Sharing best practices and strategies on effective environmental compliance and enforcement is at the heart of AECEN. With support from the AECEN Secretariat and network partners, network members engage in activities that strengthen legal and regulatory frameworks and human and institutional capacity for improved compliance and enforcement. Primary activities include:
Institutional Arrangements
Planning, Performance and Evaluation
Compliance Monitoring, Inspection and Permitting
Enforcement Response
Compliance Promotion and Incentives
Public Participation
Asian countries have developed environmental laws that seek to implement international principles, including the principle of sustainable development. Enforcement of the resulting legal requirements, however, remains weak and uneven, due in part to limited financial resources and human and institutional capacity.
Asian governments have worked to overcome these limitations by introducing
innovative mandatory and voluntary approaches that leverage market and
community forces and that are less resource intensive than traditional
command-and-control approaches. These innovative approaches also promote voluntary compliance by educating and assisting the regulated community, and providing opportunities to publicize good corporate citizenship.
To support these efforts, AECEN prepared draft principles to guide environmental agencies in strengthening their compliance and enforcement programs. The draft principles are based on international law and national experiences within Asia and worldwide. While the principles are universal, the emphasis and approach are tailored to the challenges in Asia. In applying the principles, countries should develop their own courses of action based on their legal and institutional frameworks, developmental policies and priorities, and available resources.
