| |
|
Published in Winter 2004-2005
|
JPAC reviews ten-year report
|
| |
|
By Donna Tingley
|
| |
|
|
As the CEC celebrated its 10th anniversary this summer, an independent committee chaired by Pierre Marc Johnson reported on the organization's successes, opportunities for improvement, continuing challenges and emerging issues for the future. The Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) welcomed this report, Ten Years of North American Environmental Cooperation, and offers the following review based in part on public consultations made at a workshop in Puebla, Mexico on 21 June.
To begin with, JPAC is encouraged that in its Puebla Declaration, the Council renewed its commitment to the CEC. However, JPAC is still concerned about the budget of the CEC, and insists that the Parties should demonstrate their commitment to the institution with a long-term solution so that the CEC's strategic and operational plans may be implemented effectively.
The committee also made a recommendation on getting the relationships right within the CEC. JPAC agrees that good governance is a prominent feature in the day-to-day work of the institution, and as an integral part of the CEC, JPAC looks forward to contributing to implementing good governance principles.
JPAC agrees with the committee's recommendation that the CEC should continue to work for advancing our knowledge of the linkages between trade and environment. The CEC is especially well placed to contribute to building this knowledge, as well as to achieving better integration of trade and environment policies and decisions to make them "mutually supportive," in the words of the Puebla Declaration. JPAC hopes that concrete actions for this will be implemented soon. In particular, it hopes that an environment and trade ministerial meeting will be held to advance this objective.
JPAC also shares the committee's view that it is important for the CEC to focus on building capacity for stronger environmental partnerships. It welcomes the Council's focus on institutional capacity building in the Puebla Declaration. With the committee, JPAC recalls the success of the North American Fund for Environmental Cooperation (NAFEC) in this area. NAFEC was a very effective capacity building mechanism that should be reinstated to advance this objective.
Another area of CEC work that the committee focused on is the citizen submission process, on which JPAC has regularly advised the Council. JPAC clearly subscribes to the recommendation of ensuring the effective implementation of this process. But JPAC has some concerns about the development of a mediation step that the committee recommended to facilitate the resolution of enforcement matters. JPAC believes that the citizen submission process is meant as a fully transparent process to shed light on the facts. It therefore fears that mediation, which tends to be a closed-door process, may conflict with these broader goals of openness and transparency.
There were suggestions by the committee and by the public during the June workshop that some aspects of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation should be reformed. The JPAC disagrees that Part Five of the agreement regarding consultation and resolution of disputes should be removed, since it considers this to be a key tool for environmental protection that allows the Council to look at environmental issues from a continental perspective. Also, JPAC feels that it is premature to take a position in support of the changes suggested by the public, which were mostly related to the citizen submissions process.
JPAC supports the recommendation to continue to build the CEC's constituency, particularly as it has consistently focused its efforts on this goal. JPAC has already provided its views on how to better involve indigenous peoples in the work of the CEC and it will be addressing the topic of involving the private sector and business community in the coming year.
Lastly, JPAC agrees with the committee that reporting on the implementation and follow-up on the committee's recommendations will strengthen the accountability of the organization. We look forward to contributing to that exercise at the CEC Council's annual session in 2006.
|
Top
