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ICAO
ICAO SARPS State Obligations
Almaty, Kazakhstan 18 to 22 November 2002
ICAO contracting States are signatories or adherents to the Chicago Convention, which applies only to civil aircraft.
Legal position of a safety regulator in an ICAO contracting State (2) The ICAO Annexes comprise, among other things, Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPS). The uniform application of Standards is recognized as necessary for the safety or regularity of international air navigation. Contracting States will conform to ICAO Standards in accordance with the Convention.
ICAO Standards are prescriptive in style and should be incorporated into national legislation and/or requirements. If it is impracticable for a State to comply with a particular Standard, immediate notification to the ICAO Council is mandatory under Article 38 of the Convention (filing a difference).
The uniform application of Recommended Practices is recognized as desirable for the safety, regularity or efficiency of international air navigation. There is no binding requirement to file a difference in case of non-compliance with Recommended Practices.
Legal position of a safety regulator in an ICAO contracting State (5) Contracting states are invited to extend such notification to any differences from the recommended practices contained in the Annexes and any amendments thereto, when the notification of such differences is important for the safety of air navigation It should, however, be the policy of ICAO contracting States to deal with Standards and Recommended Practices in a similar way.
The use of legislation and supporting material (2) The legislation is supported by additional material such as Guidance Material, and in some States by acceptable means of compliance or Codes of Practice, which do not have a formal legal status Most legislation is derived from international codes which are generally drafted in a prescriptive style The provisions of ICAO Annex 14 are expected to be implemented in the legislation of contracting States
Aerodrome Safety Workshop - Almaty, Kazakhstan - 18 to 22 November 2002
With the implementation of Recommended Practices the Authority has a choice to implement these in legally enforceable or non-legally enforceable material In these cases the Authority can choose between legislation or non-legal material such as codes of practice It is, however, desirable that contracting States implement Recommended Practices in an enforceable way so that the uniformity envisaged under Article 37 of the Chicago Convention can be achieved
Either choice has some advantages and disadvantages as an instrument for the safety regulator of an ICAO contracting State However, as earlier stated, it ought to be the policy of ICAO contracting States to deal with Standards and Recommended Practices as much as possible in the same way The inclusion of the requirements into legislation has the big advantage that they are easy enforceable
However in many countries it may take a long time to establish or change national legislation Another often heard objection is that legislation is difficult to understand due to the legal language used With an additional explanatory document on how the legal requirements should be interpreted, the safety regulator could overcome this objection
The non-legally binding supporting material could also be used to embody the requirements The major advantage that supporting material has over legislation is timeliness and flexibility because changes can be achieved without going through extensive lawmaking processes and interpretations can be given without fear of infringement of the law
There are a wide range of styles according to regulatory philosophy, legal requirements, industry expertise and public expectation The two extremes of regulatory style could be described as non-involvement/passive and on the other hand as total involvement/directive
In the passive style the safety regulator sets requirements and only gets involved as a last resort either in terms of serving a notice for the particular operator/person to meet requirements or as a part of a prosecution action subsequent to an incident or accident in which the particular provider had not complied with requirements
Regulatory style (5) The balance between both styles is a reflection of the relationship between the safety regulator and the operators and this balance can vary a bit in the ICAO contracting States Requirements can be set as either prescriptive or objective based/goal setting
Regulatory style (6) The objective based requirements are requirements for which the means of achieving compliance are not specified, but goals are set allowing the potential for several means of achieving compliance In prescriptive requirements the means of achieving compliance are specified
Requirements can neither be considered as totally objective nor totally prescriptive These terms should rather be considered as representing the degree of objectivity or prescription applicable to a requirement
When drafting requirements, careful consideration should be given to the appropriate degree of objectivity or prescription and a number of factors should be taken into account in making this assessment Objective requirements tend to be less restrictive but compliance is often difficult to demonstrate simply
Procedure for the development of requirements (1) The elements of a comprehensive consultative process can be summarised: There should be an internal procedure to ensure as far as possible that proposed requirements are acceptable, and to ensure that the priority given and the resources to be committed are appropriate The regulator should involve the specific industry sector at the earliest possible stage in requirement development and comment processes A formal consultation process should be published
The regulator should publish a requirements development plan with associated time scales During the formal consultation process, the regulator should keep a record of all comments received and action taken with each comment
The regulator should reply to all comments on draft regulatory material in accordance with the service levels published in the formal rule making process The record of comments received and the associated response should be a public document
Procedure for the development of requirements (4) The regulator should carry out regular reviews of the effectiveness of the consultation process Another related consideration is that consultation can be treated as a process and could benefit from being administered by dedicated staff irrespective of the subject matter This arrangement could utilise the staff in technical departments for content and drafting but employ the skills of business support, i.e. non-technical staff to provide editorial consistency and an efficient system of consultation
Aerodrome Safety Workshop - Almaty, Kazakhstan - 18 to 22 November 2002