International Agreements and Organizations — Page 42, Lesson 83

Let's start with the JAA documentation, because that's the foundation for a lot of what you'll see in European aviation. The Authorities — meaning the national aviation authorities of the member states — agreed to cooperate and produce common, comprehensive, and detailed requirements. Where necessary, they also agreed to produce acceptable means of compliance with those requirements, and interpretations of them. That whole package is what we call the Joint Aviation Requirements, or JARs. Now, the JARs are important because they encompass both technical and administrative functions. So it's not just about how an aircraft is built or maintained; it's also about how the authorities administer and oversee things. When the JAA was developing these JARs, it had to take into account the duties and obligations under the Chicago Convention. It also consulted the parties to whom the requirements apply, and it took into account other aviation codes. The purpose of that was to facilitate the exchange of products, services, or persons, and to allow reliance on organizations, between the JAA countries and other countries around the world. So the JARs weren't written in a vacuum — they were deliberately aligned with international standards so that things could move across borders smoothly. Now let's move on to Eurocontrol. This is a big one. Eurocontrol was founded in 1960, and its original objective was to provide common Air Traffic Control services in the upper airspace of the member states, and to strengthen cooperation between member states in matters of air navigation. It was established under the International Convention Relating to Co-operation for the Safety of Air Navigation, which was signed at Brussels on 13 December 1960. Initially, six countries signed the agreement: Germany — that's the Federal Republic of Germany, or FDR — Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The Eurocontrol Air Traffic Control Centre, the ATCC, is at Maastricht in Holland. But here's the key point: the role of Eurocontrol is now much wider than originally envisaged. The original limit of operations, which was just the upper airspace, was abandoned in 1986. So from 1986 onward, Eurocontrol's remit expanded significantly. That wider remit was placed on the organization by ECAC — the European Civil Aviation Conference — and the most notable area was Air Traffic Flow Management, or ATFM. That led to the establishment of the Eurocontrol Central Flow Management Unit, the CFMU, in 1988. Eurocontrol also has a training centre in Luxembourg, and an experimental research centre at Brétigny in France. And there's a new ATCC in Vienna, which is part of the CEATS programme — that's the Central European Air Traffic Services system. Finally, let's look at the World Trade Organization. The WTO was set up in recognition of the need to establish a world order to promote international trade on a fair basis, by removing unfair barriers to international trade. Through the negotiated General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade — the GATT — which led to the General Agreement on Trade in Services, or GATS, international arrangements were established to abolish unfair practices and to encourage growth, and thus prosperity, in the global economy. So for aviation specifically, we talk about WTO/GATS — the World Trade Organization and the General Agreement on Trade in Services for Aviation. That's the framework that governs how aviation services are traded internationally on a fair basis. That figure shows you the harmonization objective — "Harmonize civil aviation policies and practices amongst its member states" — which is exactly the spirit behind the JAA and the JARs. And there's also a figure showing the WTO organization structure, which you can refer to as Figure 2.2 in the text. So to tie it together: the JAA produced the JARs to harmonize requirements across Europe, Eurocontrol handles the operational side — air traffic control and flow management — and the WTO/GATS framework governs the fair trade of aviation services globally. Each one operates at a different level, but they all work together to keep international aviation safe, efficient, and fair.