Message to the Senate Transmitting Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation.

To the Senate of the United States:

With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, I transmit herewith a copy of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation, signed at Montreal on September 23, 1971. The report of the Department of State with respect to the Convention is also transmitted for the information of the Senate.

The problem of sabotage, armed terrorist attacks, and other criminal acts against aircraft and air travelers poses an increasingly grave threat to civil aviation around the world. Events have shown that no country or area is exempt from the human tragedy and immense costs which result from such criminal acts.

At the International Conference on Air Law at The Hague in December of 1970, the Hijacking Convention was adopted. It contains provisions to ensure that all hijackers, wherever found, would be subject to severe punishment. The United States and 39 other countries have now ratified that Convention. It is hoped that all States will join in this major step to deter the peril of air piracy.

The work of applying similar provisions to other acts directed against the safety of civil aviation was completed by the Diplomatic Conference at Montreal in September 1971. The Convention which that Conference produced and which I am transmitting today covers sabotage and other criminal acts. Like the Hijacking Convention, it requires States to extradite offenders or prosecute them where they are found. It is designed to ensure the prosecution of saboteurs and other terrorists who attack aircraft, and it can help serve to quell this increasingly serious problem for civil aviation worldwide.

This Convention and the Hijacking Convention are vitally important to achieve safe and orderly air transportation for all people of the world. I hope all States will become Parties to these Conventions, and that they will be applied universally. I recommend, therefore, that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to this Convention.

RICHARD NIXON

THE WHITE HOUSE,

September 15, 1972.