The International Court of Justice has not had, as yet, an appropriate opportunity to contribute in a major way to the development of air law; it has, however, had the chance to deal with some aspects of air law in some of the cases submitted to it. The following are the cases that refer to some elements of air law: the Aerial Incident, 1955 (Israel v. Bulgaria), the Appeal Relating to the Jurisdiction of the ICAO Council, 1972 (India v. Pakistan), Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua, 1986 (Nicaragua v. USA (Merits)); the Aerial Incident, 1988 (Iran v. USA);4 and the two cases over the Lockerbie Incident, 1992 (Libya v. UK) and (Libya v. US).

There were other cases involving military aircraft, but the ICJ was unable to deal with them for lack of jurisdiction, e.g. Treatment in Hungary of Aircraft and Crew of USA, 1954 (USA v. Hungarian People's Republic). The Court ordered that the case be removed from the list because of lack of jurisdiction.

THE AERIAL INCIDENT, 1955

This was a case of the shooting down of an El Al aircraft, on a scheduled flight from Vienna to Tel Aviv, by Bulgaria, over Bulgarian territory. The incident resulted in the death of the seven crew members and fifty-one passengers of varying nationalities. Israel made an application to the ICJ invoking the Bulgarian declaration of acceptance of the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of International Justice of 1921.