Abstract The trafficking and illicit use of drugs has been a serious problem globally over the years, affecting peoples’ lives and the aviation industry has not escaped the scourge. The illegal carriage by air of narcotics and other psychotropic substances and its various corollaries of violence or narco-terrorism as it is popularly known, has shown that the activity can cause various other forms of unlawful interference with civil aviation such as the unlawful seizure of aircraft and the causing of damage to persons and property related to international civil aviation. Furthermore, in addition to the disturbing problem of drug use by air crews, the threat of drug trafficking has already had a tremendous adverse impact on aviation and the financial community which supports it Narco-terrorism is considered an offence on two grounds: the fact that the illicit trafficking of drugs is an offence against public health; and the illicit carriage by air of these substances threatens to sabotage the legitimate carriage by air of passengers and freight. Narco-terrorism involves two facets: the transportation of drugs and narcotics by aircraft and across national boundaries by air; and the act of loading and unloading them at aerodromes and airports. The two acts are claimed to be integrally linked to one another in that the essential elements of the unlawful act, i.e. “transport by air” and “trafficking” are inseparable. The problem has blown into unmanageable proportions owing to the rapid proliferation of air travel as a means of communication. It is not difficult therefore to figure out the tremendous encouragement given to the drug trafficking trade by the numerous aircraft movements that keep increasing exponentially. The Annual Report of the ICAO Council for the year 2007 has recorded that the total scheduled traffic carried by the airlines of the 190 member States amounted to approximately 2260 million passengers and some 41 million tonnes of freight. They were carried in 29.3 million scheduled flights in 2007 (of which 16.5 million were international flights and the rest were domestic). 3730 airports served these flights. This article evaluates the offence from its origin to date and traces the international action taken by both the United Nations and the International Civil Aviation Organization.


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