An important step towards raising the challenges facing the international civil aviation sector

At the kind invitation of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Sultanate of Oman, the Arab Civil Aviation Organization participated in the activities of the second session of the Legal Advisers Forum in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman from 21 to 23 February 2023. Representatives from  (57) countries and regional and international organizations participated in this forum.

In his speech on the occasion, His Excellency the Secretary General of ICAO stressed that achieving flexibility and resilience in the civil aviation sector is currently a top priority for the international civil aviation system. His Excellency also praised the role of the Legal Advisers Forum in this context, as well as its contribution to developing capabilities to overcome potential difficulties in ratifying and implementing air law treaties, in addition to recommended standards and practices, especially that treaties and protocols amending them have not yet entered into force.

In his opening speech, His Excellency Eng. Nayef bin Ali bin Hamad Al-Abri expressed his happiness that the Sultanate of Oman hosted the second forum of legal advisors, at a time when the Sultanate of Oman celebrates the sixty years since its accession to the Chicago Treaty of 1944.

He also welcomed the participating delegations, stressing the importance of the role of legal advisors in drafting and updating air laws in order to keep pace with the rapid developments in the international and national civil aviation sector.

His Excellency seized this opportunity to brief the audience on the steps taken by the Sultanate of Oman to modernize its Civil Aviation Law and to adopt the executive regulations, which have been published in the Official Gazette of the Sultanate. This comes in addition to the Sultanate of Oman's recent accession to the Beijing Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Related to International Civil Aviation and the Protocol Amending the Montreal Convention on Offenses and Some Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft.

For his part, His Excellency the Director General of the Arab Civil Aviation Organization stated that “the outbreak of the Corona pandemic led to an unprecedented crisis that the international community was not ready to face, and the mobilization achieved by the international civil aviation organization and the aforementioned efforts to confront this crisis and facilitate the process of recovery could benefit to the community and should be included in a strong and sustainable legal framework, so that we are more prepared to face similar or more severe crises, God forbid, where the Chicago Treaty forms the base reference as its current formulation is satisfactory in our view”.

He added that if the public health, safety and security measures of civil aviation, as well as those prepared by the CART team, had played an important role in promoting air cargo and the gradual increase in terms of passengers, there are still challenges that impede this pace of growth, some of which can be overcome by strengthening the system of standards developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization , especially those related to the unified electronic database for the transport of passengers, including health data, and the establishment of a similar database for the transport of goods.

In the framework of achieving aviation sustainability, which is an inevitable necessity, and even if the decline in air traffic as a result of the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic has reduced the environmental impacts of aviation very significantly, His Excellency the Director General indicated that the civil aviation sector remains committed to reducing its emissions by reduction or compensation. This requires developing State legislation in line with the recent decisions of ICAO, in order to optimally deal with developments in the environment, emissions trading, market mechanism and accompanying procedures.

His Excellency also noted this forum for being an important step in continuing the discussion initiated during the first edition, which was organized in Singapore in 2019, to reach proposals that contribute to overcoming these challenges.

During this forum, the panellists discussed important decisions on the legal aspects of the 41st General Assembly, particularly those related to the protection of personal data and unruly passengers, as well as the extent to which air carriers comply with the requirements of the 1999 Montreal Convention.

Resolving disputes between countries, risks that may result from resorting to Article (83) bis, and the lessons learned from the management of the Covid (19) pandemic from a legal perspective, were also a topic of discussion that paved the way for an agreement on a work program for the coming years, whose implementation will be followed up during the upcoming forums. Accordingly, the third edition of the Forum will be organized in the United Kingdom.

The second forum for legal advisors also included a session on the next generation of professionals working in the civil aviation sector, marked by a discussion on practicing the profession of aviation law specialist, in the presence of His Excellency the Secretary-General of the International Civil Aviation Organization, several leading figures in the sector and a group of interested youth.