The INECE Enforcement Indicators:
Executive Summary and Annotated Outline
for a Multiyear Project

See August 2002 draft at http://inece.org/conf/indDZ08_30.htm

15 April 2002

INECE Indicator Sub-Committee and INECE Secretariat
Durwood Zaelke, Director,

with

Office of the INECE Secretariat
1367 Connecticut Ave, NW Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
telephone: 202.249.9607
fascimile: 202.249.9608
electronic mail: inece@inece.org

Table of Contents

The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 recognized the importance of enforcement and compliance in Agenda 21 and called on the international community to build compliance and enforcement capacity as an essential element of environmental management. (Chapter 8.21, Agenda 21).  This commitment is reaffirmed in a number of international initiatives, including UNEP’s Montevideo III program and new enforcement and compliance guidelines for MEAs.  (UNEP, 2001; UNEP, 2002).  More recently, the preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2002 noted the need to “promote the establishment or strengthening of existing authorities and mechanisms necessary for policy-making, coordination and enforcement” and to “develop and maintain effective legal systems, including strong and clear laws related to compliance, monitoring, enforcement, and for citizen participation.”  (UNCSD, 2002).  A key element to better implementation, enforcement and compliance is improved information for policy makers, partners, and civil society. The INECE Enforcement Indicator Project will create a framework for developing indicators dealing with issues of implementation, enforcement and compliance in industrialized, developing and less developed nations. These indicators will build on two of INECE’s earlier accomplishments: the internationally cited Principles of Environmental Enforcement (USEPA, 1992) and our country progress/self assessments of environmental compliance and enforcement programs (INECE, Undated). Drawing on the expertise and experiences from these past initiatives, the INECE Enforcement Indicator project will be launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. The goal of this project is to develop effective indicators of implementation, enforcement and compliance with environmental laws around the world with the view that the resulting improvements in the public policy dialogue will lead to improved environmental governance on a global scale.

Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 calls for the development of indicators for sustainable development. Over the past decade, the UN along with a number of governments, international organizations, academics and NGOs have begun to develop these indicators.  (e.g. UNCSD, 2001; OECD, 2001).  Their efforts are directed at delivering concise, scientifically credible information in a manner that is readily understood and communicated to decision-makers and other audiences. In addition, a number of agencies and organizations are developing more specialized indicators that are intended to be used alone or with these other broader efforts.  (UNCSD, 1995).  Few of these efforts, however, have attempted to address issues of implementation, enforcement or compliance. 

The INECE indicators will be designed for a wide range of applications. Their development will be guided by principles, or criteria, selected based on the best practices of indicator projects around the world and will utilize a standardized model that will facilitate the use of the INECE indicators in conjunction with other existing indicators (USCSD, 2001; NACEC, 1999; OECD, 2001; USEPA, 1997; WRI, 2001).  The methodology, or process, for developing these indicators will follow a step-by-step approach that will draw on the expertise of INECE partners as well as other indicator projects and outside experts. A principal part of our methodology will be to develop detailed cases studies of existing indicator projects to inform our development of implementation, enforcement and compliance indicators.  These will include analysis of work by the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation (NACEC, 1999), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2001), the World Bank (WB, 1999), the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA, 1997), the Mexican PROFEPA, and various projects lead by the World Resources Institute, among others.

Indicator development will proceed in a phased approach among representative countries.  This will allow the Secretariat and Indicator Subcommittee to pilot test the indicators in representative regions.  After testing, the implementation and enforcement indicators will be revised and harmonized and tested again to ensure applicability. Once these indicators are developed, the project will be expanded to included compliance indicators. In addition, the project will continually reassess its approach -including partners, users, principles and methodology – in order to expand the reach and improve the quality of the indicators.

Annotated Outline

The following is an annotated outline of the project designed to communicate the background, purpose, and proposed methodology.  Comments are appreciated, especially insights drawn from experiences with other indicator projects.  After comments are received, including from discussions from the 6^th Conference in San Jose, Costa Rica, the Secretariat will prepare the final description of the INECE Indicators Project, which will be published of a special issue of the Newsletter for presentation at WSSD.

1. Introduction

1. Summary. Over the next few years INECE will develop a set of environmental enforcement and compliance indicators. These indicators will be scaled to accommodate countries at varying levels of development, and will serve as a tool for evaluating enforcement policies and capacity, with a view to identifying needed resources, including training, technology, and other financial resources. Examples of this type of indicator include the total number of inspections performed each year and the percentage of inspectors with advanced degrees.  The INECE project will build upon existing international work on environmental indicators generally, as well as other regional and national efforts to develop enforcement and compliance indicators (see below).

