Determining whether environmental laws and regulations are having their intended effect is an essential step in protecting the environment. As such, evaluations of the existing legal and regulatory provisions should be conducted regularly and with sufficient frequency to ensure their usefulness. These assessments should focus on whether the laws are achieving their intended goals and aims, not just on the number of enforcement actions. Providing for this periodic review within the law itself or integrating a requirement for it in the mandate for institutional frameworks is well worth considering.
In addition to periodic reviews, drafting of legislation or regulations to implement an MEA provides an opportunity for a State to assess the extent to which existing laws, regulations, and policies fulfill their environmental objectives. For example, when St. Lucia was drafting its CITES implementing legislation, it noted that existing penalties for violations of wildlife laws provided an insufficient deterrent to be effective. Accordingly, the new legislation has more severe penalties [see case study on “Adjusting Penalties to be More Effective in St. Lucia” under Guideline 40(c)
].
Similarly, Singapore revised the penalties for trafficking in species of plants and animals protected under CITES when it found that the fines and other penalties were inadequate. Now, trafficking in CITES-listed species is a serious crime.
In addition to periodically reviewing legislation to see if it is effective or how it should be modified, it is equally important to review the effectiveness of regulations, policies, and enforcement programmes. Increasingly, Governments and other institutions are adopting an adaptive management approach. As described in the explanatory text following Guideline 40, above, this adaptive environmental management provides a framework for checking the progress toward the stated goals (or lack thereof), collecting feedback on what has been learned from the current system (through monitoring and other mechanisms), and revising or adapting the particular regulation, policy, plan, or programme.
For another example of reviewing (and revising) laws to more effectively fulfill their objectives, see the case study on “Redrafting the Philippines Legislation on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing (ABS)” following Guideline 40(b).
National Capacity Self-Assessments
With assistance from GEF and its implementing agencies, many States are undertaking National Capacity Self Assessments (NCSAs) to examine why MEAs and corresponding national laws and regulations are not being implemented as the States had intended them to be implemented. See case study in this section on the NCSA process generally, as well as a case study summarising one country’s experience with the NCSA process.
Revising National Legislation
A review of national environmental laws and regulations may indicate that it would be beneficial to revise national legislation. Revision may be necessary to resolve gaps in national legislation, incorporate new developments within an MEA (e.g., adoption of particular resolutions or a Protocol), reconcile conflicts between legislation implementing an MEA and sectoral legislation, or to strengthen the penalties for violation of the law. [Examples of revising sanctions to make them more appropriate can be found following Guideline 40(c). In addition, there is a case study on “Redrafting the Philippines Legislation on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing (ABS)” following Guideline 40(b).]
Generally speaking, many of the considerations and approaches for developing implementing legislation apply in this context.