Europe - UNEP

information, public participation in decisionmaking,
and access to justice in environmental
matters (UNECE, 1998).
Public participation is also encouraged
under Article 14 of the 2000 EU WFD, as
member countries must foster the active
involvement of all interested parties in the
implementation of this directive. More specifically,
member countries must encourage public
participation in the production, review, and
updating of the river basin management plans. In
addition, for each river basin district, member
countries are required to publish, make a timetable,
and a work programme for the production
plan as well as a statement of consultation
measures, an interim overview of the significant
water management issues, and the provision of
draft copies of the river basin management plan
(to be made available for comments to the
public). The EU WFD is also supplemented by
two EU directives; one relating to public
participation and access to justice, and the other
relating to public access to environmental
information (EU 2003, EU 2003a). Both
directives seek to implement the provisions of the
1998 UNECE Aarhus Convention.
Given the influence of regional agreements
at the bilateral and basin levels, an increasing
number of agreements address public
participation. For instance, Article 14 of the
Danube Convention requires that the contracting
parties ensure that competent authorities make
information concerning the state or quality of the
aquatic environment in the Danube basin
available. In addition, the contracting parties are
obligated to make periodic assessments of the
Danube’s water quality and to provide
information to the public (through appropriate
publications) regarding the progress made by
their measures taken to implement the objectives
of the convention. Furthermore, following the
convention as well as the requirements of the EU
WFD, the International Commission for the
Protection of the Danube has adopted a strategy
for public participation in river basin
management planning (ICPDR, 2003).
Another example of public participation is
Article 9 of the 2002 Russia-Belarus Agreement
that requires the parties to ensure the right of
local authorities and public to access information
and be able to participate in the decision-making
procedures in matters related to the utilisation
and protection of transboundary water resources.
A similar provision can be found in Article 12 of
the Estonia-Russia agreement that requires parties
to guarantee publicity of the discussion of issues
covered by the agreement and involve local selfgovernment
entities and the public in the decision
making process.
4.3.6 Compliance Strategy
Watching container cranes loading cargo, Rhine River at Dusseldorf,
Germany. Photo credit: Richard Hermann.
A recent trend in international cooperative
arrangements for transboundary waters is the
introduction of compliance strategies that focus
on establishing a mechanism for verifying
whether or not countries have implemented and
complied with their treaty commitments. In
addition, these strategies may adopt nonadversarial
and non-judicial methods to assist
countries in complying with their international
obligations. Therefore, a compliance strategy
seeks to avoid traditional options such as treaty
suspension or termination. Assigning liability and
responsibility may be ineffective given that there
56 — Hydropolitical Vulnerability and Resilience along International Waters: Europe