However, the forces of law have failed to keep ahead of advancing threats. As hijacking has become more difficult, terrorists have adopted new tactics, such as sabotage bombing. Thus, while the 1960s and the 1970s were the age of aircraft hijackings, the 1980s could be said to be the age of sabotage bomb attacks in civil aviation history.

Studies in International Air Law: Selected Works of Bin Cheng brings together for the first time the most influential of his many significant works. The selected essays, collected by editor Professor Cheng Chia-Jui, provide a comprehensive survey of international air law, authoritative and pioneering analyses of international air transport, the legal status of aircraft and crimes on board and against aircraft and air carrier’s liability. Widely acknowledged as the "Father of International Air Law,” Studies in International Air Law reveals the author’s enormous contributions to the science of air law along with his extraordinary intellectual and analytical spirit.

This report assesses the operational performance of explosives-detection equipment and hardened unit-loading devices (HULDs) in airports and compares their operational performance to their laboratory performance, with a focus on improving aviation security.

This book addresses new technologies being considered by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for screening airport passengers for concealed weapons and explosives. The FAA is supporting the development of promising new technologies that can reveal the presence not only of metal-based weapons as with current screening technologies, but also detect plastic explosives and other non-metallic threat materials and objects, and is concerned that these new technologies may not be appropriate for use in airports for other than technical reasons. This book presents discussion of the health, legal, and public acceptance issues that are likely to be raised regarding implementation of improvements in the current electromagnetic screening technologies, implementation of screening systems that detect traces of explosive materials on passengers, and implementation of systems that generate images of passengers beneath their clothes for analysis by human screeners.

Published in 1998. The various conventions which apply to the subject of unlawful interface with civil aviation have proved effective only to the extent of nurturing existing values of international law as they are restrictively perceived through the parameters of air law. This book examines the offence of unlawful interference with international civil aviation and analyses critically the legal and regulatory regime that applies thereto, with a view to recommending measures that are calculated to infuse a new approach to the problem. Emphasis is laid throughout the work on action which may be taken to alleviate the problem of unlawful interference. Its conclusion incorporates various steps that can be taken towards achieving this objective. The author focuses on the core of the problem which has effectively precluded significant progress into inroads that would curb the threat terrorism in aviation: the attitude of the international community. The book therefore examines in limine the fundamental role of international law in the light of the United Nationals Congress of International Public Law of March 1995, and its effect on international criminal law. It then determines the applicable principles of State sovereignty and examines the principles of State responsibility. Its main purpose is to recommend the establishment of a new philosophy of international criminal law which transcends municipal boundaries. Academic, scholarly and judicial precedent for this book is the adduced in support of this argument. The book also examines the role of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as the regulatory body responsible for civil aviation, in the context of new approaches made by the international community towards the status of ICAO in aviation security. The practical value of this work essentially lies in the legal recommendations it makes at its conclusion, which are based on existing principles of international law. It will thus be invaluable not only to international and aviation lawyers, criminal lawyers (both international and national), security professionals and teachers and students of international law, but also to aviation industry executives and regulatory agency specialists whose responsibilities impinge on or are determined by existing and evolving legal and security measures.