework for international civil aviation is nowadays laid down in the 1944 Chicago Convention and the rules adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization which now has practically universal membership. The relationship between territorial sovereignty and air space access rights has been put to the test in the Kibris case before the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The basic substantive framework of the present law on outer space is contained in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. In terms of the law-making process, since 1958, in practice this has primarily relied upon the work of a special international body, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space with its two subcommittees, the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee and the Legal Subcommittee.
