Second meeting of the Working Group of the Protocol

The Working Group held its second meeting, 13-15 April 2005, in Geneva. The session reviewed options for rules of procedure and a compliance mechanism to the Protocol and appointed a facilitator to prepare draft elements for these for consideration at its next session.

Participants gave the draft guidance on the Protocol on PRTRs its first reading and agreed to prepare a final version based on the drafts circulated and amended during the session, with the aim of completing the guidance in 2005.

The session also called attention to the need to address the capacity of EECCA countries to implement the Protocol successfully and called for greater outreach to the business sector, which has indirect obligations to report to national PRTRs.

The secretariat reported on a revised study of the costs of implementing the Protocol in ECE countries and invited delegations to participate in a trial of the cost model developed to support the study.

A preliminary draft of the PRTR Protocol guidance document is available in English in the PRTR Virtual Classroom. All Working Group members are invited to register in the Virtual Classroom's PRTR Guidance Forum.

The draft guidance is also available in French and Russian and may be downloaded from the Working Group.

Ms. Nino Tkhilava (Georgia) was elected to serve as a second Vice-chair.