PAD: Summons Issued

Police have issued summonses for the 36 PAD members involved in the closures of the Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi airports. BP has posted a listed of those summonsed here. There are also posts and articles about FM Kasit's possible resignation here and here. On BP, one commenter made an interesting point about the case as it relates to the 1998 Montreal Protocol, an international protocol dealing with acts of violence at airports servicing international civil aviation.

The poster writes,

While Thailand may take a shallow stand on this the international community, especially the USA and the UK, will not. Thailand is a signatory to the MONTREAL PROTOCOL 1988

States in part quite categorically:-

"Any person commits an offense if he unlawfully and
intentionally, using any device, substance or weapon:
(a) performs an act of violence against a person at an
airport serving international civil aviation which causes or is likely
to cause serious injury or death; or
(b) destroys or seriously damages the facilities of an
airport serving international civil aviation or aircraft not in service
located thereon or disrupts the services of the airport,
if such an act endangers or is likely to endanger safety at that airport."

Even if Thailand lets the PAD leaders walk they may have to walk very softly if they leave the country as it is likely that one or all of the other signatories will either put them all on the "no fly" list or arrest and try them in the country they enter.

While the UDD have done has done theirs internationally via treaty.

If the international community feels that Thailand is being soft on those who took over the airports, Thailand could find itself as the aviation hub with no spokes. IATA could ban flights to and from Thailand by removing it's international rating making it a domestic only destination. And no insurance company would allow flight into the country.

This could be very interesting because of the charges brought by the AOT against the the PAD, which include suspicion of invasion and destruction of property, inciting unrest and an act of terrorism causing the AOT to temporarily close down operations.

This is the first I have ever heard of this particular protocol. In fact, when I read Montreal Protocol, I thought we were talking about the protocol of the same name that bans the use of CFCs to protect the ozone layer. The aviation Montreal Protocol, according to this document, is a "Supplementary to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, Done at Montreal, on 23 September 1971." Thailand's participation in the protocol can be found here. According to the Department of Civil Aviation, "Thailand deposited the notification of accession on 14 May 1996; thus, according to Article 7 paragraph 3, for Thailand, the Protocol entered into force on 13 June 1996". The source notes that there were 107 parties to the protocol as of June 30, 2001. It will be interesting to see if this comes into play as the cases proceed against the PAD.