2. Definition of Indicators.  The term indicator is rooted in the Latin verb indicare, which means to disclose or point out, to announce or make publicly known, or to estimate or put a price on. (Hammond, 1995) Environmental indicators are important tools for translating and delivering concise, scientifically credible information in a manner that can be readily understood and communicated to decision-makers and other intended audiences. (Environment Canada, 2002).

3. Major Indicator Projects. Over the past decade, a number of organizations have begun to develop environmental indicators to translate and deliver concise, scientifically credible information in a manner that can be readily understood and communicated to decision-makers and other intended audiences. When multiple indicators within the same system are tracked over time and analyzed in aggregate, they may disclose the trends of a larger system.  The following are examples of international uses of environmental indicators.

                                                               i.      Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Environmental Indicators. The OECD uses indicators as a tool for performance evaluation and public information.  Environmental indicators help track environmental performance and progress towards sustainable development. (OECD, 2001).

                                                             ii.      United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) Indicators on Sustainable Development. The CSD employs indicators to measure the full spectrum of sustainable development issues.  The CSD uses indicators to translate physical and social science knowledge into manageable units of information that can facilitate the decision-making process; measure and calibrate progress towards sustainable development goals; provide an early warning, sounding the alarm in time to prevent economic, social and environmental damage. In addition the CSD notes that they are also important tools to communicate ideas, thoughts and values. (UNCSD, 2001).

4. Current Enforcement Mandates. A number of international instruments call for strengthening the implementation, enforcement, and compliance with environmental laws and policies.  In addition, there is an international need and mandate to develop indicators to measure progress towards this goal.

                                                               i.      International Mandate to Strengthen Enforcement. In 1992 the international community made a commitment to strengthening implementation, enforcement and compliance.  This commitment is reaffirmed in the documents under consideration for adoption at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2002.

1.      Agenda 21. The Rio Earth Summit in 1992 recognized the importance of enforcement and compliance in Agenda 21.  Chapter 8.21 established an international mandate to build compliance and enforcement capacity as an essential element of environmental management.  It states:

8.21. Each country should develop integrated strategies to maximize compliance with its laws and regulations relating to sustainable development. The strategies could include:

(a)     Enforceable, effective laws, regulations and standards based on sound economic, social and environmental principles and appropriate risk assessment, incorporating sanctions designed to punish violations, obtain redress, and deter future violations;

(b)     Mechanisms for promoting compliance;

(c)      Institutional capacity for collecting compliance data, regularly reviewing compliance, detecting violations, establishing enforcement priorities, undertaking effective enforcement, and conducting periodic evaluations of the effectiveness of compliance and enforcement programs;

(d)     Mechanisms for appropriate involvement of individuals and groups in the development and enforcement of laws and regulations on environment and development; and

(e)      Develop effective national programmes for reviewing and enforcing compliance with national, state, provincial and local laws on environment and development.

2.      WSSD. The preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the ten year follow up to the the Earth Summit in Rio, also discuss the need to “promote the establishment or strengthening of existing authorities and mechanisms necessary for policy-making, coordination and enforcement” and to “develop and maintain effective legal systems, including strong and clear laws related to compliance, monitoring, enforcement, and for citizen participation.”  (UNCSD, 2002).

3.      UNEP Guidelines. UNEP recently developed guidelines for enforcement and compliance addressing concerns at both the international and national level. (UNEP, 2002)

a.       Chapter I of UNEP’s new guidelines addresses compliance with multilateral agreements.  It comprises 29 paragraphs, which spell out the purpose, scope and definitions of the terms used in his part of the text, as well as other issues considered necessary for enhancing compliance: preparatory work for negotiations, effective participation in negotiations, assessment of domestic capabilities during negotiations, compliance considerations in multilateral environmental agreements, review of effectiveness, compliance mechanisms after a multilateral environmental agreement comes into effect and dispute settlements provisions.  Other issues covered in this chapter are national implementation, including national measures, capacity building and technology transfer.  Emphasis is placed on international co-operation by the United Nations and other relevant international organizations as well as through multilateral and bilateral initiatives.

b.      Chapter II of the guidelines addresses national enforcement and international co-operation in combating violations, of laws implementing multilateral environmental agreements.  It comprises 15 paragraphs, which spell out the purpose, scope and definitions of the terms used in this part of the text, as well as national enforcement of laws and regulations, institutional framework, national coordination, training for enhancing enforcement capabilities and public environmental awareness and education.  Emphasis is placed on international co-operation and coordination, bearing in mind the need for consistency in laws and regulations, co-operation in judicial proceedings, institutional framework and capacity building and strengthening.

