Depoliticisation as a Diplomatic Defensive Strategy: Analysis of the International Conflicts Waged in the ICAO

Abstract

ABSTRACT The research is dedicated to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the politicised debates held on its forum. The purpose of the research was to investigate political debates on the ICAO forum and to analyse the attempts to terminate them through references to their political character or the technical character of ICAO. The main research question concerns the arguments used by the delegates/representatives engaged in political debates held on the ICAO forum. The researchers argued that the participants in these debates, mostly diplomats representing member states, have been employing depoliticisation techniques to terminate inconvenient debates, claiming that the ICAO is a technical organisation and political issues should not be debated there. The study covers several diplomatic standoffs at the ICAO forum: debates over ICAO membership/statehood in Spain, Taiwan, Cyprus and South Africa; various instances of the Arab-Israeli conflict; shootdowns of the Korean aircraft by the USSR and the Iranian aircraft by the US; and aviation aspects of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The study specifically covered individual statements of state representatives and debates on the forum of the ICAO Council and Assembly. The research has been performed through qualitative content analysis of the ICAO archival documents acquired both online and during research visit to the ICAO headquarters in Montreal. It was observed that state representatives have been employing depoliticisation in order to defend their countries on the forum of the ICAO from the attacks associated with international conflicts. Depoliticisation as a diplomatic tactic, however, in most cases proved unsuccessful.