Highlights for Thursday, 1 June 2006

The second High-Level Meeting on Envisioning the Next Steps for Compliance with and Enforcement of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) continued discussions on Thursday morning, 1 June 2006. Participants carried on the discussions of the three main pillars of the Agreed Chairman’s Summary adopted after the first High-Level Meeting in Colombo (the “Colombo Process”).

The morning session was devoted to discussions of the interlinkages between environmental protection, economic development and poverty reduction in the context of MEAs. Introductory remarks were made by Bradnee Chambers, United Nations University-Institute of Advanced Studies and Nicholas Robinson, Pace University School of Law.

In the afternoon, participants engaged in a session discussing instruments to improve implementation of MEAs, stimulated by presentations by Patrick Szell, former Head of the International Law Division, UK Department of Environment, Marceil Yeater, CITES Secretariat and Mukul Sanwal, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat.

Philippe Roch, Chair of the meeting and former Secretary of State and Director of the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forests, and Landscape, said that the discussion was rich and wide-ranging, which would help to develop concrete elements for action. He noted that Friday morning’s session would be dedicated to discussion of the first draft of the synthesis conclusions arising from this meeting.

Following the afternoon’s discussions, Bakary Kante, Director, Division of Environmental Conventions, UNEP invited participants to a reception hosted by UNEP. At the reception, Frits Schlingemann, Director, UNEP Regional Office for Europe noted the activities that would take place on Friday, 6 June 2006 to celebrate international environment day, to which all participants were invited to join.