IUCN and Earth Council agree on International Ombudsman function for the Environment and Development

Geneva, 5 July 2000 - The Director General of IUCN - The World Conservation Union, Dr. Maritta Koch-Weser, and the Chairman of the Earth Council Foundation, Mr Maurice Strong, signed a Memorandum of Agreement establishing the International Ombudsman Centre for the Environment and Development, OmCED.

With this initiative the two organisations are responding to a long perceived need, for a non-adversarial, non-judicial and agile mechanism to deal authoritatively with potential and actual conflictive issues pertaining to environment and sustainable development.

The process of globalisation provides new opportunities, but also gives rise to new tensions and mediation needs. It is only through genuine participation of all stakeholders at all levels of decision-making, and through timely and adequate appreciation of the concerns of all involved that tensions can be avoided and sustainability ensured.

The newly established Ombudsman function will identify, advise on, investigate and on request mediate conflictive international matters pertaining to environment, natural resources and sustainable development issues. It will seek to open avenues of avoidance and/or redress of conflicts for which existing mechanisms are not fully effective or available. OmCED shall be result-orientated, looking for ways to solve contentious situations. In its work OmCED will rely on relevant international and national legal, economic and social instruments and principles, including the Earth Charter.

OmCED will, like any national Ombudsman institution, choose its modus operandi to provide a balanced, fair and transparent platform for the prevention and resolution of conflicts. The OmCED will never act as an adjudicatory power.

OmCED relies on the knowledge and experience from the extensive membership network of its founding organisations - IUCN, Earth Council and the United Nations University for Peace, which has offered its campus in Costa Rica as headquarters for the Secretariat of OmCED.

OmCED will be evaluated after two years, coinciding with the next Earth Summit commemorating that it was 30 years ago that the first Environmental World Conference was held in Stockholm and 10 years since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

For more information contact: omced@ecouncil.ac.cr

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