 Good afternoon or good morning, depending on where you're connecting from. My name is Kimana Flöta-Fürscher and I'm the acting head of international ideas constitution building program. I welcome you all to this webinar on constitutionalizing institutions for a safer environment. It is really a tremendous pleasure to see such an enormous interest in this topic, but surely as well in listening to the fantastic panelists we're so lucky to have you today. I will shortly and very briefly introduce the panelists, but let me first just mention that this webinar is being recorded and that we also have simultaneous translation interpretation Spanish English. If you want to access the interpretation you can find a small globe with icon on the bottom of your page that you can click on. If you're bilingual there's nothing you need to do of course, but if you're not please choose the language of your preference on the list and I will just very quickly repeat this in Spanish. Welcome to our webinar on constitutionalizing institutions for a safer environment. Very briefly I will mention that the webinar will have simultaneous interpretation Spanish. If you want to access the interpretation on the bottom of the screen you can find a small icon in the shape of a globe. There you have to select the Spanish language to access the interpretation. So now we're ready to start. We're very happy to have Dr. Kevin Casa-Samora, Secretary General of International Idea. Introducing this webinar Kevin has been at the forefront of our institution's commitment to lead on the issue of climate change and democracy. The Secretary General will be followed by Dr. David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment and author of critically important books, articles and reports on the interconnection of environmental and constitutional law and he will provide the opening remarks on the topic of constitutions and the environment. It is a great pleasure to have you with us today Dr. Boyd. And then we have a fascinating panel with three key country experts on Kenya, on Brazil, on Hungary who will reflect on the way different institutions have contributed to the enforcement of environmental rights including Professor Patricia Camarine Botte, Director of the Law Division at the United Nations Environment Program and also Associate Professor of Law at the University of Nairobi, Ms. Maria Antonia Tigre, Director of Latin America for the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment and last but certainly not least Professor Marcel Savot, Judge of the Constitutional Court of Hungary and former Ombudsman for Future Generations. My brilliant colleague Adema Bebe will moderate the plenary discussion that will follow but without further ado Secretary General the floor is yours. Thank you very much Kimana and good afternoon or good morning to to you all. I am very happy to be here today and open this important and timely event on the role of constitutions in supporting the quest for and the right to a safe environment. I would like to thank Dr. Boyd, Professor Camarine Botte, Ms. Tigre and Professor Savot for being with us today as well as our colleagues at the Constitution Building Program for organizing this event. Now since I'm not sure how familiar you are with international idea and our work, let me start very briefly with a with an introduction. Well we are an intergovernmental organization with 33 member states and exclusive mandate to advance democracy worldwide and we do this by developing comparative evidence-based policy relevant knowledge for those engaged in political electoral or constitutional reform processes. We also support knowledge implementation on the ground by providing technical assistance through our regional and country offices as well as through different kinds of projects in in more than 60 countries around the world. We are one of the few intergovernmental organizations with a dedicated Constitution Building Program and I'm very proud to say that ever since it was established in 2006 this program has been a key thought leader in in this field and just like the rest of international idea the program has been a has played a significant role in supporting the Constitution Building community via knowledge generation platforms tools and country-level assistance. Aside from Constitution Building idea also works and issues related to electoral processes, parliaments and political parties and we have a separate work stream dedicated to assessing the performance of democracies around the world. In November we will publish the third iteration of our global state of democracy report which has become in some ways our flagship research product. Since last year we have also made climate change one of our new institutional priorities as we see this as a as an existential challenge for the future of our planet and also for the future of democracy. For now we have started to look closer at how climate change affects democracy and how democracy impacts climate change and as you can imagine this relationship is both complex and comprehensive and surprisingly under-researched by the way. This is why all our programs from elections to parliaments to Constitution Building processes have started looking at climate change from their own thematic lens aiming to develop knowledge and finding tangible solutions to equip democracy successfully to tackle the climate crisis and this is where today's webinar on constitutions and climate change comes in. Through this webinar and another plan a future activities our Constitution Building program is determined to support the discussion on how constitutions may help individuals and institutions to protect the environment and fight climate change. As we all know the consequences of the climate crisis are no longer future scenarios but daily news. We have always witnessed the devastating effects of floods, droughts, fires and hurricanes in the past months alone. The entire regions of the earth are on the brink of becoming uninhabitable and as a result mass migration inequalities and conflict are exacerbated. All these challenges are befalling us at a time when democracy is already under immense pressure from growing authoritarianism and democratic backsliding, increase this inflammation and ever more acute