No Country Left Behind and ICAO’s Leadership Role in Air Transport - Air and Space Law View No Country Left Behind and ICAO’s Leadership Role in Air Transport by - Air and Space Law No Country Left Behind and ICAO’s Leadership Role in Air Transport 47 3

No Country Left Behind (NCLB) is a proactive initiative of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) that is confined to the nineteen Annexes to the Chicago Convention and ICAO’s safety and security audits. This gives one the impression that, beyond assisting Member States on complying with the Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) of the Annexes, ICAO has no further responsibility to its Member States. History and common sense show otherwise as this article argues. Repeatedly, sessions of the ICAO Assembly have linked this initiative to air transport in Resolutions adopted on the economic development of air transport. A fortiori, the ICAO Strategic Objective on the economic development confirms a ‘leadership’ role for ICAO requiring that ICAO focuses on taking the lead in guiding and assisting States in their economic policies, particularly in adapting them to market forces. Although this is by no means a prescriptive role, it nonetheless behoves ICAO to engage in studies on trends in air transport and guide, inform and educate States on achieving equality of opportunity to compete economically and use air transport as an engine of development. As this article argues, a viable tool exists in the form of the Technical Assistance Programme of ICAO. In the least, the glaring conundrum presented between ICAO’s approach to air transport and the direction set by its own Strategic Objective bears a compelling need for further study.

Air and Space Law