4.      Montevideo III.  Language in Agenda 21 empowered UNEP and other organizations to more actively support compliance and enforcement activities, including capacity building.  UNEP responded with a number of initiatives, including the Programme for the Development and Periodic Review of Environmental Law for the First Decade of the 21^st Century (also known as “Montevideo III”).  The final Montevideo III Programme, approved in 2001, list as a priority the need to increase the effectiveness of environmental law and stresses implementation, compliance and enforcement. (UNEP, 2001). 

5.      North American Agreement for Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC).  This well know regional agreement  calls for increased transparency for the efficient enforcement and compliance with environmental laws in North America, including measures for monitoring compliance and provides its Council of Ministers with authority to develop recommendations to State Parties regarding indicators for reporting the state of the environment, techniques and methodologies for data gathering and analysis on environmental law enforcement issues. [See Articles 1(f), 1(g), 1(h), 2(1)(e), 2(2), 5(1)(b), 10(2)(a), 10(2)(c), 12(2)(c)].

                                                             ii.      Call for Indicators

1.      Agenda 21. Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 notes that traditional indicators (for example, GNP and measurements of individual resource or pollution flows) do not provide adequate indications of sustainability. (Agenda 21, Chapter 40.4).  Given this vacuum, the chapter calls on the international community to develop and promote new indicators that would, in part, help track progress towards the goals of Agenda 21. (Chapter 40.6-40.11) Similarly, Chapter 8.21 calls on countries to develop “Institutional capacity for collecting compliance data…and conducting periodic evaluations of the effectiveness of compliance and enforcement programs.” Chapter 8.6 states that “Countries could develop systems for monitoring and evaluation of progress towards achieving sustainable development by adopting indicators that measure changes across economic, social and environmental dimensions.” 

2.      WSSD Preparations.  A number of participants in the regional and global preparations for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development have noted the value of environmental indicators generally and the profound absences of indicators dealing with issues of implementation, enforcement and compliance with environmental laws and policies.  (INECE, 2001). 

5. Implementation, Enforcement and Compliance Indicators Defined. Environmental indicators have traditionally been limited to measuring the health and status of environmental media like air and water quality, waste management and land use.  To date, few efforts have attempted to address issues of implementation, enforcement and compliance.

                                                               i.      Implementation Indicators. Governments are required to take steps to implement commitments they have made in international agreements and national policies. This can take the form of new laws, programs or the recognition of new rights afforded individuals. An example of an implementation indicator is whether a party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora has passed the four pieces of implementing legislation as required under the agreement. (see http://www.cites.org).

                                                             ii.      Enforcement Indicators.  Once a government has adopted environmental laws they need to enforce them. An example of a commonly used indicator of enforcement is the number of enforcement actions (civil, criminal or administrative) brought by the government during a given time period. (USEPA, 2001)

                                                            iii.      Compliance Indicators: Once the laws are in place and are being enforced, other indicators measure the level of compliance in the regulated comminutes.  An example of this type of indicator is the compliance rate. Note this is predicated on the existence of enforcement inspections.  (USEPA, 1992).

6. Examples.  While there is relatively little work on these types of indicators, the following indicator projects attempt to address issues of implementation, enforcement and compliance. 

                                                               i.      The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC). In 1997 the CEC initiated a project to explore development of indicators or criteria for evaluating the performance of the Parties in implementing policies and programs for effective environmental enforcement. The objectives of this project are to document current work in the area of enforcement indicators and provide a forum for dialogue with a view of establishing a baseline.  Ultimately, the CEC hopes to develop more effective indicators for use by the three parties to the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation.  (NACEC, 1999).

                                                             ii.      United Sates-Mexico Border XXI Program.  The Program’s Cooperative Enforcement and Compliance Workgroup periodically publishes several indicators for the border area including: number of inspections conducted in the areas; number of enforcement actions and penalties; amount of money spent on injunctive relief and supplemental environmental projects; amount of pollution reduced as a result of enforcement. (see U.S. Mexico Border XXI Homepage at http://www.epa.gov/usmexicoborder/index.htm).

                                                            iii.      USEPA [fill in based on Mike Stahl’s paper]

                                                           iv.      PROFEPA – Mexico.  In recent years Mexico’s Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente -PROFEPA has initiated with relative success a program of compliance and enforcement indicators known as ICNA’s, or  Indices de Cumplimiento de la Normatividad Ambiental (Indexes of Compliance with Environmental Normativity).

2. INECE’s Plan for Developing Indicators

1. Overview & Objective.  The objective of the INECE Enforcement Indicators is “action and accountability through better policy evaluation.” The INECE environmental compliance and enforcement indicators project aims to develop a system for evaluating capabilities of environmental compliance and enforcement programs.  This stage of the project involves researching and surveying programs worldwide.  The project also will aim to develop a functional index of environmental compliance and enforcement indicators based on the information gathered during the first stage of the project. 

