Seminar info and materials
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24 02 2011 croatia |
Third seminar - Opatija, Croatia (February 24-27, 2011) The educational programme conducted within the „Enforcement of the Aarhus Convention in the Adriatic Region Countries” project is getting to its grand finale. Its third and last seminar will be held in hotel “Bristol” (Opatija, Croatia) on February 24-27, 2011. Participants will engage in dynamic trial simulations, after a team preparation that lasted longer than three months. Journalists participating in the programme have prepared related media coverage materials that will be showcased alongside the trials. This project, funded by the European Union, aims to raise awareness and knowledge about the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention), an international treaty ratified by 44 countries who pledged their commitment to transparency and openness towards its citizens. The project\'s primary focus group are lawyers, judges and journalists – professionals whose work is crucial for the practical implementation of the Convention\'s norms.Throughout the first two seminars they have had the chance to benefit from a series of lectures held by most prominent national, regional and European experts. While the first seminar focused on the right of access to information and public participation, the second one dealt with access to justice. The third seminar and its moot court trials will serve as a dynamic platform for participants to apply the knowledge acquired throughout the programme – the trials will be held in front of judicial chamber members consisting of established ECJ/ECHR experts – Tamara Ćapeta (Law Faculty, University of Zagreb), Bojan Lalić (Ministry of environmental protection, physical planning and construction of the Republic of Croatia) and Zvonimir Mataga (European Court for Human Rights). The project-carrier is GONG, together with its partners Green Istria (Pula, Croatia), the Network for Affirmation of NGO Sector MANS (Podgorica, Montenegro), the Centre for Management, Development and Planning (Doboj, Bosnia and Herzegovina), AdriaticGreeNet (Udine, Italy) and the European Environmental Bureau (Brussels, Belgium). Below you can find the agenda of the seminar and the biographies of the judicial jury from the simulated trials, as well as the gallery of photos taken at the seminar. |
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04 11 2010 croatia |
Second seminar - Rovinj, Croatia (November 4 - 7, 2010) The second seminar of the EU funded project "Implementation of the Aarhus convention in the Adriatic region countries" will be held from November 4-7, 2010 in hotel Park in Rovinj, Croatia. The organisers of the seminar are civil society organizations GONG and Green Istria, together with partner organizations from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Centre for management, development and planning), Montenegro (MANS), Italy (Adriatic GreeNet) and Belgium (European Environmental Bureau). Seminar participants are 27 judges, lawyers and journalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Croatia, selected upon an international Call for Applications. In order to strengthen the role of citizens and civil society in matters related to environmental protection, UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) has determined, and 44 countries ratified to this day, the Aarhus Convention. It defines common international standards of access to information, right to participation and access to justice in environmental matters, based on the principles of participatory democracy. While the first seminar dealt with the first two pillars, the Rovinj seminar will be related to the third pillar of the Aarhus Convention which deals with access to the judiciary, which is one of the main problems in seminar participants' countries. The right to access to justice, which includes an accessible judicial system, a simple, transparent and a process with fair length, is of crucial importance in the application of environmental law and - by that - environmental and human health. Without an efficient judicial system, environmental law can not be effective. Lecturers from the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice, Christoph Sobotta and Yves Winisdoerffer, and experts in the field of environmental law, Jan Passer, Peggy Lerman and Csaba Kiss, will speak about the role of courts in the application of environmental law, about the way in which access to justice is provided in EU states and d present some case studies and examples from judicial practice. Judges Ljubinka Popovic - Kustudic and Ljerka Morovic – Pavic, as well as judge Marin Zadric, will speak about the current situation in this field in Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Below you can find all the relevant seminar materials: the programme, information about the partner organizations in the project, short biographies of lecturers and participants (in original languages, as well as in English) and Powerpoint presentations (which the lecturers held at the seminar), as well as the link to the gallery of photos taken at the seminar.
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17 09 2010 croatia |
First seminar - Vrsar, Croatia (Sep 17 - 19, 2010) The „Enforcement of the Aarhus Convention in the Adriatic Region Countries“ project announces the start of its educational programme. The first seminar will take place place in charming Vrsar, a town on the western coast of the region of Istria, in Croatia, from Sep 17-19, 2010. 28 lawyers, judges and journalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro, selected upon a highly competitive selection procedure, will gather in Istria to discuss and improve their knowledge on the Aarhus Convention. The seminar in Vrsar will focus on the first two pillars of the Convention: right of access to information and public participation. The introductory classes will be lead by Mr Jeremy Wates,Secretary to the Aarhus Convention, from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (Sep 1999 – Jun 2010). The sessions will be dealing with the theoretical framework and perspectives of the Convention as well as the practical implementation in specific countries, including best practice examples from the European Union. Apart from having the opportunity to attend lectures held by prominent regional and European legal experts , all participants will be encouraged to share their own experience and case-studies during interactive discussion sessions. We are looking forward to the seminar in Vrsar, the very first encounter of all participants that will take part in the educational programme. Below you can find all the relevant seminar materials: the programme, information about the partner organizations in the project, short biographies of lecturers and participants (in original languages, as well as in English) and Powerpoint presentations (which the lecturers held at the seminar), as well as the link to the gallery of photos taken at the seminar.
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Materials
As a part of the educational program of the project, the participating journalists from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro had the assignement to cover the imaginary case (citizens of the Republic of Mediterania against the goverment, regarding the factory Multikem) and simulation of the trial in front of European courts (ECJ and ECHR) and, based on that topic, record tv/radio shows or write articles for newspapers. Therefore, below you can find the stated materials, which were uploaded to video/sound/document sharing pages on the internet (Vimeo, Soundcloud and Dropbox):
