R O A D T O A A R H U S
This was the motto of the declaration adopted by environmental citizen organizations (ECOs) following the second half of the Pan-European ECO Strategy meeting, a special session on public participation, held November 9-10 at Lake Bled, Slovenia.
The declaration, destined for Europe's environmental ministers and outlining the main priorities for ongoing Public Participation Convention negotiations, comes at a critical time for ECO voices to be heard before the draft text of the Convention is completed. The past four months have brought intense negotiations as Convention work comes to an end. Three meetings of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) intergovernmental working group were held in June, July and September, and a small drafting group met in August to produce a consolidated text. Alongside governmental representatives from the UNECE region, an ECO delegation led by Jeremy Wates, other NGOs and international organizations including the REC have also participated in these meetings. It is unprecedented in international law that an ECO delegation contributes so much to the substance of negotiations. Even though they are only observers, ECOs acknowledge the high level of participation - a model for drafting international environmental laws.
However, in the words of the new declaration, ECOs "deplore the trend within the negotiations to create a minimalist Convention and the willingness of delegations to allow the positions of a minority of obstructive States to weaken the provisions of the Convention." In response, they believe that sufficient time remains to prevent the Convention from becoming ineffective and irrelevant. They further call on governments to provide the political will to ensure that the Convention becomes a major new instrument for strengthening democracy.
Concerning the Convention's three "pillars" - access to information, public participation, and access to justice - many important issues remain unsolved. For example, should the Convention give explicit right to a healthy environment? Should international decisionmaking and institutions like the EU be covered? And will the non-compliance mechanism include public participation?
Regarding the information pillar, the "passive" part is fairly well-developed, actually going slightly beyond the existing EU Directive on Access to Information. The "active part," however, contains several new components put forward by ECOs now only vaguely incorporated into the text, including requirements for Internet access, the introduction of PRTRs, and commercial product information.
Regarding the public participation pillar, the main open issue is whether Article 5, "Public participation in decisions on specific activities," will include only decisions having significant impacts on the environment or whether less than significant impacts will be covered by the same level of participation. Recently, the possibility of the Convention applying in a more limited way to decisionmaking on legislation, policies and programs evolved and remains on the table for discussion, despite the resistance of some governments.
There is broad support for the third pillar concerning rights of appeal against breaches of rights established under the Convention. Views differ as to whether the public should also have the right to challenge breaches of environmental law.
Finally, a series of national roundtables concerning the Convention are being organized between NGOs and government officials in 15 CEE and five NIS countries - part of another REC project, funded by the Dutch Ministry of Environment. The roundtables promote dialogue, inform on the drafting process and the governments' positions, and provide opportunity for comments from NGOs. So far, national roundtables were successfully completed in Albania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.
- Magda Toth Nagy
REC Project Manager, mtothnagy@rec.org