ABSTRACT
A no fly zone is the aerial cousin of a naval blockade and the two practices are in many ways parallel. No fly zones differ from prohibited zones. Within a single state, a sort of limited no fly zone may be established for security reasons, such as the no fly zone over the White House or over certain military bases. This chapter argues that no fly zones are essentially aerial occupations and must be treated as what they are: violations or seizures of another country’s sovereign air space. The test of proper intent typically demands that the use of force aims to establish a more just peace or to stop grave violations of human rights and to fulfill the Responsibility to Protect proclaimed by the United Nations in 2005. When no fly zones are justified as acts of humanitarian intervention, success in a humanitarian intervention should by definition mean the innocent, the helpless and the vulnerable were protected.
