Of Babies and Airplanes

Recently, a Pakistan International Airlines heading towards Manchester had to make an emergency landing at Poland because a pregnant lady on board gave birth to a six month old baby (the report seems to suggest that the baby is alright, which is great news). An air hostess on board delivered the baby, while the pilot had to land the plane in extremely treacherous conditions (the airport in Warsaw is notoriously difficult to land at - emergency brakes were applied in this particular case) Here is the article from the Dawn:

WARSAW: A six-month pregnant Pakistani who gave birth to a premature baby aboard a flight from Islamabad to Britain forced an emergency landing on Sunday in Warsaw, a spokesman for the Polish capital’s airport said.

'The pilot had to make the decision to land as quickly as possible. Warsaw’s Okecie airport was the closest,’ Jakub Mielniczuk told AFP on Monday about the Pakistan International Airlines flight.

‘The woman was six months pregnant. The airport doctor had to revive the premature baby who was immediately taken to a Warsaw hospital in a serious condition,’ he said.

The baby is alive, a medical official at the hospital where the infant was being cared for told AFP on Monday, but refused to provide further details. The PIA plane travelled on to the British city of Manchester on Sunday evening.—AFP

Ive always been very interested by immigration law and aviation law. This incident is an amalgamation of the two! The first thing that prompted me to do some research was the debate I had with my colleagues on this issue. The know-it-all INSISTED that a child born on board a plane gets (1) Free tickets for life and (2) citizenship of the country the plane is flying over. Now, I disagreed with both of the aforementioned facts and started doing some research.

According to Halsbury's Laws:

Nationality may be acquired in a number of ways. In broad terms there are four principles of acquisition :

(1)by place of birth ('jus soli' ― 'right of the soil');

(2)descent ('jus sanguinis' ― 'right of the blood');

(3)by naturalisation; and

(4)by cession or conquest of territory.

Of course, in the event of a birth on board a plane (or a ship for that matter), no one principle applies! This is because that would cause unneccesary hardship or an unaaceptable result to both the individual and the state. Lets take an example now:

Therefore, most countries have laws so that the child being born on an aircraft will only acquire the nationality of the parents. This is the rule prevailing in several European and African countries.

Now, specifically in relation to the baby born in Poland: (www.polishcitizenship.net, if anyone is interested in acquiring polish citizenship !!)

2. APPLICANTS WHO DO NOT HAVE FAMILY FROM POLAND. THESE APPLICANTS MAY BE ELIGIBLE TO ACQUIRE POLISH CITIZENSHIP IN ONE OF THE WAYS DESCRIBED BELOW.

• By birth on the Polish territory

A child who was born or found within the territory of the Republic of Poland, acquires citizenship of Poland when both parents are unknown, when its citizenship cannot be established, or who are stateless.

By the looks of it, the baby will be acquiring the citizenship of his/her parents!

Oh, and the baby doesn't get free tickets for life either. Check out this (not very academically strong though) link.