ICAO director of legal affairs: Geopolitical tensions present challenge to harmonisation efforts

ICAO director of legal affairs and external relations bureau Michal Gill, speaking at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit Latin America & Caribbean, stated (10-Sep-2026) "We're in a situation where there are a number of geopolitical tensions in different regions, not just in this part of the world, but in many other regions as well". Mr Gill continued: "They trickle down into the work of our governing bodies, our Assembly and our Council, because they're often asked to resolve geopolitical disputes which have a direct impact on international civil aviation. Whether that's overflights, closures of airspace, whether that's shootdown of aircraft, whether that's disputes around application of environmental regulation. Our governing bodies have to address those topics, but it is a distraction in the sense that it takes up time, it takes up energy, and it does create some political tension when we're trying to work on the system of development and implementation of standards on a global and harmonised basis". He concluded: "To be frank, we're seeing more and more of it in the past two or three years. More distraction. I guess it's a reflection of the geopolitical realities everywhere in the world, but aviation is not immune to that, and ICAO is not immune to that". [more - CAPA TV]