One of the Dominican Republic’s most contentious aviation legal battles, which brought the planned Bávaro International Airport (AIB) project to a standstill, has now taken on new life as a formal academic and professional teaching tool. This evolution follows the recent publication of *Doctrinal Analysis of the Jurisprudential Solution to an Airport Conflict*, a specialized legal text that dissects every layer of the years-long dispute.
At the heart of the conflict was a head-on legal clash between the AIB Defense Council and the Dominican Institute of Civil Aviation (IDAC), the country’s top aviation regulator. IDAC launched the legal challenge to the project’s original authorization, arguing that the approval process carried critical procedural flaws. The regulator also maintained that only IDAC held the legal authority to grant approval for the construction of a new commercial airport in the nation. The dispute ultimately landed before the Dominican Constitutional Court, which issued a landmark 2025 ruling that upheld the legality of administrative actions blocking the project’s advancement. That ruling has since established a binding legal precedent that shapes how similar infrastructure authorization disputes are evaluated in the country today.
The book was formally presented by legal and aviation policy experts from two leading international professional bodies: the World Association of Airport Law (WALA) and the Ibero-American Forum of Administrative Law. Countering the widespread idea that a one-size-fits-all model works for successful airport governance, the text’s authors argue that no universal framework can be applied across all development contexts. Instead, the publication prioritizes four core pillars as non-negotiable for responsible airport infrastructure development and management: strict compliance with national and local laws, uncompromising commitment to operational safety, rigorous evidence-based technical planning, and consistent alignment with broader public interest goals. Legal scholars and infrastructure policy experts across Latin America are already expected to integrate the case study into academic curricula and professional training for future regulators and legal practitioners.