Public awareness towards Malaysian airspace sovereignty and security / Akma Shafizah Mat Shohor & Hafiza Jamaludin

The issues of airspace sovereignty and security lies at the very heart of international aviation and national security forces. However, public also need to know the subjects in order to make them aware with the national sovereignty. Sovereignty,in political theory, the ultimate overseer, or authority, in the decision-making process of the state and in the maintenance of order. The concept of sovereignty—one of the most controversial ideas in political science and international law—is closely related to the difficult concepts of state and government and of independence and democracy. Derived from the Latin term superanus through the French term souverainete, sovereignty was originally meant to be the equivalent of supreme power, (www.britannica.com) . According to LCDR. Emory C. Smith, USN (1949), sovereignty refers to the same distinction between a right of sovereignty over a particular area and a right to exercise a protective jurisdiction as has been applied hereinbefore with respect to waters within and without the national domain. The general rule of international law as stated by Professor Hackworth, Digest of International Law, volume IV, page 358, reads as follows: Multilateral conventions and bilateral conventions and agreements are now based upon the assumption that the State has exclusive sovereignty in the airspace over its territory and territorial waters.