Monitoring implementation of international environmental agreements

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities. Agenda 21 recommends that contracting parties to international agreements, in consultation with the appropriate secretariats of relevant international conventions as appropriate, should improve practices and procedures for information on legal and regulatory measures taken. Contracting parties to international agreements could undertake sample surveys of domestic follow-up action, subject to agreement by the sovereign states concerned.

ENTRI, which stands for Environmental Treaties and Resource Indicators, is an online search service for finding information about environmental treaties and national resource indicators.

The European Union Ad Hoc Group on Biodiversity, comprising experts responsible for Convention on Biological Diversity implementation in the EU member states and the European Commission, meets about every two months to assess the ongoing process of the implementation of the CBD, and in particular of COP (Conference of the Parties) decisions, in the EU and to prepare for a coordinated EU input to forthcoming CBD meetings, above all each COP. The Group also discusses progress in integration of CBD objectives at the European Community level, including the state of the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy. Assisting the European Commission in preparing and implementing this Strategy is an important way in which the Member States can help secure the replication at the EU level of their own efforts to integrate biodiversity concerns into all relevant policy areas, one of the central objectives (Article 6) of the Convention.