Activities
Aims
The International Council of Environmental Law (ICEL) was founded in 1969 in New Delhi as a public interest organisation with the aims of promoting the exchange of information on the legal, administrative and policy aspects of environmental conservation and sustainable development, to support new initiatives in this field, and to encourage advice and assistance through its network.
ICEL supports legal studies in the field of trade and the environment and gratefully acknowledges the assistance by the Karl-Schmitz-Scholl Foundation (KSSF) and its sister foundations, the Elizabeth Haub Foundations for Environmental Law and Policy in the US and Canada.
Membership
The members of each of the ten ICEL Regions throughout the world (as defined by the Statutes) elect up to two Regional Governors for a term of three years. These may stand again for reelection. Together with the Founders and their Successors, they form the ICEL Board of Governors, who elects a minimum of two persons among its members to serve as Executive Governors for a period of three years, renewable.
Individual and Corporate members are elected by the Board of Governors for a term of two years, and may be reelected for subsequent two-year terms. The membership at present is comprised of 348 Individual and 23 Corporate (i.e. institutional) members.
New members, both individual and corporate, must be proposed by existing members, on the basis of their expertise and interest. There is no membership fee, as election to the Council is seen as a distinction.
Fostering the Exchange of Information and Contacts
In fostering the exchange of information, ICEL focuses on collecting and disseminating documents on environmental law and policy. To improve access to information and expand contacts between environmental lawyers, ICEL has also initiated the creation of a broader network of associations, institutions, academics, etc., which are active in the field of environmental law and policy.
ICEL prepares three looseleaf collections of documents which together cover the entire spectrum of international environmental law and policy (see under publications).
IUCN Environmental Law Centre Library
In partnership with the IUCN Environmental Law Centre (ELC), ICEL maintains what is probably the world's most extensive collection of documents on environmental law and policy - international treaties, supranational instruments, national legislation, law and policy literature and official documents from the United Nations system (UN resolutions, decisions, etc.). Bibliographic references to the documents are entered into the computerised databank ELIS (Environmental Law Information System). Upon request, it carries out information retrieval for external users at cost.
In this context, IUCN and ICEL jointly approach publishers and IUCN/CEL Members, as well as ICEL Members, on a regular basis to donate relevant publications to the IUCN ELC Library in Bonn. In exchange, IUCN and ICEL offer to feature the books on their respective websites.
Click here for a chronological list of recent donations to the IUCN ELC library.
The publications are also included in ECOLEX, the global environmental law database operated by IUCN ELC in partnership with FAO and UNEP. They are also made available to the many fellows, interns and visitors who make use of the IUCN ELC library.
Relations with Intergovernmental Bodies
Through the United Nations Economic and Social Council, ICEL has general consultative status with the UN and its specialised agencies. It also has a special status with many international organisations - for example, the Council of Europe - and has permanent representatives at the UN offices in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Addis Ababa and Bangkok.
ICEL is a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and supports its Environmental Law Programme (ELP).
Contributions
to activities within the UN System and to other intergovernmental fora
ICEL contributes regularly to sessions of the UN General Assembly through
its commissions and relevant committees, for example, the UN Commission
on Sustainable Development and the programmes such as UNEP, as well as to
the work of specialised agencies. It also monitors activities of other international
governmental organisations, and the decisions of the Conferences of Parties
of Conventions.
Development
of International Environmental Law
In recent years, a chief focus of ICEL's work has been to cooperate with
the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law (CEL) on a project to draft an International
Covenant on Environment and Development. The project's aim was to
consolidate
major existing and emerging legal principles related to environmental conservation
and sustainable development into a draft of an internationally binding
legal instrument, thus contributing to the progressive development of international
environmental law. In 1994 the first Draft was completed and the document
was launched at the Congress of Public International Law in New York in
March 1995.
In the meantime, a 2nd revised text has been presented to the Member States of the United Nations on the occasion of the 54th Session of the UN General Assembly 2004.
Click here to download a copy of the current edition of the International Covenant on Environment and Development.
Other examples of the Council's activities are ICEL's involvement in preparing and drafting an instrument designed to improve the protection of the environment in times of armed conflict.