Fixing the CEC Submissions Procedure: Are the 2012 Revisions Up to the Task?

The citizen submissions procedure of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) celebrates its twentieth birthday this year. After a promising childhood, the procedure has had a stormy adolescence, vexed by accusations of ineffectiveness, bias, and delay. In 2012, the CEC adopted revisions to the procedure that promise to improve its timeliness, but do little or nothing to address its other problems. As the procedure enters its twenties, settled maturity is still a distant prospect. Created in 1993 by the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), a tri-national agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, the submissions procedure allows any individual or group in one of the three Parties to file a complaint with the CEC alleging that a Party is failing to enforce its domestic environmental laws. If the submission meets certain admissibility requirements, it can lead to a detailed investigative report, called a factual record. As Section II of this Article describes, the first two decades of the CEC submissions procedure have seen real achievements, but they have also given rise to growing controversies. Scholars and environmental advocates have increasingly criticized the procedure on three grounds: (a) it is far too slow, (b) the Parties interfere with it too often, and (c) the CEC does not follow-up factual records to determine whether they have led to real improvements. As Part III explains, the most recent round in this recurring struggle began in 2011, when the NAAEC Parties announced that they planned to adopt revisions to the procedure\u27s Guidelines. Outside observers saw the revision process as an opportunity to address long-standing problems, but they also feared that the Parties could use the revisions to weaken the procedure further. In early 2012, a governmental task force proposed revisions that seemed to confirm these concerns. As a result, CEC advisory bodies and others strongly objected to many of the suggested amendments to the Guidelines. The objections appear to have had some effect: the final version of the Guidelines adopted by the NAAEC Parties in July 2012 drops or softens the more controversial proposals. Moreover, the revisions set new deadlines that, if followed, would greatly shorten the time the procedure takes to process submissions. However, the revised Guidelines still impose new restrictions on the submissions procedure, and they continue to ignore the need for effective follow-up to factual records. Part IV concludes by underlining that while the CEC submissions procedure still offers a unique mechanism to draw attention to important environmental issues that might otherwise be overlooked, its shortcomings have sapped its attractiveness to potential submitters. The adoption of stricter deadlines is a step in the right direction, but to restore trust in the procedure, the CEC must do more. Specifically, it must regularly meet the deadlines in practice, it should start following-up factual records, and, most importantly, the Parties must resist the urge to micromanage the process. Otherwise, criticisms and controversy will continue to follow the procedure as it enters its third decade

Human Rights, Environmental Protection, and the Sustainable Development Goals

In recent years, international human rights tribunals and other bodies have identified ways that environmental harm can interfere with the enjoyment of human rights, and have clarified that States have obligations to protect human rights against such interference. For example, States have duties to provide access to environmental information, to protect rights of free expression and association in relation to environmental issues, and to provide for participation in environmental decision-making. This article examines how well the draft Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) proposed by the United Nations Open Working Group reflect the human rights obligations relating to environmental protection. It concludes that the proposed SDGs include goals that would promote those obligations, but that the specific targets are often written in language that is neither concrete nor closely linked to existing human rights obligations

Evaluating Citizen Petition Procedures: Lessons from an Analysis of the NAFTA Environmental Commission

The NAFTA Environmental Commission’s citizen petition process is an important experiment in “new governance” because of its emphasis on citizen participation, accountability, and transparency as strategies to enhance government legitimacy and improve government performance. Its focus on promoting compliance and enforcement adds to its importance for those interested in those central aspects of the regulatory process. The procedure has had a rocky start in many respects, although there are signs that in some cases it has had a positive impact. This Article sets forth what we perceive to be the promise of the process, the pitfalls that have undermined its effectiveness to date, and adjustments that would equip it to make a meaningful contribution to North American environmental governance. More generally, the Article provides a framework for evaluating such citizen petition processes and explains how lessons from an analysis of the North American procedure may contribute to assessments of the design and implementation of similar mechanisms in other international and domestic legal regimes

Evaluating Citizen Petition Procedures: Lessons from an Analysis of the NAFTA Environmental Commission

The NAFTA Environmental Commission’s citizen petition process is an important experiment in “new governance” because of its emphasis on citizen participation, accountability, and transparency as strategies to enhance government legitimacy and improve government performance. Its focus on promoting compliance and enforcement adds to its importance for those interested in those central aspects of the regulatory process. The procedure has had a rocky start in many respects, although there are signs that in some cases it has had a positive impact. This Article sets forth what we perceive to be the promise of the process, the pitfalls that have undermined its effectiveness to date, and adjustments that would equip it to make a meaningful contribution to North American environmental governance. More generally, the Article provides a framework for evaluating such citizen petition processes and explains how lessons from an analysis of the North American procedure may contribute to assessments of the design and implementation of similar mechanisms in other international and domestic legal regimes

Human Rights and the environment : the interdependence of human rights and a healthy environment in the context of national legislation on natural resources

This legal paper reflects on the evolution of international law on the interdependence of human rights and the environment. It illustrates their significance for the development and implementation of national laws on agricultural development and the management of renewable natural resources, ranging from land, water, fisheries, plants, and animals, to food, forestry, wildlife, biodiversity and trade laws. It is also relevant for national laws on climate change, gender equality, agribusiness operations, the right to food, the right to water and the prevention of potential conflicts arising from the competition for natural resources. The paper brings together lessons learned through the mandate of the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, John H. Knox, and academic research on international biodiversity law and human rights, by Elisa Morgera. The Paper gives an overview of the increasing cross-fertilization between international environmental law and international human rights law. It looks specifically at nature conservation and the human rights of Indigenous Peoples. It also focuses on other areas of the nexus between human rights and biodiversity that are of particular relevance to national laws on natural resource

Reclaiming Global Environmental Leadership: Why the United States Should Ratify Ten Pending Environmental Treaties

For more than a century, the United States has taken the lead in organizing international responses to international environmental problems. In the last two decades, however, U.S. environmental leadership has faltered. The best-known example is the lack of an effective response to climate change, underscored by the U.S. decision not to join the Kyoto Protocol. But that is not the only shortfall. The United States has also failed to join a large and growing number of treaties directed at other environmental threats, including marine pollution, the loss of biological diversity, persistent organic pollutants, and trade in toxic substances. This white paper identifies ten of these critical, pending environmental treaties and explains their importance and the actions needed to fully join them. The failure of the United States to join these treaties undermines global environmental protection and undermines U.S. interests in protecting a wide range of natural resources. The treaties set out standards and create institutions designed to find and implement solutions to problems of critical importance. They have attracted support from other countries, including our closest allies. Indeed, several are among the most widely ratified treaties in history. In every case, the regimes these treaties have established are less successful without U.S. membership than they could be with the full engagement of the country with the largest economy and the largest environmental impact

Completed Genome Sequence of the Anaerobic Iron-Oxidizing Bacterium \u3ci\u3eAcidovorax ebreus\u3c/i\u3e Strain TPSY

Acidovorax ebreus strain TPSY is the first anaerobic nitrate-dependent Fe(II) oxidizer for which there is a completed genome sequence. Preliminary protein annotation revealed an organism optimized for survival in a complex environmental system. Here, we briefly report the completed and annotated genome sequence of strain TPSY