Almaty Conference concludes with new rights for Civil Society
Access to decision making on deliberate release of GMOs included in Aarhus Convention
30.05.2005 |Sascha Gabizon
Director of WECF (right) and representative of German NGOs during the plenary in Almaty
Access to decision making on deliberate release of GMOs included in Aarhus Convention
More than 35 countries, Parties and signatories to the Aarhus Convention, met in Almaty from 25-27 of May 2005 to strengthen environmental democracy in the European and EECCA regions.
WECF and 5 of it’s members took part in the conference in Almaty, and contributed to the work of the European Eco-Forum, an alliance of over 300 environmental organisations in the region.
The Almaty Conference is a victory for environmental democracy as the unexpected was achieved:
- GMOs, which had been excluded from the Aarhus Convention in 1998, have been added, giving citizen’s right to access to information and participation in decision making on deliberate release of GMOs. Now WECF’s calls on it’s members to ask their governments to ratify this amendment of the Aarhus Convention as soon as possible. To download the Eco-Forum press release on GMOs click here, in English, in Russian
- Governments which ratified the Aarhus Convetnion, agree to use the “Almaty Guidelines” to gain more access to information and public participation on environmental matters in other international forums, such as the World Trade Organisation and International Financial Institutions.
- Governments reconfirm their commitment towards giving support to other parts of the world also implementating access to information and justice and public participation in decision making on environmental, as the UN countries agreed to do at the Earth Summit in Rio 1992 (Rio Declaration, principle 10). In particular, the Parties of the Aarhus convention support to give UNEP a mandate to work on this and in particular on development of "Global Guidelines for the implementation of Principle 10"
- The “Almaty Declaration”, the only declaration in which civil society is a full partner, calls on parties to the Aarhus Convention to quickly ratify the ammendement on GMOs, to ratify as soon as possible the PRTR protocol and to use the Aarhus Convention Compliance Mechanisms as an example for the PRTR’s own mechanism.
The environmental and civil organisations present in Almaty, met for a 2 day preparatory meeting and prepared their own statement, the "Almaty Action Statement", which calls on governments to "renew their commitment to safeguard the Convention’s leadership role in creating environmental democracy".
The Almaty Action Statement focusses on the following 9 areas:
1. Strengthening National reporting and implementation
2. Strengthening Access to Justice
3. Inclusion of GMO-related decision-making in the Convention
4. Adoption of Guidelines on Public Participation in International Forums
5. Strengthening the work of the Compliance Committee
6. Public Participation in Strategic Decision making
7. Strengthening Capacity Building
8. PRTR Protocol
9. Future of the process
To download the Almaty Action Statement in English, click here.