2. Applications. The INECE indicators will be designed for a wide range of applications, including for example:

                                                               i.      Parliaments and national governments to help set priorities and allocate budgets;

                                                             ii.      practitioners to evaluate alternative enforcement policies and practices;

                                                            iii.      international and bi-lateral donors to help set priorities and allocate funding;

                                                           iv.      the regulated community to help understand their obligations and gauge their performance;

                                                             v.      citizens and NGOs, to apply political pressure to improve environmental enforcement by understanding the success or failure of the current policies;

                                                           vi.      Investment bankers and other financial entities , to measure and qualify investment grades in emerging markets.

3. User/Partners: The design and use of the INECE Indicators will draw upon a diverse group of constituencies including for example:

                                                               i.      Government policy makers – Legislators, judges, and high level members of the executive.

                                                             ii.      Enforcement practitioners -- regulators, inspectors, and other implementers of policy;

                                                            iii.      International Actors – including UNEP, UNDP, CSD, MEA Secretariats, OECD, World Bank;

                                                           iv.      Regional Actors – including the European Union, regional development banks (IDB, ADB, EBRD) and the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation;

                                                             v.      Bi-lateral  donors -- including Dutch and US;

                                                           vi.      Academia -- including Yale Center for Environmental Law (see Esty, 2000), University of Southern Chile (see their current work with Global Forest Watch at http://www.globalforestwatch.org) and CESIN at Columbia University;

                                                          vii.      NGOs – including the World Resources Institute, the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA), Thailand Environment Institute, the Center for Environmental Law of the South (DASSUR) and the Environmental Management and Law Association of Hungary.

4. Principles:  The indicator project will be guided by a set of principles, or criteria, draw from the best experiences of other leading indicator projects (see WRI, et al., 2002; OECD, 2001; UNCSD, 2001; WB, 1999; NACEC, 1999; USEPA, 1997;) including:

                                                               i.      Transparent. Transparency refers both to the process of developing the indicators as well as their use.

1.      Transparency in development.  The project will make all assumptions explicit and invite a broad coalition of stakeholders to participate from early stages of design throughout the life of the project. (NACEC, 1999)  All project terms will be explicitly defined to maintain consistency.  Progress of the INECE Indicators project will be available through the Secretariat and via the Internet with appropriate functions to enable the development team to receive suggestions and comments. Data and data collection methods will also be publicly available. (UNCSD, 2001).

2.      Transparency in use. The indicators will be easy to access for both civil society (WRI, 2002) as well as policymakers and practitioners (EPA, 1997). The project realizes that the rights to access  environmental information and to participate in environmental decision making are still in deficit in various nationals and should serve as an additional call to those nations to guarantee such rights.

                                                             ii.      Informative.  The indicators will provide the information that various uses/partners want and need.  They will be presented in a visually engaging and easy to understand format that makes the underlying data clear and useful to civil society, government, and the regulation community. (Hardi, 2001). In the process, this will help improve voluntary compliance by industry and encourage international certification efforts such as ISO 14000. (NACEC, 19990

                                                            iii.      Indicators should also cover non-traditional values as effectiveness in the access to justice, environmental information and civil society participation in environmental decision making.

                                                           iv.      Comparable. The indicator project will balance the need for uniformity in the data and measurement with the recognition that countries at different stages of development require different measurement.  (NACEC, 1999). The project will develop a graduated set of indicators for use by countries depending on the stage of their enforcement program with aggregated indexes that will allow for comparison of the different data. For example, enforcement indicators used by undeveloped or transition countries may include the number of trained staff and promulgation of environmental laws.  More developed countries may use a complex set of indicators that combine indicators such as the number of air monitoring stations, number plant audits, number of permits issued, and number of enforcement actions with indicators on pollution potential and the number of plants in a sector.  The data from developing and developed countries will be weighted and aggregated by technical experts to allow for meaningful comparison despite the different measurements. The project encourages developing and less developed nations to make their outmost effort to implement it both at the federal and local or municipal level, according to their legal regimes.

                                                             v.      Policy Relevant.  The indicators will be designed with an emphasis on utility with specific emphasis placed on priority setting, resource allocation, and accountability for policy performance. (USEPA, 1997).

                                                           vi.      Credible.  The indicator project will draw upon expertise from around the world and across sectors to develop a more robust set of measures that allow for flexibility and continuous improvement. Every effort will be made to insure the underlying methodology, measures, and data are complete, accurate and timely. (Hardi, 2001).

