Think of a situation about your maiden aircraft journey, you might be excited like an insane guy and wanted to let the world know about your first flight experience. You will be busy in taking selfies in the aircraft to post in social media. This selfie is more than enough to register a case against to you.
No need to panic, the case is not for taking the selfie, but if someone has came into the frame of your selfie knowingly or unknowingly ? taking a photo without their permission is a crime, posting it in social media is yet another crime.
Everyone knows that the case needs to be registered somewhere by someone but no idea where it should be. You will wonder how someone is going to register a case against you at the sky which is almost 50 thousand feet high from land.
All will agree on the point that case is needed, but which country’s rules needs to follow for that?
Suppose a crime happened in British airlines at Switzerland airspace during its journey from Saudi Arabia to United States. The pilot might have landed the aircraft at Geneva for proceeding the crime formalities.
Here are the possibilities for registering the case:
London government have the authority to register case since the aircraft was registered in London.
Switzerland Police can register the case since the crime was happened at Swiss air space.
United States can register the crime as per their special act since the destination was United States.
Suppose if the culprit is an Indian, The case can be registered in India regardless of the place where it happened.
Certain countries (America & Israel) have made laws (Extra-terrestrial jurisdiction) to register the case in their jurisdiction if something happened to their citizen.
There are provisions in countries like Spain to register cases at their jurisdiction against certain cases like hijacking the aircraft. This is known as Universal Jurisdiction.
There is an international convention itself for this, the Tokyo convention of 1976. The Convention on offences and certain other acts committed on board aircraft. Almost 186 countries has signed in this including India.
So we are coming to the point that, never try to do anything illegal at aircraft assuming that no one is there to question you.
You will wonder when you come to know the rules had created even for space journeys & seafaring. I am planning write an article on that as well, keep visiting the space for more details.