There’s an example in of itself. I’ve used the British English spelling. Perhaps I should have standardised on the American spelling, namely Harmonization. Or does it matter at all given that the definition of the word remains the same, whatever. Oh, I can’t resist the temptation to say; you say Tomato, I say Tomato.
“You say tomato, I say tomato.
You eat potato and I eat potato,
Tomato, tomato, potato, potato,
Let’s call the whole thing off.”
Naturally, in the voice of Fred Astaire[1]. Nice though this is, my subject is not pronunciation.
Aviation is a highly regulated business. It’s been that since its potential for transporting huge numbers of people around the globe was recognised. Safety must be number one. Although, it’s not if you read the first few words of the all-important Chicago convention.
Article 1: Every state has complete and exclusive sovereignty over airspace above its territory.
In the minds of those who signed the convention it was sovereignty that took first place. That didn’t mean abusing the word “sovereignty” as has to often been done. Afterall, the whole basis of the Convention on International Civil Aviation was international cooperation. It still is.
Let’s put that to one side for a moment. One of the challenges of international aviation has been the different rules and regulations in place in each country. There’s a level of harmony in the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). But ICAO is not a regulator and it’s for each country to interpret agreed standards within their domestic law.
Europe, or at least the European Union (EU) is different in this respect. Since there’s European law and an active European regulator then there’s common rules and regulation set for a regional grouping of countries. So far, Europe is the only region to go this far.
When it comes to aircraft airworthiness this has been a topic of a lot of discussion in the last four decades. In the 1990s, that discussion centred around the idea that a single worldwide code was a desirable achievement. That the time the two major entities engaged in the business of aviation rulemaking, and the maintenance of rules were the FAA (US) and the JAA (Europe).
A single worldwide code could greatly facilitate the movement of aviation produces around the globe. That done to ensure that common safety standards were maintained on every occasion. It proved hard to get to this utopian condition. That said, a great deal was achieved in the harmonisation of existing civil aviation codes. Today, we benefit from that work. I’d say we even take it for granted.
In around 2000, after much study, countries concluded that it was fine to seek some form of equivalence between respective rules rather than having to write done one single set of rules. Mutual recognition has flourished in the form of agreements between countries that has smoothed the path for the aviation industries.
That last major study of the pros and cons of harmonisation is now nearly a generation old. A lot has moved on. For one, in Europe the JAA transition to the EASA.
At the same time the manufacturing countries worked closely together to agree on measures to ensure that there was no great divergence in rules and regulations. Now subjects, like Safety Management Systems (SMS) became codified. However, sovereign countries continued to develop and maintain their own aviation rules and regulations.
International working groups often achieve remarkable commonality and convergence on detailed technical topics. Often because the few people who were deeply embedded in a technical subjects all knew each other and shared information relatively freely.
Discussion as to the viability of a single worldwide code has not completely faded into the past. In fact, there’s some good reason to breath life back into this historic debate. Here’s what’s added to the dynamics of the situation:
- Ongoing moves from prescriptive rules to more performance-based rules,
- Entirely new products in development, like eVTOL aircraft,
- Interdependency, interconnection, and integration all increased since 2000,
- Security and safety are becoming inseparable,
- Digitisation is changing the ways that we ensure that an aircraft is airworthy.
If you have knowledge of, and thoughts on this subject, I’d be happy to hear from you.
[1] https://youtu.be/LOILZ_D3aRg
John Vincent 