DISCOVER
The six committees
Every delegate sits on one committee for the whole week. It is where you will spend most of your time, where you will negotiate, and where your resolution will be written.
Five technical committees, and the Council
Five technical committees handle a distinct area of international civil aviation. The sixth — the Council — arbitrates between them. None requires a background in aviation. All require the willingness to defend a position that may not be your own.
Choose the committee that matches what you want to argue about.
LEGAL
LEGAL COMMITTEE
International civil aviation runs on a treaty signed in 1944 and on several thousand bilateral agreements. LEGAL is where delegates confront that framework with realities its drafters never imagined.
• The interpretation of the Chicago Convention and its Annexes
• Air Service Agreements between States, and the rights they grant or withhold
• Passenger rights and State obligations toward them
• Liability: who answers for what, and before which court
2026 TOPICS
Ownership and control
Access to air transport for persons with reduced mobility
2026 Director
Mia Wouters
GDS Advocaten - Gand University
ECON
COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF AIR TRANSPORT
Under the Chicago Convention, ICAO’s authority over economics is thinner than over safety or security. That is exactly what makes this committee interesting: much of what is discussed here has never been settled
• Liberalization of international air transport
• Taxation of air transport, where sovereignty meets climate policy
• Market access, competition, and equality of opportunity
• Air connectivity for States that have little of it
2026 TOPICS
A multilateral treaty on air transport liberalization
Taxation of international air transport
2026 Director
Maté Gergely
Policy Officer, DG Mobility and Transport, European Commission
SAFE
COMMITTEE ON AVIATION SAFETY
​Aviation is the safest form of transport because every accident produces a rule. SAFE is where those rules are argued — before the next accident, not after.
• Human factors: fatigue, training, workload, safety culture
• The integration of new technologies into shared airspace
• Standards and Recommended Practices, and the gap between adopting and applying them
• Oversight: what a State must verify, and what happens when it does not
CAEP
COMMITTEE ON AVIATION ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
ICAO’s 193 Member States have set a long-term aspirational goal of net-zero carbon emissions for international aviation by 2050. CAEP is where the distance between that goal and the means of reaching it is negotiated
• Sustainable aviation fuels and cleaner energies
• CORSIA, the first global carbon offsetting scheme adopted by any sector
• Adapting airports and air traffic systems to a changing climate
• Noise and local air quality around airports
2026 TOPICS
Human factors in aviation operations
Drones in shared airspace
2026 TOPICS
Sustainable aviation fuels
Climate adaptation and resilience
2026 Director
Vincent Correia
Co-Director, Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University
2026 Director
Nathalie Herbelles
Vice-President, Industry Affairs and Sustainability, ACI World
SECU
COMMITTEE ON AVIATION SECURITY
Security standards are set globally and applied nationally. Between the two lies a gap, and that gap is what this committee works on
• Intelligence sharing between States, and why it fails
• Cyber-attacks on air traffic management, insider threats, weaponized drones
• Interference with satellite navigation — jamming and spoofing
• Screening, cargo, and the resilience of airport operations
2026 TOPICS
Hybrid threats — GNSS spoofing
2026 Director
Sonia Hifdi
Deputy Director, Air Transport Bureau, ICAO
COUNCIL
The Council
2026 Director
Philippe Morio
Chief, Aviation Security Policy Section, ICAO
Where everything converges
The Council is not a sixth technical committee. It is the body that receives what the five others produce, arbitrates between them, and adopts — or rejects — their resolutions. It also handles the crisis.
-
Arbitration between committees whose resolutions contradict one another
-
The crisis situation: an unfolding event, injected in real time, that no one has prepared for
-
The final vote, held in ICAO’s actual Council Chamber
How it feels: The most demanding seat. You represent your State across every file at once, and you have to manage a 36-hour crisis situation
Which one should you choose?
Your delegation decides who sits where. Once your delegation is confirmed, you distribute your students across the committees yourselves.
No prior aviation knowledge is required. Every committee publishes a background guide several months ahead — five to ten pages per topic.
Spread your delegation across committees. A delegation of at least six students can cover several committees at once, so it collectively follows every file.