How Are Findings and Recommendations of “Treaty Bodies” Implemented and Made Effective? The Aarhus Convention Compliance Procedure

About this Event

For all human rights bodies, such as “treaty bodies”, that follow a procedure similar to that of a court, the big question often asked is, “How can we ensure the effective application of findings, decisions, rulings or recommendations of case proceedings?”

For some of these bodies, a process for following up has been developed to ensure that decisions taken are implemented. One of such bodies is the 1998 UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention), where a procedure has been developed to monitor the implementation of the recommendations made by its Compliance Committee. The procedure can be broadly described as follows: the Committee presents its findings and recommendations to the Meeting of the Parties (MOP) who can endorse them in a decision on a Party (which has been the case for almost all decisions until now). Afterwards, the MOP mandates the Committee to monitor the implementation of this MOP decision in a dialogue with the concerned Party, who will then report back at the following MOP. This is familiarly known as the “follow up procedure”.

Unfortunately, this kind of mechanism remains relatively unknown. However, it is crucial in terms of effectiveness and implementation of international norms. As such, this event aims to look more closely at this process of monitoring of the decisions of a “treaty body”, to ensure they are effective on the ground. The discussion will bring in additional perspectives from UN human rights mechanisms, in particular the Special Procedures and the Human Rights Committee, to provide a comparison to their respective follow-up procedures.

Speakers

Áine RYALL

Chair of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee & Professor at the School of Law, University College Cork, Ireland

Fiona MARSHALL

Legal Officer, Secretary to the Compliance Committee & Assistant to the Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, Aarhus Convention Secretariat

Hélène TIGROUDJA

Vice-Chair, Human Rights Committee & Professor of international public law and human rights law, University of Aix-Marseille.

Astrid PUENTES RIAÑO

UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment

Yves LADOR

Representative in Geneva, Earthjustice

Felix KIRCHMEIER

Executive Director, Geneva Human Rights Platform