[DOWNLOAD PDF version] (as of 6 May 2008)

Saturday, 10 May 2008

8:00 am Registration and breakfast

9:00 am Welcome and introductory remarks

• James Gustave Speth, Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor in the Practice of Environmental Policy; Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
• Carlos Lopes, Executive Director, UNITAR and United Nations Assistant Secretary-General
• Dan Esty,Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy; Director, Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy
• Susan Rose-Ackerman, Henry R. Luce Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale Law School

Introduction to conference objectives and program

• Achim Halpaap, Manager, UNITAR Environmental Governance Programme; Project Director, UNITAR-Yale Environment and Democracy Initiative

Session 1: Democracy and the environment: defining the linkages

• Session 1 takes place in plenary and continues to set the scene for the conference. Panelists will make short introductory and thought-stimulating remarks that raise key issues relevant for the working group discussions in Sessions 2 and 3. About half of the allocated time for the two panels in Session 1 will be reserved for questions and open discussion.

9:45 am Understanding the democracy-environment interface:
Perspectives of academic scholars

• Moderator: Merle Sowman, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental and Geographical Science; Director, Environmental Evaluation Unit, University of Cape Town
• Rafael Reuveny, Associate Professor ofPublic and Environmental Affairs, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University
• Ngeta Karibi,Faculty Fellow, Government and Environmental Studies, Colby College
• Laurent Mermet, Professor of Environmental Management, French Institute for Environmental Engineering, Water and Forests; Chair of the Scientific Board, French National Research Program "Concertation, Decision-making and the Environment"
• Daniel J. Fiorino, Director, EPA Performance Incentives Division; Adjunct Faculty, School of Public Affairs, American University

11:15 am Coffee/Tea Break

11:30 am Understanding the democracy-environment interface:
Perspectives of public officials and practitioners

• Moderator: Jake Werksman, Program Director, Institutions and Governance Program, World Resources Institute
• Jeremy Wates, Secretary, Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
• Blessing Manale, Chief Director, Planning, Coordination and Information
  Department of Environmental Affairs & Tourism, South Africa
• Franz-Xavier Perrez, Head of Section Global Affairs, Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland
• Henry MacDonald, Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Suriname to the United Nations in New York
• Elenita Dano, Associate, Third World Network, The Phillipines

1:00 pm Lunch break

Session 2: Public participation at different levels of environmental governance

• Session 2 mainly takes place in working groups/tracks which address public participation at different levels of environmental governance. Each working group features short introductory panel statements through which selected scholars and practioners will raise key issues that have emerged from their research and practical experience. The remaining time (about 90 minutes) will be dedicated to an open discussion on best stakeholder engagement practices, identifying knowledge gaps, and developing a set of research questions.
  

2:15 pm Introduction to the session and break-out groups (plenary)

2:45 pm Parallel working groups

Track 2.1: Public participation in international environmental governance

• Moderator: Marc Pallemaerts,Professor of European Environmental Law, University of Amsterdam & Université Libre de Bruxelles; Senior Fellow & Head of the Environmental Governance Programme, Institute for European Environmental Policy, London/Brussels; former Chair of the Meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention
• Public participation in international environmental governance: Introducing key issues
  Eric Dannenmaier, Professor, School of Law, Indiana University
• Enhancing efficiency and effectiveness in international environmental governance
  Osvaldo Álvarez Pérez, Second Secretary, Permanent Mission of Chile to the United Nations, Geneva
• Environmental governance on the high seas: a case study of emerging uses and environmental leadership
  Tatjana Rosen, Consultant, IUCN – World Conservation Union
• Evaluating public involvement in the law-making process of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)
  Donald K. Anton, Senior Lecturer, Australian National University

