WP3: participation in the multi-level governance of European water and biodiversity - a review of case studies

Participation is said to improve decisions on environmental conflicts. When investigating 16 case studies of participatory processes in European Water and Biodiversity Governance, which necessarily is multi-level, the picture becomes blurred: many different forms of participation can be observed, only few of them are well-defined and well organised; most of them are dominated by ad-hoc decisions on whom to include, how to close debates, and how to deal with uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. While nearly all of these processes could be improved by a more conscious and careful setting, the application blueprints will necessarily remain out of scope. Natural, cultural and institutional contingencies make each case special and often unique and the multi-level characteristic of European governance of natural resources adds an additional layer of complexity on how to organise participation. The empirical account of whether deliberation can deliver what it promises in theory is still incomplete. --

Participation in multicriteria decision support - the case of conflicting water allocation in the Spree River basin

This discussion paper presents the Integrated Methodological Approach for participatory multi-criteria decision support under uncertainty (IMA), which emerged from the debates about participation, multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and benefit-cost analysis (BCA). It provides a framework for participatory and science-based evaluation processes with combined use of BCA and MCA to support large-scale public decisions. While IMA does not claim to realize an all-inclusive participation scheme, it offers the advantage to improve the quality of decision making through advances in competence and fairness. Its practical application with emphasis on its participatory elements is demonstrated by the case study on the water allocation conflict of the German Spree River, which involves the German capital of Berlin, an important wetland, and the needs to remediate a post-mining landscape. --Participation,Multi-criteria analysis,Cost-benefit analysis,River basin management,Integrated Assesment

Knowledge uncertainties in environmental conflicts:How the mussel fishery controversy in the Dutch Wadden Sea became depoliticised

<p>Policy-makers and scientists often expect that controversies in public policy can be solved by gathering more knowledge, even though this linear model of expertise is widely criticised in social studies of science. To shed more light on this expectation, the role of scientific uncertainties in controversies on mussel fishery in the Dutch Wadden Sea (1990–2016) is investigated. The analysis shows that mussel fishery regulation decisions were primarily based on government authority, not on scientific knowledge. Expectations of policy-makers and scientists on conflict resolution by more research were not met, because the knowledge debate was politicised over ambiguous knowledge claims. The controversy was depoliticised by a political covenant between the conflicting parties. The case study confirms that science-based knowledge fails to guide policy-making as expected in the linear model, and demonstrates how science plays important strategic, procedural and instrumental roles in structuring interactions between stakeholders in nature protection conflicts.</p

The Lawyer As Consensus Builder: Ethics For a New Practice

In this Article, I explore the roles of lawyers in alternative dispute resolution ( ADR ), including traditional roles in arbitration and new roles in mediation and facilitation. I also discuss how conventional ethics rules for lawyers fail to provide guidance and best practices for lawyers who serve in these new roles. State legislatures and professional associations, such as the American Arbitration Association ( AAA ), the Center for Public Resources Institute for Dispute Resolution ( CPR ), and the Association of Conflict Resolution, have adopted ethical codes for mediators and arbitrators. Select professional associations are also developing best practice guides for the provision of ADR services; however, the lack of clarity in the Model Rules is a serious problem. The failure of the Model Rules to recognize the role of lawyers in peacemaking, dispute prevention or resolution, and legal problem solving marks an absence in what is publicly recognized as among the most important roles a lawyer performs - that of a constructive lawyer. Furthermore, the Model Rules misrepresent the legal profession by assuming that representing clients in adversarial matters is the only role lawyers fulfill. Such an assumption fails to give adequate guidance to a lawyer who fulfills a broader, and perhaps, more significant role than that of a hired gun

International Adjudication and Custom Breaking by Domestic Courts

This Essay identifies a fundamental but overlooked tension between international adjudication and the evolution of customary international law (CIL). According to the traditional understanding, the evolution of CIL requires one or more states to deviate from existing customary rules and engage in new conduct—a concept that I refer to as custom breaking. A deviation\u27s legal status is determined over time, as other states respond by deciding whether to follow the proposed break or adhere to the existing rule. Therefore, the deviation cannot be classified definitively as either legal or illegal at the time it occurs. During the period of state response, CIL necessarily contains some legal ambiguity and inconsistency. Because an important function of international adjudication involves resolving ambiguities in the law, a central tension emerges: international courts may be called upon to adjudicate a break with CIL before other states have had the opportunity to decide for themselves whether to follow the break. Given that most international courts will invalidate deviations from the status quo, international adjudication risks impeding the traditional process by which CIL evolves. More specifically, international adjudication of cases that involve custom breaking may have both a procedural and a substantive effect: procedurally, it may short-circuit state responses to the break with CIL, and substantively, it may deter states from following the custom breaker, even when the other states are not formally bound by the international judicial decision. To illustrate these constraining effects, this Essay discusses three departures by domestic courts from the foreign sovereign immunity rule. It concludes by proposing that in cases involving custom breaking, international courts should adopt, as Professor Cass Sunstein has argued for U.S. courts, a minimalist approach that produces narrow and shallow decisions. This judicial strategy would give states, including their domestic courts, the opportunity to determine for themselves whether a break with international custom is the beginning of a new legal rule

Determining the galactic mass distribution using tidal streams from globular clusters

We discuss how to use tidal streams from globular clusters to measure the mass distribution of the Milky Way. Recent proper motion determinations for globular clusters from plate measurements and Hipparcos astrometry provide several good candidates for Galactic mass determinations in the intermediate halo, far above the Galactic disk, including Pal 5, NGC 4147, NGC 5024 (M53) and NGC 5466; the remaining Hipparcos clusters provide candidates for measurements several kpc above and below the disk. These clusters will help determine the profile and shape of the inner halo. To aid this effort, we present two methods of mass determination: one, a generalization of rotation-curve mass measurements, which gives the mass and potential from complete position-velocity observations for stream stars; and another using a simple chi^2 estimator, which can be used when only projected positions and radial velocities are known for stream stars. We illustrate the use of the latter method using simulated tidal streams from Pal 5 and find that fairly accurate mass determinations are possible even for relatively poor data sets. Follow-up observations of clusters with proper motion determinations may reveal tidal streams; obtaining radial velocity measurements would enable accurate measurements of the mass distribution in the inner Galaxy.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, published in A