The Third International Conference on Environmental Enforcement, held in Oaxaca,
México, April 25-28, 1994, built upon the work of the first International Enforcement
Workshop, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in May 1990, and the second International
Conference on Environmental Enforcement, held in Budapest, Hungary, in September 1992.
Each Conference has, in turn, expanded its sponsorship, participation, and scope to reach
an ever-broadening audience and to develop more extensive and useful materials and
frameworks for exchange.
These Conferences responded to the urgency of addressing environmental concerns both domestically and on a global scale and to the increasing recognition by government and nongovernment officials of the critical role that environmental enforcement plays in ensuring an effective response to environmental problems. Growing interest in environmental enforcement stems from a desire to ensure that environmental requirements lead to real improvements in environmental quality. Environmental enforcement--broadly defined as the range of actions governments and others may take to encourage and compel compliance with environmental requirements--is critical to achieving this objective.
Effective enforcement can provide an element of fairness to the regulatory process;
instill credibility to government institutions; and prevent short-term economic
competition among regions and among facilities from undermining longer-term economic and
environmental goals. Effective domestic environmental enforcement is an important factor
in global efforts to reduce trade barriers and enhance economic development in a manner
that does not create unfair competition or pressure to diminish environmental quality and
stewardship of valuable natural resources.
The Third International Conference on Environmental Enforcement focused on building the
institutional capacity for enhancing existing and developing new domestic environmental
enforcement programs--a challenge for all nations. The United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, produced an
international agenda that firmly states that effective environmental enforcement programs
are a key element of environmental management, and that recognizes the need to build
institutional capacity for effective enforcement in each nation's environmental program.
The Third International Conference on Environmental Enforcement was designed to help all
nations achieve the objectives of this international agenda.
The Conference was designed to serve enforcement officials and policymakers both within
and outside government who are in a position to influence the design or enhancement of
environmental enforcement programs. Within government the Conference sought representation
from national, regional, and local governmental units responsible for both the legal and
technical aspects of environmental enforcement at the mid- to senior-management levels. It
also involved selected nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and industry representatives.
Conference participants were drawn from all regions of the
globe, with a special emphasis on Latin America to take advantage of the Conference's
location and the opportunities it presented to promote greater international exchange and
regional networking among Latin American countries.
The Conference was structured to provide ample opportunity for participants to form networks and to learn through active participation. In addition to open discussion during plenary sessions, and workshops of no more than 20 participants on the second and third days, the entire morning of the fourth day consisted of open poster sessions at which participants were able to roam freely to review results of all of the workshop sessions, to talk informally with individuals who prepared expert papers, and to continue discussions with other participants on the special topics.