Track 2.2: Public participation in national environmental governance

• Moderator: Susan Rose-Ackerman, Henry R. Luce Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale Law School
• National forest programmes: old wine in new skins? a critical discussion of the democratizing potential of NFPs in Bulgaria and Germany
  Georg Winkel, Assistant Professor & Metodi Sotirov, Ph.D. Candidate, Institute of Forest and Environmental Policy, University of Freiburg
• Collaborative governance in agro-environmental policy: comparing Nordic and New Zealand practices
  Guy Salmon, Executive Director, Ecologic Foundation, New Zealand
• Public participation in environmental governance: reflections from the developing countries of Asia
  Amando Tolentino,Executive Governor, International Council of Environmental Law (ICEL)
• The effects of the Aarhus Convention on public participation in environmental decision-making in Kazakhstan
  Amy Forster, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Track 2.3: Public participation in sub-national/provincial environmental governance

• Moderator: Felix Dodds, Executive Director, Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future
• Citizen participation in environmental management
  Debra Emmelman, Department of Women's Studies, South Connecticut State University
• “Mobilizing the Green Plan”: Lessons learned from a civil society political incidence initiative. Sustainable development and biodiversity conservation in the South Central Amazon of Ecuador
  Sigrid Vascónez, Coordinator, FARO Group, Ecuador
• Public participation and private interests: the cooperative development of
  a proactive energy policy
  Alfred Marcus, Professor, Department of Strategic Management and Organization, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota
• Interdependencies across levels of governance: or should it be “tackling governance through big bold policy ideas”?
  Noela Eddington, Director, Department of Education and Training, Government of Queensland, Australia

Track 2.4: Public participation in local environmental governance

• Moderator: Merle Sowman, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental and Geographical Science and Director, Environmental Evaluation Unit, University of Cape Town
• “Local content” policy in the Nigerian petroleum industry: “new” intervention, old socio-ecologic questions
  Wilson Akpan, Senior Lecturer and Head of Department,Department of Sociology, University of Fort Hare
• Community roundtables - a stakeholder dialogue strategy for sustainable development in China
  Hua Wang, Senior Environmental Economist, Development Research Group, World Bank Institute
• Contamination, collaboration and remediation: national, state, local, and corporate environmental governance in the Superfund remediation efforts of Tacoma, Washington
  Daniel Sherman, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics and Government, University of Puget Sound
• Protected areas governance: testing the effectiveness of participation, social and ecological sustainability
  Marc Hufty, Professor, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, University of Geneva
  

Track 2.5: Public participation in corporate environmental governance

• Moderator: Ben Cashore, Professor, Environmental Policy and Governance and Political Science; Director, Program on Forest Policy and Governance, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
• The sequential patterning of tactics: institutional activism in the global sports apparel industry, 1988-2002
  Frank den Hond, Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Free University of Amsterdam
• Corporate governance and lobbying on climate change issues
  Robert Repetto, Professor in the Practice of Economics & Sustainable Development, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University
• Global Corporate Environmental Governance: A Post-Modernist Proposition
  Harris Gleckman , Principal, Benchmark Environmental Consulting; Former Head of the Environment Unit, UN Centre on Transnational Corporations
• “Environmental dialogue for environmental responsibility”– a new model of public participation in environmental decision making processes in southern region of Israel
  Carmit Lubanov, Coordinator of Environmental Justice Committee, The Environmental NGO's Union of Israel

5:15 pm End of working groups

5:45 pm Shuttles leave from Luce Hall to Yale Law School (or 10 minute walk)

6:00 pm Reception at Yale Law School

6:45 pm Side Event: Presentation of 2008 WRI publication “Voice and Choice: Opening the Door to Environmental Democracy”

7:00 pm Conference dinner at the Yale Law School

Sunday, 11 May 2008

8:00 am Breakfast

8:45 am Presentation of Session 2 worksing group results (Plenary)

Session 3: Cross-cutting themes of participatory environmental governance

• Session 3 mainly takes place in working groups/tracks which address themes that cut across various levels of environmental governance addressed in Session 2. Each working group features short introductory panel statements through which selected scholars and practioners raise key issues that have emerged from their research and practical experience. The remaining time (about 90 minutes) will be dedicated to an open discussion on best practices, identifying knowledge gaps, and developing a set of research questions.
  

