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At the same time, they aimed to consider the fundamental question of who had the right to fly over a nation's territory.

Subsequently, French concerns about control of their airspace led them to call for the 1910 conference to develop international regulations covering aviation. During this time, Germany was testing its early Zeppelins and flying them over Switzerland without any permission from the Swiss. In the previous year, Louis Blériot used an aircraft to fly across the English Channel from France to England, without any thought of the legal or diplomatic consequences. Although there had been rulings in domestic courts relating to trespassing balloons, and the dropping of munitions from balloons had been previously included in the International Peace Conference of 1899, at the time of the conference in 1910 there was no international law in place about aviation and flights were largely unregulated. The following year, French Minister of the Interior, Georges Clemenceau, issued an order for local authorities to hold any balloons that came their way, detain them to collect customs duties, and to make enquiries as to the purpose of their flight. In 1908, France became concerned about the regulation of aviation after at least 10 German balloons crossed into French territory carrying more than 25 aviators of whom the majority were German officers.

Its deliberations, however, influenced the development of international aviation law. The conference went into recess in June 1910 but did not reconvene due to differences of opinion and then later the outbreak of the First World War.

Opinion was divided between those nations that wished a wide freedom of movement for aircraft and those that, for reasons of national security, wished to control which aircraft crossed into their country. The key question considered by the conference was whether nations had the right to prevent foreign aircraft flying over their territory. It was proposed by the French government who were concerned about aircraft from foreign nations flying over their territory and was attended by representatives from 19 European nations. The Paris International Air Navigation Conference of 1910, also known as the Conférence internationale de navigation aérienne, was the first diplomatic conference to consider formulating international law about aviation.