The Environmental Law Service, Czech Republic
October 2007
The Watchdog project addresses a serious problem facing NGOs in New Members States – insufficient knowledge of similar organisations and possibilities for cooperation in other Member states. Often, national level NGOs are 'local heroes', having a high level of expertise in their chosen field, but for whatever reason insufficient capacity and/or awareness of the existence of/or possibilities for similar work in other Member States and the possibility of Cooperation at the EU level. This project lays the necessary base work to create an NGO service centre 'office' in the CEE region which will have the following two purposes: 1) to provide support for other NGOs in the region in the fields of cooperation, networking, fund raising, and similar issues. 2) to explore the possibilities for those NGOs of work at the EU level. Given the huge possibilities for work in this area, the office will initially (in the first years of its functioning) concentrate on certain specific areas, namely public interest law, transparency, governance and anti-corruption issues. The aim of this project is to map out, by networking the needs for such a 'project incubator' that will boost the long term presence and stability of NGOs in the region.
Public Interest Lawyers Association, www.pilaw.cz, League of Human Rights, www.llp.cz, Economy and Society Trust, www.thinktank.cz, Oziveni, www.bezkorupce.cz, Via Iuris, www.viaiuris.sk, Okoburo, www.oekobuero.at, Environmental Management and Law Association, www.emla.hu
Meeting of NGOs and meeting with donors on the watchdog and advocacy financial perspective will be held on 27th and 28th of November in Prague. The participants will discuss priorities of the NGOs in this sector and future fundraising strategies as traditional sources (foundations, EU funds) are decreasing.
Looking for funding? Main international foundations and donors links are compiled here for your convenience. More contacts and tips will be included in the database prepared by the project team in the next newsletter.
The initial networking workshop with the project partners was held on 22nd of May 2007 in Brno, Czech Republic. Representatives of EPS, OKOBURO, PILA and EMLA took part. During the workshop project partners discussed mainly networking practices and fields of possible future cooperation. Project incubation was started. You can find report form the workshop in the attachment.
This is the first of four “Watchdog” newsletters. Please reply to this email if you would like to be removed from the list serve.
This Newsletter was prepared as part of the project "From local to global heroes - NGO networking and project incubation in New Member States" implemented by Environmental Law Service. The project is financed by European Commission through program „Support of civil society in the Member States which acceded to the EU on 1st May 2004“. The sole responsibility for the project outputs lies with Environmental Law Service, the Commission is not responsible for any use of the information contained here.
The Public Interest Law Institute (PILI) is pleased to announce that it will host the second annual European Pro Bono Forum in Budapest, Hungary at the Mercure Budapest Buda Hotel on 6-7 November 2008. This year’s event will bring together over two hundred lawyers, NGOs, and academics to explore emerging trends in pro bono law across continental Europe. More information on the PILI webpage.
After comprehensive legal research and by advancing some of the European Parliaments’ recommendations of its resolution on CSR, European Coalition for Corporate Justice together with MEPs, lawyers, and representatives of the civil society, has presented a range of proposals that aim at strengthening EU legislation to provide greater accountability for EU companies when acting abroad at a conference at the European Parliament in B russels. More information on the web of the ECCJ.
After comprehensive legal research and by advancing some of the European Parliaments’ recommendations of its resolution on CSR, ECCJ together with MEPs, lawyers, and representatives of the civil society, will present a range of proposals that aim at strengthening EU legislation to provide greater accountability for EU companies when acting abroad. More information can be found on the ECCJ webpage.
Justice and Environment Network prepared analysis, case studies and position papers on its members monitoring of EU environmental legislation in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary and Poland. The issues covered include Aarhus Convention and related legislation, Environmental Liability Directive (ELD), Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (IPPC) and Natura 2000. The general conclusion is, that the major problems in all areas are transposition to national legislation and actual implementation of the legislation. In some cases there are other issues as well.
The presentations made by keynote speakers during the “Who will feed the watchdog” meeting were added to the webpage. You can find them in the “Meeting with donors” section.
“Justice in a globalised economy: What can lawyers do?“ was the name of a two-day conference that took place in Brussels, Belgium 13th - 14th of December this year. Thanks to support of the watchdog incubator project one young Czech lawyer was able to take part in this event and bring new experience.
The meeting, held by the Belgian organisation Avocats Sans Frontiéres (www.asf.be), was aimed to bring together scholars, practicing lawyers and NGOs representatives for sharing their experience in current global legal issues.
Viteslav Dohnal
Watchdog Project Coordinator
Environmental Law Service
Prevratilska 330
390 01 Tabor
Czech Republic
phone: +420 381 253 904
email: tabor@eps.cz