                                                          vii.      Compatible.  The indicators will be designed to be compatible with other existing reporting requirements (e.g. UN, WB, OECD, etc.) This will have two major benefits.  First it will minimize duplicate reporting or excess reporting burdens and reduce costs.  Second, it will allow the indicator project to build from a baseline of an existing framework and methodology, to be determined through further research and case studies, in order to allow for comparability and data aggregation. In the process implementation, enforcement and compliance data will become linked to traditional measures of environmental quality and sustainability.  (NACEC, 1999).  Thus the indicators will not exist in a vacuum but rather will be able to “plug-in” to these other measurements giving a greater audience to the indicators and a greater reach to INECE’s message.

                                                        viii.      Technologically Sophisticated.  The indicators will incorporate, as possible, the latest information technologies including GIS, remote sensing (Hardi, 2001), Internet search engines and complex searchable databases.

                                                           ix.      Measurable.  The indicators should be measurable and the process of collecting, analyzing, and publishing the data should be cost effective (USEPA, 1997; OECD, 2001).

5. Examples of Other Principles: Both the USEPA and OECD have a set of principles that guide its indicator project. A short summary of these principles is offered for comparison to the INECE principles.

                                                               i.      OECD – Three basic criteria used in OECD indicator work: policy relevance and utility for users, analytical soundness, and measurability. (OECD, 2001).

1.      Policy relevance and utility for users – An environmental indicator should provide a representative picture of environmental conditions, pressures on the environment or society’s response; be simple, easy to interpret and able to show trends over time; be responsive to changes in the environment and related human activities; provide a basis for international comparisons; be either national in scope or applicable to regional environmental issues of national significance; have a threshold or reference value against which to compare it, so that users can assess the significance of the values associated with it.

2.      Analytical soundness – An environmental indicator should be theoretically well founded in technical and scientific terms; be based on international standards and international consensus about its validity; and lend itself to being linked to economic model, forecasting and information systems.

3.      Measurability – The data required to support the indicator should be readily available or made available at a reasonable cost/benefit ration; adequately documented and of known quality; and updated at regular intervals in accordance with reliable procedures.

                                                             ii.      US EPA Performance Measures criteria. (USEPA, 1997)

1.      Relevant – in keeping with EPA’s mission, goals, objectives, and priorities, and the needs of external stakeholders

2.      Transparent – understandable, so they enlighten users about program or agency performance

3.      Credible – data to support the measures is complete an accurate

4.      Feasible – the cost of collecting data does not outweigh their value

5.      Functional – encourage organizations and employees to engage in effective and constructive behavior and activities

6.      Comprehensive – important to many operational aspects of organizational performance.

6. Conceptual Framework

                                                               i.      Importance of a Common Conceptual Framework. In order for INECE indicators be used in conduction with other existing environmental and sustainability indexes, it is important to adopt conceptual framework that is compatible with theses ongoing efforts. There are a number of frameworks in use around the world today.  They include Stock/Capital & Flow, Accounting, Integrated Assessment, Human-Ecosystem Interaction, Components- Problems, and Sustainable Development Holistic.  (Hardi, 2001).  The INECE project will use the most commonly employed framework: Pressure-State-Response (PSR) although it will continue to review other frameworks as appropriate.

                                                             ii.      Pressure-State-Response Model

1.      PSR is Widely Used.  The PSR framework follows a cause-effect-social response logic, and was developed by the OECD from earlier work by the Canadian government. (Hammond, 1995). The PSR model and modified versions are used by a number of government agencys and institutional indicator projects including, UNCSD, Core Set of Indicators; UNEP, Global Environment Outlook; World Bank, Environmental Performance Indicators; World Bank Central American Environmental Indicators; European Union, EuroStat Environmental Pressure Indicators; European Environmental Agency Headline Indicators; EBRD-OECD Environmental Indicator Set for Countries in Transition-CEE/NIS; World Economic Forum, Environmental Sustainability Index; Statistics Canada, Human Activity and the Environment. (Hardi,  2001).

2.      Example of PSR Defined: OECD Environmental Indicators.  The PSR model is used to structure the OECD work on environmental policies and reporting.  The PSR model helps decision makers and the public see environmental, economic, and other issues as interconnected. (OECD, 1997; Hardi, 2001).

a.       Pressure indicators describe pressures from human activities exerted on the environment, including natural resources. Pressure indicators are closely related to production and consumption patterns.  They can be used to show progress in decoupling(need definition) economic activities from related environmental pressures, or in meeting national objectives and international commitments.

b.      State indicators measure the quality or condition of the environment--particularly declines attributable to human activities. Examples include measures of stratospheric ozone concentrations, of urban air quality, or of fish stocks.

c.       Response indicators gauge the efforts taken by society or by a given institution to improve the environment or mitigate degradation.  Thus they measure how policies are implemented by tracking treaty agreements, budget commitments, research, regulatory compliance, then introduction of financial incentives, or voluntary behavioral changes.  These indicators measure progress toward regulatory compliance or other governmental efforts, but do not directly tell what is happening to the environment.