9:30 am Introduction to the session and break-out groups (plenary)

9:45 am Parallel working groups

Track 3.1: Democratizing institutions

• Moderator: Harry Blair, Associate Department Chair, Senior Research Scholar,Department of Political Science, Yale University
• Pathways to deliberative decision-making: environmental governance and democracy
  Stuart White, Professor, Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney
• Unwelcome guests: etiquette in public participation processes
  Ralph Hallo, Manager, European Public Affairs, Econcern
• Integrating a meaningful participatory approach into planning politics: the basin development plan program, Mekong River Commission
  Suparek Janprasat, Sociologist, Basin Development Plan, Mekong River Commission
• A deliberative poll on climate change
  Vanessa Schweizer, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Engineering & Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University

Track 3.2: Democratizing knowledge generation

• Moderator: Peter M. Haas, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts
• Democratizing knowledge generation: An introduction to key issues
  Douglas Kysar, Professor, Yale Law School
• The right to environmental information in the EU - an analysis of the implementation of the Aarhus Convention at the community level
  Sofia de Abreu Ferreira, Ph.D. Candidate, Law Department, European University Institute
• Will regional monitoring systems help in environmental governance? A case study on the WEMS model for monitoring enforcement of CITES Convention
  Remi Chandran, Senior Researcher, Centre for Electronic Governance
  International Institute for Software Technology, United Nations University
• Inference, accountability and justice: the political dialogue between rational risk and environmental justice
  Edwin Camp, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science, Yale University

Track 3.3 Public interest mobilization and capacity

• Moderator: Lalanath de Silva, Director, The Access Initiative, World Resources Institute
• What hampers public participation?
  Olya Melen, Head of Legal Unit, Environment-People-Law
• Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre: Towards bottom up research demand articulation
  Araya Asfaw, Dean, Science Faculty, Addis Ababa University
• Discussant, JoAnn Carmin, Associate Professor of Environmental Policy and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT

Track 3.4: Access to justice

• Moderator: Stephen Stec, Head of Environmental Law Programme and Senior Legal Specialist, Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Hungary
• Promoting public participation in environmental decision-making through the South African courts: myth or reality?
  Louis Kotzé, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, North West University
• Courts, environment and public policies
  Juan Martin Carballo, Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, National University of Córdoba
• Institutions promoting sustainability in Greece
  Vasiliki Karageorgou, Lawyer, Senior Investigator, Greek Ombudsman
• Strengthening access to justice through environmental courts
  Honorable Merideth Wright, Environmental Judge, Vermont Environmental Court

Track 3.5: Interdependencies across of levels of governance

• Moderator: Laurent Mermet, Professor of Environmental Management, AgroParisTech (ENGREF)
• Interdependencies across of levels of governance: An introduction of key issues
  Sonja Walti, Assistant Professor, and Kim Moloney, School of Public Affairs, American University
• New institutions for environmental governance in the Philippines: The Maasin watershed and Iloilo province
  James Kho, Director, Center for Social Policy, School of Government, Ateneo de Manila University
• Construction of urban interstate freeways in Minnesota
  Patricia Cavanaugh, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science Department, University of Minnesota
• Evaluation and the environmental democracy of cities: Strategic Environmental Assessment of urban plans in Italy
  Alessandro Bonifazi, Ph.D. Candidate, & Carmelo M. Torre, Senior Researcher, Technical University of Bari, & Carlo Rega, Ph.D. Candidate, Technical University of Torino.

12:15 pm Lunch break

1:30 pm Presentation of group discussion results in plenary

Session 4: Looking ahead: linking research and capacity development

2:00 pm Concluding discussion

• Session 4 take places in plenary and features an open discussion and interactive dialogue on how the results and recommendations generated through the conference can be carried forward. At the end of the session, representatives of the organizing partners will provide reflective comments on suggestions made by participants and a final perspective on the conference outcomes from the point of view of their respective organizations.

3:30 pm Workshop closure