One of ICAO's chief activities is standardization, the establishment of International Standards, Recommended Practices and Procedures covering the technical fields of aviation: licensing of personnel, rules of the air, aeronautical meteorology, aeronautical charts, units of measurement, operation of aircraft, nationality and registration marks, airworthiness, aeronautical telecommunications, air traffic services, search and rescue, aircraft accident investigation, aerodromes, aeronautical information services, aircraft noise and engine missions, security and the safe transport of dangerous goods. After a Standard is adopted it is put into effect by each ICAO Contracting State in its own territories. As aviation technology continues to develop rapidly, the Standards are kept under constant review and amended as necessary.
In keeping pace with the rapid development of international civil aviation, ICAO is conscious of the need to adopt in its specifications modern systems and techniques. In recent years, extensive work has been undertaken by ICAO in the areas of reporting aircraft accident and incident data, all-weather operations, automation of air traffic services, the application of computers in meteorological services, aircraft noise, engine emissions and the carriage
of dangerous goods by air. ICAO has dealt with the subject of unlawful interference with civil aviation and with questions regarding aviation and the human environment.
CNS/ATM
Among ICAO's more recent significant achievements has been the development of a satellite-based system concept to meet the future communications, navigation, surveillance/air traffic management (CNS/ATM) needs of civil aviation.
CNS/ATM, formerly known as the future air navigation systems (FANS) concept, is essentially the application of today's high technologies in satellites and computers, data links and advanced flight deck avionics, to cope with tomorrow's growing operational needs. It will make obsolete much of today's expensive ground-based equipment, which uses line-of-sight technology and has inherent limitations. It will also produce economies, efficiencies and greater safety. But it is not these characteristics that make it a new frontier for aviation. It will be its impact as an integrated global system with consequential changes to the way air traffic services are organized and operated.
The CNS/ATM systems concept, which has received the endorsement of ICAO Member States, is now in its implementation phase. This major task includes the development of standards, recommended practices and guidance material which will be applied well into the 21st century.
REGIONAL PLANNING
Not all aviation problems can be dealt with on a world-wide scale and many subjects are considered on a regional basis. ICAO, therefore, recognizes nine geographical regions which must be treated individually for planning the provision of air navigation facilities and services required on the ground by aircraft flying in these regions.
In each of the regions, keeping in mind the objective of producing a seamless global air traffic management system, careful planning is necessary to produce the network of air navigation facilities and services upon which the aeroplanes depend the aerodromes, the meteorological and communications stations, the navigation aids, the air traffic control units, the search and rescue bases the thousands of facilities to be established and operated and the services to be rendered. This planning is done at ICAO regional air navigation meetings, held from time to time for each of the regions, where the need for facilities and services is carefully considered and decided upon. The plan which emerges from a regional meeting is so designed that, when the States concerned implement it, it will lead to an integrated, efficient system for the entire region and contributes toward the global system.
When States require assistance in this regard, help is available through ICAO's seven regional offices each one accredited to a group of Contracting States. These offices have, as their main function, the duty of encouraging, assisting, expediting and following up the implementation of the Air Navigation Plans and maintaining them up to date. In addition, regional planning and implementation groups have been established in ICAO regions to assist the regional offices in keeping the regional plans up-to-date and in fostering their implementation.
As financial and technical resources vary widely between nations, and as air transport's demands involve somecomplex and costly equipment and well-qualified personnel for staffing and maintaining the facilities, there may be uneven implementation of parts of the Air Navigation Plans. ICAO can assist States through its technical assistance activities (described in the following pages). It has succeeded, also, in a few cases, in arranging for "joint financing" certain facilities in the North Atlantic are financed by the States whose airlines make use of
them: communication systems for transmitting messages of interest to aviation, and air navigation aids and meteorological and air traffic control facilities in Greenland and Iceland.
