Programme

The Fourth Civil Aviation Legal Advisers Forum (CALAF/4)

Nassau, The Bahamas, 27 – 29 May 2026

Programme

The Future of International Civil Aviation: Legal Trends and Institutional Resilience

DAY 1 –27 May 2026

Open Attendance

Panel 1 – (10h30 – 12h00)
Directors General Roundtable
United Skies – Regional Solidarity and Stakeholder Synergy for a Safer, Smarter, and Sustainable Future for Aviation

Senior women leaders in civil aviation from across regions will explore collaborative approaches to advancing global aviation priorities. This high-level panel will highlight the importance of regional cooperation, including between States with similar priorities, and strategic engagement with industry stakeholders to enhance safety, foster innovation, and promote sustainable aviation development. The session will showcase the growing leadership of women shaping the future of civil aviation worldwide, while examining the role of gender equality as a key enabler of institutional resilience.

Panel 2 – (13h15 – 14h15)
Emerging Litigation Trends in Aviation and Impacts on International Air Law Treaties

This session will explore how evolving disputes, ranging from passenger rights and personal injury claims, financing disputes, and environmental accountability, unruly passenger incidents to cybersecurity breaches, are reshaping the global air law landscape. It will examine the growing complexity of cross-border litigation and enforcement, the influence of legislatures and national courts on treaty interpretation, and the pressure these developments place on established treaty frameworks such as the Montreal Convention, Cape Town Convention, and the Chicago Convention. By analysing recent case law and regulatory responses as well as legislative actions, the discussion will highlight how those trends challenge uniform interpretation of treaties and whether current treaties can adapt to new challenges or require modernization to maintain uniformity and predictability in international air law.

Panel 3, Part 1 – (14h45 – 15h45)
Shaping Legal Frameworks for Liberalized Air Transport: Regulatory Policies and Partnerships for a Resilient, Sustainable and Inclusive Future
 

This panel will explore the legal and regulatory issues associated with the liberalization of international air transport, with a forward-looking perspective on the upcoming ICAO Seventh Worldwide Air Transport Conference (ATConf/7). Panellists will discuss the challenges, opportunities, and mechanisms for liberalization, focusing on the modernization of air service agreements, market access, air carrier ownership and control, and open skies policies. Associated issues, including consumer protection, fair competition, taxation, and the economic oversight of airports and air navigation services, will also be addressed. The session will examine how innovation, sustainability, and emerging technologies are reshaping legal frameworks, and consider strategies for adapting institutional structures to support a fair, efficient, and resilient global air transport system.

Panel 3, Part 2 – (15h45 – 16h45)
Debate on Air Transport

DAY 2 – 28 May 2026

Open to Civil Aviation Authorities

Panel 4 – (8h00 – 9h30)
Counsels Roundtable: Tenacity in Turbulence: Reflections on a Challenging Role in Advising

This roundtable brings together experienced legal advisors to reflect on the demanding and multifaceted nature of their role in civil aviation. Through real-world scenarios and professional insights, the session will explore the legal complexities of dealing with a variety of crises and competing objectives with other entities and providing sound counsel under pressure, often with limited information and heightened political sensitivities. The discussion will highlight the resilience and judgment required of aviation legal professionals who navigate high-stakes environments to uphold legal integrity and institutional stability while maintaining the intricate balance between legal rigor and pragmatic counsel.

Spotlight Session 1 – (9h30 – 10h00)
Aviation Security Risk Landscape in 2025-2026

As 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of September 11, this commentary offers a timely opportunity to examine the aviation security risk outlook for 2025–2026 while reflecting on lessons learned over the past quarter century. The security environment is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by geopolitical instability, technological innovation, and emerging threat vectors. The presentation will highlight evolving risks, including cyberattacks, insider threats, and vulnerabilities linked to unmanned aircraft systems, and explore the role of technology and law in shaping global aviation security measures. Attendees will gain actionable insights into emerging challenges and strategies to strengthen resilience against acts of unlawful interference against civil aviation.

Open Attendance

Panel 5 – (10h00 – 11h00)
The Rising Tide and Global Reach of Passenger Rights Legislation – Fragmentation to Harmonization

With the proliferation of national and regional passenger rights laws, this panel will examine the growing risk of legal fragmentation in international air transport. Topics include overlapping obligations under regional and national legislations (such as EU Regulation 261/2004, the U.S. Air Carrier Access Act, Canada’s APPR) and consider implications for multimodal transport. Panelists will assess the feasibility of harmonized standards, the role of treaty and ICAO provisions, and the legal implications for airlines operating across jurisdictions. The session will also explore enforcement challenges, liability gaps, and the potential for a global passenger rights framework.

