Environmental Democracy Index(EDI)

 

Environmental democracy exists when the public is able to freely access information around environmental impacts, participate meaningfully in decision-making, and demand enforcement of environmental laws or compensation for damage.

 These rights – often labeled procedural rights – are grouped into three areas:

• access to information,
• public participation and 
• access to justice.

 They are widely cited as core principles of good governance; the United Nations Independent Expert on human rights and the environment adamantly has stated that they are Human Rights and should be protected as such

Developed by The Access Initiative (TAI) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), the Environmental Democracy Index (EDI) will be the first comprehensive index designed specifically to measure procedural rights in an environmental context

EDI is useful

• Civil society organizations (CSOs) – CSOs will be better able to target their campaigns to focus on areas where legal reform can bring about the most change.
• Government – government officials will be able to easily identify where reform is most necessary and where they can to apply more effort to implement already-existing laws.
• International Finance Institutions (IFIs) - Multilateral institutions and IFIs will be able to better assess progress towards commitments of good environmental governance.
• Academics – The depth of the analysis will provide a valuable source of material to be further explored through academic research.

 For the 2014 Index, EDI is limiting its scope to legally-binding national laws and regulations as well as sectoral laws for air and water quality, extractives, forests and terrestrial biodiversity. Legislation for the energy, coastal, marine and fishery sectors is not being considered in the 2014 index, however it may be incorporated into future iterations of the index

What form will the Environmental Democracy Index take?

• An index made up of 99 indicators –published by the Access Initiative (TAI). Each indicator includes a guiding note and a scoring guide.
• An interactive map with country scores, produced by the World Resources Institute (WRI). The map will be updated every two years to reflect the updated scores.
• A separate page for each country with a breakdown of country scores by pillar, guideline and individual indicator, including the comments by participating environmental lawyers. The country pages will also include strengths and weaknesses of the legal framework.