This morning, Representatives in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) drafted multiple exciting resolutions related to topic one: the prevention of the spread of disease through international travel. At the beginning of the session, the Representative of Thailand proposed a change of agenda topics and spent a suspension caucusing with Representatives to gain votes for that motion.

Representative William Banish of Nicaragua works with a group of Representatives of small States to develop a resolution that raises international health standards, promoting State sovereignty. In order to do this, the Representatives propose that the International Health Regulations (IHR) go to corporations directly for funds, rather than relying on States for funds. Representative Banish states, “Nicaragua believes this will allow for air travel and international trade to continue to increase while preventing the continued spread of COVID-19 and other transmissible diseases, allowing for Member States like Nicaragua to continue to economically grow while improving public health.” 

One of their goals includes decreasing the economic burden of smaller States who may not have the resources to implement certain safety measures. Towards these ends, Representative Nisha Gautam of Serbia calls upon “all the Member States to construct hubs near the airports for airborne disease screening, vaccination information and the provision of facilities to the passengers who are mildly affected by an airborne, communicable disease.” According to Representative Gautam, this hub creation “would not only help prevent the air traffic as the number of boarding traffic will be decreased, but also ensure the public safety of the small sized Member States of this draft resolution.”

A bloc of Representatives of Asian States, including Solomon West of Singapore and Emily Uhler of the Republic of Korea among others, began a resolution to examine the effectiveness of past ICAO policies and guidelines related to communicable disease. The Representatives acknowledge work has already been done by the ICAO to prevent the spread of communicable disease through travel, relating to other diseases beyond COVID-19 which may have not been as widespread. They plan to develop a framework to determine whether or not those measures were effective in order to avoid pointless rehashing of old issues of which the solutions were ineffective.

During yesterday’s session, the attempt to switch agenda topics and while the vote was close, the motion failed; however, today not all Representatives were satisfied. Representative Andrew Dowell of Thailand pushed to move to the second topic due to its specificity to aviation. The Representative holds that there are other UN bodies to deal with the issue of communicable disease and since most planes are already equipped with the technology to clean air, it is up to States to increase screening and stop disease communication before they get on the plane. The Representative gave this statement: “The Kingdom of Thailand would like to ask the international community a question: How many UN bodies are dedicated to health and distributing resources internationally. How many are instead focused on progressing Civil Aviation and preparing it for its planned massive increase in usage. As such, Thailand strongly believes the ICAO should be committed to its duty to the international community by way of topic.”