FACILITATION
The obstacles placed by customs, immigration, public health and other formalities on the free and unimpeded passage of passengers and cargo across international boundaries have been a particularly serious impediment to air travel. The problem is inherent in the speed of air travel itself; if, for example, formalities at each end of a trans-oceanic flight of six hours take up one hour, this means that the passenger's trip time has been increased by one third, while the same formalities add only about two per cent to a five-day sea voyage across the same ocean. For the past two decades ICAO has tried to persuade its Contracting States to reduce red tape, and International Standards on facilitation have been adopted to place an upper limit on what States may demand. In addition to reducing procedural formalities, ICAO's efforts are also aimed at providing adequate airport terminal buildings for passengers and their baggage as well as for air cargo, with all related facilities and services.
ECONOMICS
The Convention on International Civil Aviation requires that international air transport services be established on the basis of equality of opportunity and operated soundly and economically. In fact, ICAO's basic objective is the development of safe, regular, efficient and economical air transport. To assist States in planning their air transport services, ICAO collects and publishes comprehensive world aviation statistical data, and undertakes extensive economic studies in line with Resolutions of the ICAO Assembly and Recommendations of world-wide conferences. ICAO also produces manuals for the guidance of States in such areas as statistics, air traffic forecasting, airport and air navigation facility tariffs, the economic regulation of air transport and the establishment of air fares and rates. Workshop meetings are conducted in various regions to provide States with information and advice on ICAO activities and to exchange pertinent information and views.
TECHNICAL CO-OPERATION FOR DEVELOPMENT
From the beginning man has lived in communities connected to or separated from one another by surface conditions. Jungles and swamps, mountains and rivers and deserts have in the past presented almost insurmountable obstacles to his movement a condition which is characteristic even today in so many developing countries where road and railway networks are insufficient or non-existent. The aeroplane's advantage here is obvious: it moves along a boundless highway in the sky and the only actual roadway it needs is that which is necessary for take-off and landing. By the creation of an airstrip remote towns and villages can be linked quickly to the modern world, whereas surface connections could take years or even generations to build. ICAO therefore pays special attention to promoting civil aviation in developing countries. An important instrument in this work has been the United Nations Development Programme. So far most of the Organization's work in this area has been directed toward the development of the ground services required for civil aviation and, in particular, toward aerodromes, air traffic control, communications and meteorological services; in the past few years, and with the advent of larger and more complex aircraft, requests for assistance in the more sophisticated fields of aviation, including airports operations, have been increasing in number. In response to the alarming incidents in recent years of acts of unlawful interference against aircraft and airports, ICAO also provides assistance to States in order to improve their aviation security facilities and procedures.
Assistance in general has consisted of advising on the organization of government civil aviation departments and on the location and operation of facilities and services, and particularly in the recruitment and administration of experts, fellowships training and procurement of equipment. Many large civil aviation training centres have been created or assisted by ICAO in, for example, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand and Tunisia; in most cases these are regional training centres which take students of many nationalities and for which the local governments pay a large share of the costs and take over complete operation of the projects after a set time. Smaller national training centres have also been established by ICAO technical co-operation missions, and nationals of many countries have received ICAO fellowships for study abroad.
ICAO technical co-operation missions consisting of one or more technical experts have gone to nearly one hundred States all over the world. Over 100,000 students have attended training schools registered with ICAO.
LAW
Within the more than one hundred and eighty Contracting States of ICAO there are many legal philosophies and many different systems of jurisprudence. There is need, therefore, for a unifying influence, in certain areas, for the development of a code of international air law. It is a function of ICAO to facilitate the adoption of international air law instruments and to promote their general acceptance. So far international air law instruments have been adopted under the Organization's auspices involving such varied subjects as the international recognition of property rights in aircraft, damage done by aircraft to third parties on the surface, the liability of the air carrier to its passengers, crimes committed on board aircraft, the marking of plastic explosives for detection and unlawful interference with civil aviation.