                                                            iii.      Examples of Other Frameworks.  Other frameworks also may provide valuable insights into indicator development.

1.      Input-output-outcome – a project based approach that combines the project’s outcomes and impacts into one.  This framework is organized along a project’s overall objectives, its components and its impacts. The overall objectives are those the project is designed to meet, while the components are the means by which the implementation of the project is to be carried out. The framework comprises three sets of indicators, those covering the overall objectives of the project, impact indicators; those relating to the components of the project, output indicators; and those relating to the pre-project conviction, baseline indicators. The World Bank Set of Environmental Indicators (WB, 1999) and the World Wildlife International, Living Planet Report uses the input-output-outcome framework. (WWF, 2001).

2.      Intentions-actions-results – a newly proposed indicator framework to measure and assess environmental performance.  INECE is currently waiting to learn about this framework from the OECD. Updated information will be placed on the INECE Indicators Forum. (http://www.inece.org/forumsindicators.html).

7. Methodology.  The Indicators project methodology, or process, will include the following steps.

                                                               i.      Identify working group – The INECE Secretariat with the help of the Indicators Subcommittee of the Executive Planning Commission will recruit a team of experts in the development and implementation of performance indicators and environmental enforcement fields to serve on a working group that will review and advise on all matters related to the development, selection, and testing of the INECE Enforcement Indicators project.  The working group will discuss the preliminary issues of the indicator project beginning at the 6^th INECE Conference in April 2002 and will meet as needed to discuss indicators matters and make recommendations.

                                                             ii.      Identify users and partners – The INECE Secretariat, with the help of the Indicators Subcommittee of the Executive Planning Commission, will identify users of the INECE Enforcement Indicator and partners who will be invited to participate in various capacities to oversee, fund, and test the enforcement indicators project. Particular attention will be paid to enforcement and compliance practitioners and policymakers.

                                                            iii.      Prepare Case Studies. The Secretariat, with the help of the indicators working group, will study a selected group of indicator models to review, analyze, and understand its potential value for use in the context of enforcement indicators.  The initial case studies are described below and will include NACEC, EU accession countries, WRI, WB, USEPA and PROFEPA.

                                                           iv.      Adopt Framework.  The Secretariat has tentatively selected the PSR model but the Project will ultimately select a common conceptual framework based on a common understanding of concepts and definitions.  This will most likely lead to the selection of the PSR model or some variation.

                                                             v.      Select Principles.  A number of principles or criteria may guide the selection of the final set of indicators.  INECE will first establish which principles or criteria will guide this selection process.  All potential indicators will be reviewed in light of these principles or criteria.

                                                           vi.      Define Indicators.  The Project will identify and define the first two sets of indicators: implementation and enforcement.

                                                          vii.      Use Phased approach.  The enforcement indicators will be developed, refined, and tested in a phased approach among representative countries.  The phased approach will allow the Secretariat and working group to pilot test the indicators in regions with varied political, economic, societal, and environmental circumstances.  After testing, the implementation and enforcement indicators will be revised and harmonized and tested again to ensure applicability. Once these indicators are developed, the project will be expanded to included compliance, sustainable development, and environmental protection indicators. 

                                                        viii.      Provide Continuous Reassessment.  The project will continually reassess its approach -including partners, users, principles, methodology – in order to expand the reach and improve the quality of the indicators.  New partners will be sought.  New techniques will be explored to insure that the INECE Indicators remain on the cutting edge of environmental policy making. 

3. Case Studies: These will include the following among others:
1. North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation.   Since 1997 the NACEC has explored the development of indicators for evaluating the performance of the Canada, the United States, and Mexico in implementing policies and programs for effective environmental enforcement. The long term goals of this project are to explore the appropriateness of North American indicators of effective environmental enforcement policies, programs and strategies; support the development of more effective indicators; and provide public reports on the Parties’ fulfillment of their obligation, using agreed upon indicators. To date this project has issued a set of background papers (NACEC, 1998) and the proceedings their international dialogue on enforcement indicators held in May 1998 (NACEC, 1999).  Most recently, the North American Working Group on Environmental Enforcement and Compliance Cooperation (EWG) of the NACEC held a workshop on informant indicators in Montreal in March 2002.  The North American process is of particular interest to INECE since it is one of the few initiatives around the world currently developing enforcement indicators, admittedly with a regional focus, and therefore they are discussing many issues similar to those facing INECE.

