Transcript Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters Agenda item 4(b) Compliance mechanism . Report on the.

Convention on Access to Information, Public
Participation in Decision-making and Access to
Justice in Environmental Matters
Agenda item 4(b) Compliance mechanism
.
Report on the Committee’s activities
since the first session of the
Meeting of the Parties
Mandate
In its first session, the Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol provided
the Compliance Committee with the mandate to “monitor assess and
facilitate the implementation and to take measures to promote
compliance and address cases of non-compliance”.
Meetings
• Two meetings in the period between the sessions of the Meeting of
the Parties.
• Third meeting takes place today and tomorrow, here in Maastricht.
First meeting
Adopt the Committee’s methods of work in the fields of:
– General principles of the Compliance Committee’s operation
– Processing of submissions and referrals,
– Discussion and preparation of findings,
– Summary proceedings and the gathering of Information.
First meeting ctd.
• The procedures drew heavily upon the equivalent
procedures of the Aarhus Convention’s Compliance
Committee.
• Procedures are described in detail in the report of the
first Committee meeting and its annex. (Available online
at the UNECE PRTR Compliance Committee’s web page)
Second meeting
No submissions by Parties, referrals by the secretariat or communications from the
public
Did most of the work on the synthesis report
– based on the national implementation reports (NIRs) submitted by Parties
during the first reporting cycle
Synthesis report
– provides a strategic overview of the implementation
of the Protocol rather than to evaluate the
information provided in the NIRs.
– does not check the accuracy and completeness of the
contents of the NIRs or review compliance on the
basis of those reports’ contents.
Future work
• Developed a note on future work of the Committee: future facilitative
work by the Committee as well as possible means to support it.
• Builds on facilitative component of mandate
• Protocol is detailed and technical; the Committee could help Parties
and non-Parties to engage with this detail
Future work
Three areas of work outlined in more detail in the note on
future work:
i) addressing systemic issues
ii) providing advisory support and
iii) strengthening expert capacities.
Addressing systemic issues
The committee could
• undertake a technical assessment of the Protocol’s provisions,
• identify the systemic challenges to full implementation of the Protocol and develop
recommendations on how to address them.
Challenges identified through the first reporting cycle provide a good basis for this
work. The Committee would also analyse those national implementation reports of
the 2014 reporting cycle that were not submitted in time to be considered for the
synthesis report.
Addressing systemic issues: procedures
Technical assessment, identification of challenges and developing of recommendations
• through a participatory process involving Parties, Signatories, interested States, as
well as NGOs, international partner organisations and other stakeholders
• carry out this work in close cooperation with the Protocol’s Bureau and the results
will be reported to the Working Group of the Parties and the Meeting of the Parties
to the Protocol
Systemic work
The outcomes of this work would be
used as a basis for the next two
areas of work described.
Providing advisory support
• Parties and other States willing to accede to the Protocol could be
able to seek advisory support from the Committee with regard to
compliance with and implementation of the Protocol.
• This could include advice on legislative and other regulatory matters.
Strengthening expert capacities
• Members of the Committee could be invited to provide support to different events,
such as workshops and training, aimed at strengthening the capacity of national
experts.
• The needs described in the document on the “Promotion of the Protocol on
Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and
Central Asia” (ECE/MP.PRTR/2014/L.6), could be taken into account.