Leiden University wins best position paper at the 2019 Model ICAO
The 2019 Model ICAO took place from 21-24 May at the ICAO headquarters in Montreal.
The competition, organised by the Faculty of Political Science and Law of UQAM in conjunction with ICAO, the Permanent Mission of Canada to ICAO and the Quebec Society of International Law (SQDI), is designed to 'expose students to real high-level diplomatic and technical discussions, bringing them to embody the roles of official delegates representing the positions of their assigned country'.
Leiden University was proudly represented by current students of the LLM (Adv) Air & Space Law, Eyman Abdulatti, Nicolas German, Natalia Gorina and A. A. B. N. A. Surya Putra, together with Anne-Valentine Rensonnet of McGill University, who joined the team with success in Montreal as their ambassador. They were coached by Merinda Stewart, PhD candidate (IIASL, Leiden University).
The Leiden team served as the delegation from Singapore, their allocated country for the Model, and in that capacity the students participated in two of the four committees: the Committee on Economic Development of Air Transport and the Legal Committee, with the other two committees being the Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) and the Committee on Aviation Security.
In the lead-up to the event the students were required to submit position papers for their State to each Committee they were involved in, where the position paper provided the stance of the State on the matters to be considered. For the Economic Committee the topics were ‘Fair Competition’ and 'Ownership and Control', and for the Legal Committee they were 'Status of State Aircraft' and 'Passenger Protection'. Eyman Abdulatti and A. A. B. N. A. Surya Putra's impressive work earned them best position paper for the Committee on Economic Development of Air Transport.
More information about the ICAO Model can be found here: www.modelicao.com.