The International Civil Aviation community is set to activate new enforcement measures for unruly passengers and terrorists.
The new measures, which become effective January 2020, empowers airlines to better deal with unruly passengers and improve aviation security.
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, while depositing the ratification in Montreal, Canada recently, said the feat was in line with Nigeria’s efforts to support air laws against unruly behaviour on board aircraft.
Criminal offences committed on-board international flights are governed by the Tokyo Convention 1963 or the Tokyo Convention. In April 2014, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) adopted an amendment to the Tokyo Convention, known as the Montreal Protocol.
The Montreal Protocol extends jurisdiction to the states in which the operator is located and the state of destination of the flight, which includes a state to which the flight is diverted should the need arise from the unruly behaviour.
Allowing an unruly passenger to be prosecuted upon disembarkation makes it much easier and quicker, and therefore more likely, for states to take to remedial action and prosecute the passenger.
Nigeria’s ratification of the ‘Protocol to Amend the Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft’, otherwise called the Montreal Protocol 2014, brings the number of signatory countries to 22.
