WASHINGTON, DC, June 5, 2003 -- The World Resources Institute (WRI) released a new report today, Aligning Commitments: Public Participation, International Decision-Making, and the Environment.

"In the past few years we've seen growing rifts over international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol, trade deals negotiated under the World Trade Organization, and development loans by institutions like the World Bank," said Crescencia Maurer, lead author of the report and a senior associate at WRI. "Civil society groups are increasingly questioning the transparency and accountability of decisions negotiated by their governments internationally."

The report surveys public participation policies across a range of international financial institutions and environmental agreements to better understand whether opportunities exist for meaningful public participation in international decisions that affect the environment.

The survey concludes:

• In the last decade, a growing number of international institutions have adopted policies on public participation. The World Bank, The Asian Development Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank have either adopted or revamped their information disclosure policies in the last five years.

• Public participation at the national level is uniformly weak; domestic stakeholders have limited ability to influence international decisions that affect their environment. This problem is particularly acute in the trade arena where public consultation of on-going negotiations of trade accords like the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) or the World Trade Organization occurs only at the discretion of governments. Such consultation is the exception rather than the rule.

• Institutions and agreements subject to the greatest public scrutiny have the most advanced public participation policy frameworks. The European Union, which has been subject to considerable criticism for closed decision-making in the past, created the position of European Ombudsman and adopted clear rules on access to documents.

• A common methodology is needed to assess the implementation and practice of public participation. WRI's The Access Initiative (TAI) recently completed three years of pilot testing a methodology to assess access to environmental decision-making on the national level. Working with an international network of civil society groups in 11 countries, TAI is committed to ensuring citizens have a voice in the decisions that affect their environment and lives.

The findings are the focus of a panel on the state of public participation policies and practices worldwide hosted by WRI to commemorate World Environment Day.

"While there is general agreement that public participation is an essential element of sustainable development, there is very little agreement about who should participate, and how people should participate in international development decision-making," said Daniel Bradlow, director of the International Legal Studies Program at American University's Washington College of Law. "Answering these questions is the challenge facing international institutions, national governments, and private corporations."

This sentiment was echoed by David Hunter, interim director of the Bank Information Center, who added, "Since (the 1999 World Trade Organization annual meeting in) Seattle, the most critical issue facing international institutions is how they will orient themselves to the public, and the rising number of stakeholders who believe they have a legitimate interest in being heard."

Aligning Commitments examines public participation policies in three decision-making arenas or processes: multilateral development bank assistance and lending, the negotiation of multilateral environmental agreements, and the negotiation of trade and regional economic policies.

Specifically, the survey asked when and how can individuals gain access to information about international decisions, do their governments consult them, and can they bring complaints before these international bodies?

Governments representing 172 nations declared public participation paramount to decision-making processes regarding sustainable development when they adopted Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration at the first Earth Summit in 1992. The world's governments reaffirmed this commitment at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg last year. Aligning Commitments seeks to determine whether international institutions have made progress on meeting this commitment.

Aligning Commitments was co-produced by WRI's International Financial Flows and the Environment Program (IFFE) and The Access Initiative (TAI).

-30-

For more information, contact:

World Resources Institute
Paul Mackie, senior media officer, +1(202)729-7684, pmackie@wri.org
Christopher Lagan, WRI media officer, (202) 729-7684, clagan@wri.org