Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers to the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters Agenda item 4(b) Compliance mechanism. Report on the Committee’s activities since the first session of the Meeting of the Parties

Mandate In its first session, the Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol provided the Compliance Committee with the mandate to “monitor assess and facilitate the implementation and to take measures to promote compliance and address cases of non-compliance”.

Meetings Two meetings in the period between the sessions of the Meeting of the Parties. Third meeting takes place today and tomorrow, here in Maastricht.

First meeting Adopt the Committee’s methods of work in the fields of: – General principles of the Compliance Committee’s operation – Processing of submissions and referrals, – Discussion and preparation of findings, – Summary proceedings and the gathering of Information.

First meeting ctd. The procedures drew heavily upon the equivalent procedures of the Aarhus Convention’s Compliance Committee. Procedures are described in detail in the report of the first Committee meeting and its annex. (Available online at the UNECE PRTR Compliance Committee’s web page)

Second meeting No submissions by Parties, referrals by the secretariat or communications from the public Did most of the work on the synthesis report – based on the national implementation reports (NIRs) submitted by Parties during the first reporting cycle

Synthesis report – provides a strategic overview of the implementation of the Protocol rather than to evaluate the information provided in the NIRs. – does not check the accuracy and completeness of the contents of the NIRs or review compliance on the basis of those reports’ contents.

Future work Developed a note on future work of the Committee: future facilitative work by the Committee as well as possible means to support it. Builds on facilitative component of mandate Protocol is detailed and technical; the Committee could help Parties and non-Parties to engage with this detail

Future work Three areas of work outlined in more detail in the note on future work: i)addressing systemic issues ii)providing advisory support and iii)strengthening expert capacities.

Addressing systemic issues The committee could undertake a technical assessment of the Protocol’s provisions, identify the systemic challenges to full implementation of the Protocol and develop recommendations on how to address them. Challenges identified through the first reporting cycle provide a good basis for this work. The Committee would also analyse those national implementation reports of the 2014 reporting cycle that were not submitted in time to be considered for the synthesis report.

Addressing systemic issues: procedures Technical assessment, identification of challenges and developing of recommendations through a participatory process involving Parties, Signatories, interested States, as well as NGOs, international partner organisations and other stakeholders carry out this work in close cooperation with the Protocol’s Bureau and the results will be reported to the Working Group of the Parties and the Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol

Systemic work The outcomes of this work would be used as a basis for the next two areas of work described.

Providing advisory support Parties and other States willing to accede to the Protocol could be able to seek advisory support from the Committee with regard to compliance with and implementation of the Protocol. This could include advice on legislative and other regulatory matters.

Strengthening expert capacities Members of the Committee could be invited to provide support to different events, such as workshops and training, aimed at strengthening the capacity of national experts. The needs described in the document on the “Promotion of the Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia” (ECE/MP.PRTR/2014/L.6), could be taken into account.