ASEAN Open Sky Policy and Air Freedom Rights from the Perspective of Defense Strategy and the Airspace Sovereignty

Abstract

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has signed the Multilateral Agreement on Air Services (MAAS) on May 20, 2009 in Manila, Philippines, intended to liberalize market access and ownership and control requirements for air carriers in the region. This ASEAN MAAS regional policy, or so called an open-air space or open sky policy, shall be implemented in stages that are determined in the protocols contained in the ASEAN MAAS and came into effect on January 1st, 2015. The realization of ASEAN Open Sky in Indonesia is stipulated in Law Number 1 Year 2009 on Aviation, and the realization of MAAS stipulated in President Regulation Number 74 Year 2011 on Verification of MAAS. From the perspective of the Chicago Convention from 1944 that stated that every country has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory, and there is no recognition of the right of peaceful passage, a set of regulation of commercial aviation rights granting a country's airlines the privilege to enter and land in another country's airspace has been introduced called the Freedoms of the Air.  The freedoms of the air are the fundamental building blocks of the international commercial aviation route network. From the perspective of States Sovereignty that states are in complete and exclusive control of all the people and property within its territory, the freedoms of the air have a potential threat especially in the defense sector and requires a proper strategy for maintaining the unity and integrity and sovereignty of the Republic of Indonesia..