March 3, 2006 PIELC - Eugene, USA GLOBAL STATUS AND TRENDS IN ACCESS Lalanath de Silva Director, The Access Initiative & The Partnership for Principle 10 World Resources Institute, Washington DC

What this presentation covers….. Principle 10 The Access Initiative (TAI) The method used to assess Govt. performance on A2I, PP & A2J Global status and trends Global Report on Access (Oct 2007)

Background: Relevant International Commitments governments sign the Rio Declaration. Principle 10 mandated appropriate access to information, encouragement of public participation, and effective access to judicial proceedings WSSD Plan of Implementation calls on governments to implement Principle 10.

The Access Initiative’s goal… …is to promote the accelerated and enhanced implementation of Principle 10 at the national level.

The Access Initiative’s strategy is to… Develop and continuously refine an indicator-based tool to assess government performance Support civil society teams in an increasing number of countries to conduct assessments Engage governments to act on assessment results and make legal and institutional changes implementing Principle 10

A set of research guidelines and questions allowing you to assess your government’s systems for transparency, participation, and accountability in decisions that affect the environment. TAI Assessment Toolkit

What does the toolkit measure? Law – through indicators focusing on constitutional and other national law, such as statutes or judicial decisions Practice – through indicators focusing on case studies from different sectors

TAI Assessment Toolkit Categories: I. Access to Information II. Participation III. Access to Justice IV. Capacity Building

TAI Assessment Toolkit Categories Access to Information Public Participation Access to Justice Capacity Building Approach Law Practice Indicators Regularity Timeliness Inclusion Quality

Version 2.0 Framework Access to Information Public Participation Access to Justice Capacity Building Law Effort Effectiveness

Indicator Worksheets

Assessments to Action Measure Progress Establish current progress Monitor progress over time Generate reports Engage Stakeholders National level International networks Take Action Identify gaps Set & address priorities

Global status of access laws…. Most countries had constitutional or legal rights of A2I, PP, and A2J. More and more countries are enacting such provisions. Yet many of these rights were restricted and or poorly enforced. Government agencies often did not respect these rights or had practices that negated or limited them.

Access to Information (A2I)…. State of the environment reports Environmental Quality Information Regulatory & compliance info Emergency related info

A2I – State of the Environment Reports. SOE reports that are done have good data. Most Govts not obliged do SOE reports. SOE reports are not user friendly. SOE reports were not reaching the media.

A2I – Environmental Quality Information.. Govts with environmental monitoring programs were collecting a high number of data parameters. Mandates to Govts to release environmental quality info were weak or intermediate. Such data is generally not on the internet. Such info is restricted & not freely available to the public.

A2I – Regulatory & compliance info…. Most facilities were not reporting full compliance information. Confidentiality obstructs the availability of compliance info to the public. the quality of compliance info was poor. The timeliness of compliance reports varied widely. Facilities report fuller compliance info in developed countries. Facility compliance reports were not on the internet.

A2I – Emergency related info.. Govts not obliged to distribute info to the public during emergencies. The quality of the info distributed during emergencies was poor. Info about emergencies not on the internet. Efforts to reach the media during and after emergencies was poor. The info in post emergency reports was generally poor. Post emergency investigations were not on the internet.

Public Participation (PP)… Public involvement in national policy Public involvement in project planning

PP – Public involvement in national policy Little public influence at initial stages. Public consultations were inadequate. Public not told about the outcomes of participation. Inadequate notice of policy-making (exception Europe & USA). Quality of the info provided to the public was poor. Policies not publicly available or difficult to access. Public registries & the internet were improving the situation in Europe and Latin America.

PP – Public involvement in project planning Little or no public influence over initial parameters or scope. Formal consultations did not reach affected populations. Inadequate notice about draft project documents. The quality of project level info was poor. Project records not publicly accessible or difficult to access.

A2J – Legal aspects Most countries had forums where environmental claims could be brought. Rights of appeal/review were available against decisions made by most of these forums. Laws in most countries established reasonable timeframes for forum decision-making. Limits of confidentiality about claim related information was mostly clear and narrow. Capacity building efforts for forum/sub- national officials was disparate and uneven. Public training, technical assistance etc ranked from strong to weak.

A2J – Effort by Government Most of the assessed countries have taken basic measures to ensure the independence and impartiality of the forum. On the other hand, the assessment also showed that in practice, independence and impartiality of the forum varied significantly from one country, forum or claim to another. The large majority of countries, proceedings before forums are transparent. By and large forum members have not been trained in Principle 10 rights and more effort to build capacity of forum members is needed. The adequacy of budgetary allocations for forums to function varied widely from one country or forum to another. In the majority of cases, public guidelines on using forums for redress were not available.

A2J – Effort by Government (Cont.) There is a good effort put into enabling parties to obtain all the relevant information and undertake fact finding needed for them to participate meaningfully in the claim proceedings. More needs to be done in developed and developing countries to reduce the costs of access to justice. When applicable much more needs to be done to proactively make forums accessible to the poor, minorities and the disadvantaged. While there are some cases where legal standing to pursue claims has been liberalized, in most other cases, standing is narrow and limited. In most cases forums were making a reasonable effort to minimize delays in issuing decisions. In most cases, there was only one forum available to file the claim.

A2J – Effectiveness Excepting a few cases implementation of the decision was weak. The majority of forum decisions had resulted in positive environmental, access or participatory outcomes. The perceptions of stakeholders varied from one country, claim and forum to another about how well forum members discharged their access to justice responsibilities. On the other hand, the prevailing perception tends to see the role of CSOs in promoting access to justice as significant.

Capacity Building – Govt efforts TAI assessments showed that the majority of countries invested little or nothing in staff capacity building. The majority of countries did not do enough to inform the public about where to go, whom to meet and how to get information in its possession. Most countries did little to fund or subsidize the activities of non-governmental organizations. Most Governments were making some, mostly inadequate, efforts at teacher training for environmental education. Four countries stood as good examples of capacity building. These were Mexico (Chiapas), Lithuania, Columbia and South Africa.

The Global Report on Access World Resources Institute – Oct 2007 P10 & Human Rights P10 world and actors Global trends and Status What are the benefits and costs of P10 When does P10 work and not work Making P10 tip – become the global standard Conclusions & recommendation