2. European Union Accession Process. Every Candidate Country seeking membership in the European Union must transpose EU legislation into their own national laws.  Once these laws are in place, the European Commission requires that they be implemented. While the EU does not have a set of indicators in place to evaluate the status of this implementation, it has commissioned several studies to analyze the administrative structures in the individual candidate countries in order to ascertain if they have the adequate capacity to enforce these laws. Most recently, a report was issued that provides an overview of the current status of these administrations.  (ECOTEC, et al, 2000).  These studies are useful to the INECE Indicators project since they cover, in a narrative format, many of the issues that we will be attempting to quantify in our indicators.

3. World Resources Institute. WRI is involved in a number of projects around the world that deal with many of the same issues that the INECE Indicator Project will face. WRI is also an important case study because of the  number and diversity of partners, drawn from every sector and region of the world, assisting them on these projects.

                                                               i.      The Access Initiative is lead by WRI in cooperation with the Environmental Management and Law Association (Budapest, Hungary), Corporacion Participa (Santiago, Chile), and the Thailand Environment Institute (Bangkok, Thailand), seeks to “improve decisions and policies that affect the environment and human lives by establishing common global practices for public access to information, participation, and justice in environmental decision-making.” (see The Access Initiative’s Homepage at http://www.accessinitiative.org) They are now in the process of finalizing an indicator framework, designed to measure and establish a set of common practices in four broad areas: comprehensiveness and quality of the general legal framework; degree of available access to selected types of information about the environment; degree of public participation in decision-making processes; and comprehensiveness and quality of capacity building efforts to encourage informed and meaningful public participation. (WRI, et al. 2002).

                                                             ii.      Global Forest Watch is an international data and mapping network that combines on-the-ground knowledge with digital technology to provide accurate information about the world's forests. It began in 1997 in four pilot countries; Cameroon, Canada, Gabon, and Indonesia.  Their goal is to be in 21 countries, covering three fourths of the world’s remaining frontier forests, by 2005.  This project draws on governments, NGOs and academics from around the world, including: Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Gabon, Indonesia, Russia, the United States, and Venezuela. Its objective is to “infuse transparency and accountability into the decision making processes that determine how forests are managed and for whom” by: tracking the actors (corporations, government agencies, individuals) that are sponsoring development activities; mapping out where these actors are operating; and monitoring the degree to which these actors are following national and local management laws and regulations. (see Global Forest Watch’s Homepage at http://www.globalforestwatch.org).

                                                            iii.      Reefs at Risk is a project lead by WRI in cooperation with partners around the world.  It began in 1998 with a study on global pressures on reefs.  (Burke, 1998). More recently they published a report on reefs in southeast Asia.  (Burke, 2002).  The project as to produce map-based indicators of human pressure on coral reefs from five broad categories: coastal development, overfishing, destructive fishing, marine pollution, and sedimentation and pollution from inland activities. The modeling approach involves identifying component sources of stress that can be mapped for each threat category. Once these components have been selected, model rules are developed for translating them into measures of threat. The model incorporates the effects of management and natural features that influence how human pressures impact coral reef ecosystems. The index is designed to highlight areas where, in the absence of good management, coral reef degradation might be occurring or where it is likely to happen in the near future given ongoing levels of human activity. The combined index provides a regionally consistent indicator of human pressure on coral reefs that serves as a proxy guide to coral reef conditions. Their next project is a report on reefs at risk in the Caribbean. (see http://www.wri.org/wri/reefsatrisk/).

4. World Bank Environmental Performance Indicators. The World Bank is involved in a number of indicator projects.  One of these projects, the EPI, is a project-based approached where an indicator’s defining characteristic is that it quantifies and simplifies information in a manner that facilitates understanding of environmental problems by both decision makers and the public. (World Bank, 1999). The goal is to assess how project activities affect the direction of change in environmental performance, and to measure the magnitude of that change.  Indicators that allow a quantitative evaluation of project impacts are particularly useful, because they provide more information than just whether the project is improving or degrading the state of the environment. Information on the magnitude of a benefit is required to determine whether it is worth the resources being expended to achieve it. Similarly, information on the magnitude of adverse impacts might indicate whether the harm is justified given the other benefits of the activities in question. Above all, an indicator must be practical and realistic, given the many constraints facing those that implement and monitor projects.  This work is of interest to INECE since it is unique in that it uses a project-based framework (modified input-output-outcome-impact approach) in contrast to the PSR model adopted by most other indicator work.  It may be particularly informative in the later phase of the INECE project when we deal with compliance indicators since compliance is often measure in terms of sites, plants, and projects.

