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11 Nat. Resources J. 162 (1971)
Military Requirements for International Airspace: Evolving Claims to Exclusive Use of a Res Communes Natural Resource

handle is hein.journals/narj11 and id is 180 raw text is: MILITARY REQUIREMENTS FOR INTERNATIONAL
AIRSPACE: EVOLVING CLAIMS TO EXCLUSIVE
USE OF A RES COMMUNES NATURAL RESOURCE
GEORGE S. ROBINSONt
Increasing variations in the use of airspace for aeronautical pur-
poses, communications, space activities, and ballistics testing are
limiting quite rapidly the availability of this heretofore uncom-
plicated natural resource. Navigable, and otherwise useable, airspace
has become such a high-demand environment for many tech-
nologically advanced countries1 that frequent resort to international
airspace for unilateral objectives, previously accommodated within
domestic airspace, is becoming increasingly evident. An intricate and
subtly shifting pattern of national claims to certain uses of inter-
national airspace is evolving which indicates a de facto patchwork of
seemingly surreptitious appropriations of such airspace. The ap-
propriations, or claims, often are conflicting in nature and are leading
to problems of international law which will become progressively
acute as unobstructed airspace decreases proportionately with an in-
crease in its use.
I
ANALOGY OF THE HIGH SEAS
In many respects the evolving control exercised by some states
over portions of international airspace is analogous to the compara-
tively recent national claims to new uses of the high seas permitted
by recent discoveries of oceanographic resources, and the advanced
technology providing access to them.2 Claims over portions of the
high seas probably were first premised upon sovereignty during the
tAssistant General Counsel of the Smithsonian Institute; LL.B., University of Virginia;
LL.M., McGill University; DCL, McGill University.
1. In this respect, England is a large user of international airspace for domestic purposes
because it is a technologically advanced country and one with comparatively nominal
sovereign airspace. The United States, although possessing a fairly large area of sovereign
airspace, finds that resource diminishing rapidly due to its technological advancement and a
high proportion of the population participating in various uses of the domestic airspace.
Strategic locations of high, but geographically sprawling, population concentrations are
forcing both civilian and military airspace users into the international arena.
2. For excellent discussions of the law and new areas of interests in the oceans as
economic and political resources, see Griffin, The Emerging Law of Ocean Space, 1 The Int'l
Lawyer 548-587 (1967); Morris, The North Sea Continental Shelf: Oil and Gas Legal Prob-
lems, 2 The Int'l Lawyer 191-214 (1968); Ely, American Policy Options in the Development
of Undersea Mineral Resources, 2 The Int'l Lawyer 215-223 (1968); and Christy, Jr., A
Social Scientist Writes on Economic Criteria for Rules Governing Exploitation of Deep Sea
Minerals, 2 The Int'l Lawyer 224-242 (1968).

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