Panel 6 – (11h30 – 12h30)
Data Protection in International Air Carriage: Legal Challenges, Regulatory Divergence, and Opportunities for Resolution

As civil aviation operations increasingly depend on the timely exchange of passenger data across borders, the legal and regulatory complexities of data protection have become a central concern for States and industry stakeholders. This panel will not only examine these challenges in theory but will also draw on real-world experiences to illustrate their practical impact. Panelists will show how divergent national privacy laws, such as the GDPR and other regional frameworks, affect international air carriage, particularly in relation to passenger name records (PNR), advance passenger information (API), and other protected data. Through case examples and lessons learned, the discussion will highlight how air carriers and authorities have grappled with conflicting obligations, operational delays, and compliance risks in live scenarios. Building on the findings of the recent ICAO survey of Member States and the work of the ICAO Secretariat Study Group on Data Protection Laws (SSG-DPL), the panel will share insights into how States are implementing data protection obligations, managing cross-border compliance risks, and navigating tensions between privacy, sovereignty, and operational continuity. Practical experiences will underscore the complexity of reconciling legal conflicts and demonstrate opportunities for harmonization, mutual recognition, and enhanced regulatory cooperation —all in support of secure and seamless air transportation.

Spotlight Session 2 – (13h45 – 14h15)
Shaping Aviation Insurance for Emerging Aerospace Risks

This presentation will explore how aviation insurance frameworks are adapting to the evolving risk landscape in aerospace operations. With the rise of advanced air mobility (AAM), unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), artificial intelligence (AI), and cyber threats, traditional insurance models face new challenges in underwriting, liability allocation, and regulatory compliance. The presentation will address questions such as the adequacy of existing insurance instruments under international air law; the role of States and regulators in ensuring minimum coverage and financial responsibility alongside and cross-border liability issues and the impact of privatized service providers.

Panel 7 – (14h15 – 15h15)
State Responsibility for Airports and Air Navigation Services in the Modern Age

This panel will examine the evolving scope of State responsibility for airports and air navigation services in an era of increasing privatization, automation, public-private partnerships, regional arrangements and cross-border operations. Furthermore, across many regions institutional reforms have advanced the structural separation of regulatory oversight from the operation of airports and air navigation services to enhance transparency, reduce conflicts of interest, and strengthen safety oversight. As infrastructure ownership and service provision diversify, questions of liability for safety, security, and compliance have become more complex. Panelists will explore how international conventions, national laws, and contractual frameworks allocate responsibility among States, operators, and third-party providers, and consider the implications for accountability when failures occur. The discussion will highlight emerging legal trends and practical approaches to ensuring clarity and consistency in liability regimes for critical aviation infrastructure.

Spotlight Session 3 – (15h45 – 16h15)
The Sky Is Not the Limit: Legal Implications of Suborbital and Near-Space Operations

This session examines the complex legal challenges posed by suborbital and near-space activities, including the applicable regime for hybrid activities. It explores how these challenges could affect regulatory classification, liability, passenger safety, and international obligations, highlighting the need for appropriate governance frameworks to support safe, sustainable, and commercially viable operations in this emerging frontier.

Book Club – (16h15 – 16h45)
Conversation with the Editors on the Commentary on the Chicago Convention/Routledge

DAY 3 –29 May 2026

Open to Civil Aviation Authorities

Panel 8 – (8h00 – 10h00)
Groups Breakout Session:
Legal Guardians of Flight: Enabling Legal Advisory Excellence in Civil Aviation, Driving Capacity, Governance and Global Alignment for Air Law

Building on previous editions in Singapore (2019), Muscat (2023) and London (2024) this session will evaluate the progress made towards highlighting and enhancing indispensable role of legal counsel in aviation governance though recruitment training and regular engagement in ICAO activities and sustaining the CALAF initiative. The Breakout Groups will develop customised and collectively actionable proposals to enhance legal capacity, transparency, future proofing and international alignment for the civil aviation legal advisory role.

Plan of actions – Next steps After Nassau - Group Presentations

Open Attendance

Panel 9 – (10h00 – 11h00)
Regulatory Readiness for Emergent Aviation Technologies and Risks

This forward-looking panel will address the legal and regulatory challenges posed by emerging technologies as applied to civil aviation, including artificial intelligence (AI), advanced air mobility (AAM), unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs), and electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles. Panelists will explore elements such as certification frameworks, liability allocation, cybersecurity risks, and human-machine interaction. The session will examine work in various jurisdictions on legal instruments for innovation and highlight the need for agile legal systems to support safe and sustainable integration of new technologies into global airspace while noting the role of Safety Management Systems (SMS) and strong Safety Information Protection (SIP) in preserving the reliable safety data these technologies depend on.

Closing Ceremony – (11h30 – 12h00)