On Thursday, 7 November, the Resumed Fourth Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Legally Binding Agreement (LBA) on Forests in Europe (Resumed INC-Forests 4) opened in Geneva, Switzerland, with a welcome statement by Luca Arnold, Federal Office for the Environment, Switzerland. INC Chair Jan Heino called for the Committee to “tackle the tasks with flexibility, a cooperative spirit and commitment.”

The Russian Federation, EU, Liechtenstein, Serbia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan made opening statements expressing their preference for a lead organization in the LBA secretariat. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stressed the importance of the LBA for global forestry. The European State Forest Association (EUSTAFOR) and Confederation of European Forest Owners (CEPF) urged the Committee to consider agreeing on an interim secretariat arrangement if a permanent LBA secretariat cannot be agreed now.

The morning plenary read through LBA paragraphs containing brackets with the aim of reaching agreement on the title and articles concerning, inter alia, the conference of the parties (COP), right to vote, secretariat, compliance, convention amendments, depositary, signature, ratification, entry into force and termination.

During the afternoon plenary, a legal expert group met to review the draft negotiating text and a contact group met to discuss institutional arrangements. The plenary reconvened at 5:50 pm to hear progress reports from both groups.  Jolyon Thompson (UK), Chair, Legal Expert Group, reported the Group had reviewed four articles and will meet again in the evening to review the remaining articles of the text in order to provide recommendations to the Plenary in the morning.

Contact group co-facilitator Ingwald Gschwandtl reported that countries would work overnight on creating their own matrix of secretariat functions as listed in the draft negotiating text, and which organization they wanted to fulfill each one and why. The contact group will meet informally at 8:30 am on Friday to exchange notes before plenary.

On Friday, 8 November, the Resumed Fourth Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Legally Binding Agreement (LBA) on Forests in Europe (Resumed INC-Forests4) continued in Geneva, Switzerland, with an early morning session of the contact group on outstanding issues, co-chaired by Ingwald Gschwandtl (Austria) and Liubov Poliakova (Ukraine). That examined a matrix of secretariat functions as laid out in article 14 of the LBA along with which organization various delegations thought should fulfill them and why.

When plenary convened, Gschwandtl and Poliakova reported on the work of the contact group, while Jolyon Thompson (UK), chair, legal expert group, reported that his group had finished work on Thursday evening on all but six articles of the draft negotiating text (DNT).

A proposal to start negotiating a package deal based on UNECE as the lead in a joint LBA secretariat was supported by many delegations, but opposed by a block of countries. When the block suggested taking some of the outstanding issues to a diplomatic conference, several others said it was not a viable option.

Plenary broke for lunch and reconvened at 1pm to hear positions about how to move negotiations forward. Delegations again diverged over whether it was worthwhile to explore the option of a diplomatic conference. The contact group reconvened to discuss legal aspects of adoption, servicing and administering the LBA under a joint secretariat, and what a diplomatic conference might entail. The legal expert group also finished examining the remainder of the DNT.

When the plenary reconvened at 5:55 pm, Gschwandtl and Poliakova reported on the contact group discussions. The Committee discussed questions regarding the arrangements of a possible diplomatic conference, and whether all outstanding substantive issues needed to be resolved before bringing the text to a conference. The Committee broke at 7:45 pm to allow for consultations.
Plenary reconvenes at 9:28 pm to consider and approve the work of the legal experts group.

Chair Heino gavels meeting to a close at 4:30 am.