Expert Consultations on International Environmental Governance took place in Cambridge, United Kingdom, from 28-29 May 2001. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) organized the expert consultations pursuant to decision 21/21 of the UNEP Governing Council. Decision 21/21 established an Open-ended Intergovernmental Group of Ministers to undertake a comprehensive policy-oriented assessment of weaknesses in existing international environmental institutions and examine options for strengthened international environmental governance, and indicated that the process should benefit from expert input. Twenty-seven participants, including academics, policy specialists from non-governmental organizations, and veterans of international environmental negotiating processes attended the consultations. During one and a half days of roundtable discussions, participants conducted an extensive survey of the institutional, financial and conceptual dimensions of international environmental governance and the need to evolve new responses together with a review of UNEP's role within these wider issues. Roundtable sessions were convened on Monday afternoon, 28 May and all day Tuesday 29 May. On Monday the session was introduced by UNEP Executive Director Klaus Töpfer and the Chair of the Expert Consultations, Raúl Estrada-Oyuela. At Tuesday's session the experts focused on a number of issues identified during Monday's deliberations, including clustering of multilateral environmental agreements, institutional arrangements, financing, and a debate on the relationship between environmental and sustainable development governance. The expert conclusions were compiled in a chair's report, which is to inform the UNEP Governing Council's contribution on international environmental governance to preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. There was a consensus that UNEP must be empowered - both in terms of its financial support and a review of its functions - to meet the challenges of an evolving and increasingly complex web of international environmental governance institutions in need of improved coordination, rational organization and expert support.