The United States has pledged to make public all of its position papers submitted for the upcoming international meetings on aviation and climate change and challenged other countries to do the same.
The move comes in advance of meetings of the Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), scheduled from Feb. 7-18. The US said the committee “should seek to increase the transparency of its decision-making processes to improve its accountability to the public it seeks to serve.”
“In line with other UN bodies, transparency could best be achieved by making all papers for key CAEP decision meetings publicly available in advance of the meetings,” continued the proposal. “Such practice would be aligned with other UN bodies, notably the UNFCCC [ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] and International Maritime Organization.”
The three-paragraph US statement notes that the committee’s authority to alter the transparency rules is limited by the rules of the ICAO Council, the 36-member decision-making body at ICAO.
“Nevertheless, we are confident that within its remit and Terms of Reference, there are opportunities for CAEP to allow for increased transparency in a way that is beneficial to stakeholders, Member States, and ICAO,” the US statement says.
The US proposed that “interested CAEP Members establish a small group to discuss possibilities on this front, with a goal of submitting a proposal to increase transparency to SG [the Secretary General] for consideration.” Juan Carlos Salazar of Colombia became ICAO’s Secretary General on Aug.1, 2021.
“The United States commits to lead by example by making available all U.S. papers in advance of annual CAEP Steering Group as well as triennial CAEP meetings,” concludes the statement. ICAO rules do not prohibit countries from releasing their own documents, and the US has sometimes done so in the past post-meeting upon request. However, such transparency is not the norm.
The US Mission to ICAO announced the issuance of six working paper in a statement.
The ICAO Council has taken some steps toward more transparency, beginning in late 2021 to release minutes of its meetings. However, the underlying documents discussed by the Council are not disclosed. (See April 2021 EYE article on this subject.)
