INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR ENVIRONMENTAL COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT

About INECE Organizational Structure

Executive Planning Committee: The Executive Planning Committee, as the governing body of INECE, defines INECE's cooperative efforts and makes decisions to realize the INECE mission. The Executive Planning Committee (EPC) is composed of no more than 30 persons with balanced representation among regions of the world composed of primarily government/public officials as well as representatives from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations including the United Nations Environment Program and the World Bank. The Executive Planning Committee agrees upon the goals, activities, and multi-year work program of the INECE partnership, reviews and approves of work products produced under the auspices of the partnership, and catalyzes and facilitates enforcement and institution building by countries and cooperation among related organizations.

The current Co-chairs of the Executive Planning Committee are:

• Gerard Wolters, Inspector General, the Ministry Inspectorate of Housing, Spatial Planning, and the Environment, The Netherlands;
• Catherine McCabe, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, US Environmental Protection Agency; and
• Antonio Benjamin, Justice, High Court of Brazil.

Secretariat: The INECE Secretariat provides technical, administrative, publications, and communications support for Executive Planning Committee functions and helps to implement the INECE work program. The INECE Secretariat also helps to coordinate in-kind support from EPC members, EPC staff, co-chairs of special topic Forums, and INECE Partners and to ensure INECE partners maintain effective communications on cooperative and mutually beneficial activities. Since INECE is an informal partnership, the INECE Secretariat is not a formal international organization but rather is a partnership activity supported by the host NGO convener consistent with its own mission. Substantial involvement in the work of the INECE Secretariat by enforcement and compliance practitioners is essential to its success. This is achieved through in-kind core staffing of the Executive Planning Committee, INECE special topic forums and the work program. Core staffing is provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Inspector General for the Environment in the Netherlands' Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, working under their 1985 bilateral Memorandum of Understanding with additional staff from other countries and international organizations. Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, is the Director of the INECE Secretariat. Ken Markowitz and his team at Earthpace support the activities of the INECE Secretariat.

Partners: A special relationship is maintained by the INECE partnership with regional and subregional networks, nongovernmental, international and intergovernmental organizations with related missions with and activities which would advance the mission of INECE. INECE Partners help define and communicate about mutual work program activities and facilitate resources to advance shared goals. The Partners are invited by INECE Executive Planning Committee Co-chairs on their behalf following consultation and approval of the EPC.

INECE "participants:" INECE "participants" include government/public officials and representatives of NGOs and International Organizations in functions or positions with potential to advance environmental compliance and enforcement of domestic environmental laws who wish to participate in or benefit from INECE products, activities, or expertise. INECE activities are voluntary and build upon related duties and job responsibilities of contributing individuals and institutions. INECE members and partners participate in and pursue support for the general goals and specific work program of INECE, as resources, priorities and laws governing such exchanges permit. They may carry out these activities on an individual, organizational, bilateral, and/or multilateral basis as appropriate.