SERVING TWO MASTERS: MILITARY AIRCRAFT COMMANDER AUTHORITY AND THE STRATEGIC AIRLIFT CAPABILITY PARTNERSHIP'S MULTINATIONAL AIRLIFT FLEET

摘要

This article explores the legal implications of having a military pilot from the armed forces of one nation serve as the aircraft commander on a foreign flagged state aircraft, focusing on the organizational structure of the multinational "Strategic Airlift Capability" (SAC) Consortium-a multinational partnership formed in 2006 to meet the strategic airlift requirements of its twelve participant nations. The article begins with an overview of the SAC Consortium, which is followed by an examination of the issue of the status of state aircraft under international law, as reflected in the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation, better known as the Chicago Convention. It then takes up the subject of the legal authority of the military aircraft commander and considers the sources of this authority, showing how the authority of the military aircraft commander under international law makes the position distinct from other command positions in multinational military settings. Next, the article looks at the legal status of military aircraft and military aircraft commander authority within the context of the SAC Consortium, highlighting how legal complexities in these areas could undermine the effectiveness of this new international arrangement for the collective operation of the partnership's three Boeing C-17 aircraft. The article then proposes an alternative structure for the SAC Consortium that could remedy the legal pitfalls of the current arrangement, before finally offering some concluding comments. The purposes of this piece are two-fold: (1) to show how both the legal status of state (military) aircraft and their function as sovereign instrumentalities serve to define the status and authority of the military aircraft commander under international law; and (2) to show how the prospect of commanding over a foreign flagged aircraft and, in particular, a foreign flagged "air mobility" aircraft like the C-17 is especially problematic in the case of the SAC Consortium, due to the vagaries of their aircraft's legal character and the potential for conflict between the aircraft commander's role as an officer in the armed forces of his or her sending state and their responsibilities as the de facto representative of the aircraft's "territorial sovereign."