"Good governance" has become a mantra in international circles. The consensus across a range of sectors is that good governance is critical to sound policymaking. How this concept applies in the context of environmental decisionmaking, though, is still being developed, both in a variety of contexts (governmental, corporate, and private market) and at scales ranging from local to global. The Environmental Law & Governance Program aims to produce scholarly analysis and tools with policy application for government authorities, communities, NGO leaders, and corporate executives.

A recent product of this program area is a study on State-level Action on Climate Change, which highlights a selection of state-level "best practices" as well as reviewing a selection of current climate change initiatives. Read more.

Global Environmental Governance (GEG) Forum: Reflecting on the Past, Moving into the Future - June 2009

About the Forum: The Forum brought together the past, present, and future architects of the environmental governance system. This four-day conference took place in Switzerland in the summer of 2009.  We gathered together those men and women that laid the foundation of our current architecture in Stockholm in 1972 in an effort to learn from their collective experience and wisdom as we devise blueprints for UN reform. The theme of the Forum was "Moving Forward by Looking Back" and it looked to seize a soon-to-be lost opportunity to connect generations of environmental thinkers and learn directly from the pathbreaking individuals whose ideas and aspirations formed the system as we know it.

The goals of the Forum were to:
1) understand the original vision for the international environmental governance system and recast it for the 21st century;
2) assess the current structures' performance and the factors that defined their strengths and weaknesses; and
3) outline a forward-looking blueprint for a reconfigured environmental structure and create a momentum for change.

We plan to use the results of the Forum to create a documentary, an interactive learning platform for professionals, researchers, and students, and an environmental governance course for diplomats in New York and Geneva.

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After the conference..>>