By Toby McIntosh
Do the sometimes weak transparency standards of international organizations contravene the more robust European mandate for transparency in decision-making about the environment?
That question will be discussed at a meeting of European nations in late June.
A coalition of environmental groups concerned about aviation pollution has called on European nations to advocate for more transparency at the international aviation regulatory agency and to release their now-secret position papers.
The International Coalition for Sustainable Aviation argues that the procedural rules at International Civil Aviation Organization violate the standards of the 1998 Aarhus Convention which grants the public rights and imposes obligations regarding access to information and public participation and access to justice. Virtually all of the 47 parties to the Aarhus Convention are member states of ICAO.
The coalition will get a hearing at a July 26-28 meeting in Geneva of the Working Group of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention.
The session will have wider focus, on interactions with all international organizations with responsibilities concerning the environment. For the agenda and documents, see this page on UNECE website, click PPIF tab.
Increasing attention has been focused on aviation’s role in climate change. In 2016, ICAO adopted the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), a plan for achieving “carbon neutral growth” after 2020, relying on the use of carbon offsets and sustainable aviation fuel. ICAO is continuing work on CORSIA’s implementation, but critics say the efforts are inadequate.
Debate Over Transparency
“ICAO’s policies have greatly restricted our ability to engage widely, impacting civil society’s ability to promote environmental integrity,” according to the coalition’s letter requesting the hearing.
The coalition listed a variety of impediments, including:
- The meetings of the Council, the major decision-making body, are closed.
- No documents for Council meetings are available.
- Documents concerning the work of the Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection also are nonpublic.
EYE in February wrote about opacity at ICAO: No Documents, Closed Doors at the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Recommendations
The Coalition’s information note says countries which have signed up to the Aarhus Convention should consider the following recommendations (full text):
- Broaden observer diversity: Countries which are members of the ICAO Council should propose and support that interested observer organisations be allowed to apply for ICAO observer status instead of limiting participation by invitation only. The number of observers should not be limited.
- Hold meetings open to the public: Countries which are part of the CAEP should request that CAEP meetings follow rule 17 of the general rules of procedure for standing committees and be held open by default.
- Provide access to important documents: All countries should follow rule 41 of the general rules of procedure for standing committees which allows committee documents, including Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs), to be provided to the public.
- Improve public engagement in decision making: All countries should call on the ICAO Council and CAEP to invite public input to ICAO decision making processes and make input received from observer organisations publicly available.
- Encourage democracy: All countries should share the texts of Committee decisions, together with Committee working papers and other papers with their democratic institutions pursuant to rule 42 of the general rules of procedure for standing committees.
Unilateral Release?
Whether ICAO countries can legally release their own submissions to ICAO remains a bit of a mystery, but it seems permissible.
The US government has provided EYE with its submissions in advance of meetings.
However, some European governments have denied requests for their submissions to the ICAO, even from members of parliament.
The ICAO has yet to reply to questions on the subject posed months ago by eyeonglobaltransparency.net.
Gilles Dufrasne, Policy Officer – Carbon Pricing, at Carbon Market Watch, one of the groups in the Coalition, said, “As far as I know, there has never been a court challenge to test whether countries could publish their ICAO documents (thereby complying with Aarhus but breaking ICAO confidentiality rules).”
He continued: “I think this could be unilateral action from a country deciding to make a certain document public online. There is no evidence to suggest that ICAO rules somehow supersede Aarhus or FOIA.”
The Geneva discussion likely will reference the Almaty Guidelines on promoting the application of the principles of the Aarhus Convention in International Forums, adopted at the second meeting of the Parties.
Specifically, the Almaty Guidelines state that “Environmental information contained in all official documents developed and produced within each international forum should be made available to the public” (paragraph 20) and that “any member of the public should have access to environmental information developed and held in any international forum upon request, without having to state an interest” (paragraph 23). Furthermore, paragraph 25 states that requests for access to information should only be refused “on the basis of specific grounds[, where] grounds for refusal should be interpreted in a restrictive way”. Finally, paragraph 27 of the Almaty Guidelines states that the provision of information free of charge should be promoted.
The Coalition said, “Environmental information developed and discussed at meetings of ICAO’s powerful 36-member Executive Council and its Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP), as well as documents developed and produced in the Council and CAEP, do not comply with these provisions, and generally fail to meet the objectives of the Aarhus convention.”
Broader Focus
The meeting will feature “a thematic session on promoting the application of the principles of the Convention in international forums.”
The draft agenda says further, “The session will focus primarily on the promotion of the principles of the Convention in the policies of international financial institutions and also on cross-cutting issues, such innovative practices, different modalities for engaging stakeholders, self-organization of stakeholders, hosting an international event and identification of the public.”
It also says: “Additional topics will include: a relevant update on the processes under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; the policy on stakeholder engagement of the United Nations Environment Assembly of the United Nations Environment Programme; and the high-level political forum on sustainable development and Sustainable Development Goal-related processes. The detailed programme for the thematic session will be made available on the meeting web page in due course.”
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