5. United States Environmental Protection Agency. USEPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance began a program in 1997 to develop and implement an enhanced set of performance measure with the goal of increasing the effectiveness of their programs. The first category of the measures describes impact on the environment from enforcement and compliance assurance outputs and outcomes. The second category of measures describes changes in behavior of the public or regulated entities. The final category describes activities undertaken by EPA or (if there is available data) the states as part of the enforcement and compliance assurance program. (USEPA, 1997). EPA’s work will be helpful to INECE since they represent the cutting edge of measurement in the field of enforcement and compliance in a developed economy.

6. PROFEPA – Mexico.  In recent years Mexico’s Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente -PROFEPA has initiated with relative success a program of compliance and enforcement indicators known as ICNA’s, or  Indices de Cumplimiento de la Normatividad Ambiental (Indexes of Compliance with Environmental Normativity). Mexico’s PROFEPA work on indicators should serve to identify problems and opportunities associated with the implementation of information and analysis systems on enforcement and compliance in developing countries.

7. Other.  INECE will continue to search out new and informative case studies to help guide the Indicator Projects work.

4. Staffing and Budget [TBA]

5. Bibliography

Burke, Selig, and Spalding, Reefs at Risk A Map-Based Indicator of Threats to the World's Coral Reefs (WRI, 1998) available at http://www.wri.org/wri/indictrs/reefrisk.html

_____, Reefs at Risk in Southeast Asia (WRI, 2002) available at http://www.wri.org/wri/reefsatrisk/reefriskseasia.html

Ecotec Research and Consulting, Administrative Capacity for Implementnation and Enforcement of EU Environmental Policy in the 13 Candidate Countries (2000) available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/enlarg/administrative_capacity.htm

Environment Canada, National Environmental Indicators Series (2002) available at http://www.ec.gc.ca/Ind/

Daniel C. Esty, "Measuring National Environmental Performance and Its Determinants," in The Global Competitiveness Report 2000 (Michael Porter, Jeffrey Sachs, et al., eds. 2000).

Hammond, Adriaanse, Rodenburg, Bryant, Woodward, Environmental Indicators: A Systematic Approach to Measuring and Reporting on Environmental Policy Performance in the Context of Sustainable Development, (World Resources Institute, 1995) available at http://www.wristore.com/wristore/enin.html

Hardi, Peter, Pumulo Muyatwa, Review Paper on Selected Environmental Reporting and Indicator Practices (International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2001).

International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement, Memo: Possible INECE Participation in the World Summit for Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2-11 September 2002 (2001) available at http://inece.org/EPC/Memo_01-10-26/Rio%2010%20Memo.htm

_____, Country Progress/Self Assessment of Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Programs: Preliminary Report (Draft, Undated).

North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Indicators of Effective Environmental Enforcement: A North American Dialogue – Background Papers (1998).

_____, Indicators of Effective Environmental Enforcement: Proceedings of a North American Dialogue (1999) available at http://www.cec.org/files/pdf/LAWPOLICY/indic-e_EN.pdf

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Environmental Indicators: Towards Sustainable Development (2001) available at http://www.oecd.org/env

United Nations Environment Program, Guidelines on National Enforcement of MEAs and on Compliance with MEAs (2002) available at http://www.unep.org/DEPI/compliance-and-enforcement/

_____, The Programme for the Development and Periodic Review of Environmental Law for the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century (“Montevideo III”) (2001) available at http://www.iucn.org/themes/law/pdfdocuments/Montevideo%20III.pdf

United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies (2001) available at http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/indisd/

_____, Program of Work on Indicators for Sustainable Development of the Commission on Sustainable Development as contained in “Information for Decision-Making, E/CN.17/1995/18 (UNCSD, 1995) available at http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/program.htm

United States Environmental Protection Agency, Principles of Environmental Enforcement (1992) available at http://www.inece.org/enforcementprinciples.html

_____, Measuring the Performance of EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Program (1997) available at http://es.epa.gov/oeca/perfmeas/repmeasr.pdf

_____, Using Performance Measurement Data as a Management Tool (Draft Report, December 19, 2001).

World Bank, Environmental Performance Indicators: A Second Edition (1999) available at http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/environment/EEI.nsf/Alls/Environmental+

Indicators/OpenDocument.

World Resources Institute, Corporacion Participa, Environmental Management and Law Association, and Thailand Environment Institute,  Framework for Assessing Public Access to Environmental Decision-Making (2002) (for more information on the Access Initiative visit http://www.accessinitiative.org

World Wildlife International, Living Planet Report 2000 (2001) available at http://www.panda.org/livingplanet/lpr00/

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