Comment on “Criminal Jurisdiction Over Aircraft Hijacking”.

Abstract

1. In his article “Criminal Jurisdiction over Aircraft Hijacking”, Dr. Y. Dinstein analyzes the provisions of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, of December 16, 1970—hereinafter referred to as “the Hague Convention”. This convention deals with States' jurisdiction with regard to the offence of “hijacking”, as defined by Article 2 of the convention, in accordance with the nature of their connection with the offence committed. The learned writer, in the course of his analysis, postulates three premises. The first premise is that Article 4 of the Hague Convention lays down an order of preference with respect to the jurisdiction of the States referred to in that Article. The second premise is that this order of preference is reflected in the order of the paragraphs of Article 4 which specify which are the states in question (paragraphs 1 and 2). The third premise is that the Hague Convention does not provide for universal jurisdiction in respect of the offence of hijacking.