polarization and inequalities all of which have been turbocharged by the COVID-19 pandemic. While these are challenging times for democracy we cannot afford to be inactive. Democracy is instrumental for mitigating climate change. Well over half of emissions of greenhouse gases come from democracies but just as importantly if democracies fail to act in the face of an existential crisis its own future is at risk. What use is a political system that is unable to protect the survival of humankind? We need to actively protect our climate and protect democracy. We must be able to walk and tweet at the same time as it were. While there is no magic wand to allow democracies to tackle effectively the climate crisis constitutions can certainly embed robust institutional structures to address climate change. Fortunately some countries have already pioneered institutional frameworks established to protect, monitor and enforce environmental rights. The country examples presented to be presented in today's webinar are cases in point. For example, Kenya's constitutionalized environment on land court, Brazil's Ministerio Público Environmental Prosecutors and Hungary's Ombudsman for Future Generations are all great innovations in legal and constitutional design which can help protect the environment. And we need to build on these examples to see if comparable provisions can be established in other countries. We need to multiply the bright spots. Interestingly enough a countries in transition which bear the earliest brunt of climate change are leading the way in constitutionalizing the protection of the environment. As I mentioned, constitutions might be only one piece of the puzzle in equipping democracies to deal with the intergenerational and transitional impacts of climate change but they are a key piece of that puzzle. This is because constitution building processes provide the opportunity to engage in social and political dialogue that coalesces on shared values but they also empower democratic institutions to monitor and enforce and protect those values. Constitutions can sustain the intrinsic value of a sustainable environment beyond the short-term calculus and machinations engendered by election cycles. If there is something we need when it comes to climate change is to stack decision-making incentives towards the long term which is something that constitutions can help with. Moreover, constitutions can also guarantee procedural environmental rights including rights to information participation and access to justice in matters related to the environment. Let us just remember that in April of this year following complaints by young climate activists the German constitutional court decided that the country's Federal Climate Change Act was unconstitutional because it was insufficient and had to be amended to actively protect the life and health of citizens from the risks posed by climate change. And this brings me to my last point. Constitutions can connect the duty to protect the environment with the rights of future generations, link the right to a healthy environment with indigenous rights and entrenched eco-centric constitutional innovations conceived to recognize the inherent rights of nature. It is for this reason that we need to explore the full potential that constitutions have as the fundamental building blocks of any polity. They're potential in addressing the challenges of climate change. As in so many areas also in this field constitutions can be powerful tools to shape political behavior, tools whose potential we must maximize. At International IDEA we have placed climate change at the heart of our work and we remain committed to strengthening democratic systems in the face of the existential crisis we currently face. But it is only through concerted actions, global partnerships and the exchange of best practices to revitalize democracy that we stand the chance to make a difference. If we are to preserve what is best in life, our planet and our democracies need our help urgently. Thank you. Thank you so very much Secretary General for your remarks and for really setting the stage for this discussion reminding us of the importance of the link between democracy and the environment and particularly the role of constitutions in protecting the environment and protecting us from climate change and setting some of the key questions that we hope to discuss throughout this webinar. So now it is my pleasure and I'd like to introduce Dr. Boyd to share his remarks with us. Dr. Boyd the floor is yours. Thank you very much Kamana and I believe that this topic we're discussing today of environmental provisions in constitutions represents one of the most surprising, inspiring and yet not well known stories in the field of constitutional law. So I'm really deeply indebted to International IDEA for bringing us together and more importantly for the work that you're doing in this field which is really terrific. You know the seeds of my interest in this topic were planted by a Filipino lawyer named Tony Opposa Jr. who won a lawsuit before the Supreme Court of the Philippines way back in 1993 in which he argued that logging in old growth forests violated the constitutional rights of children to live in a healthy and balanced environment under Article 16 of the Filipino Constitution. That led me 15 years later to do a PhD on constitutions human rights and the environment and you know it's kind of funny that journey which began prior to the development of the Google constitute website which enables you now today to search all of the world's constitutions with a single click of a mouse. I sat in the dusty basement of the law library at the University of British Columbia for weeks reading 200 constitutions and typing the environmental provisions out on my laptop and what I learned was really stunning at least to a Canadian environmental lawyer because neither Canada nor the United States even mentioned the word environment in their constitutions but these countries are the exception to the rule. Over 150 nations include environmental protection provisions in their constitutions not including those who simply allocate jurisdiction to one level of government or the other. Over 150 constitutions have specific provisions requiring the government to protect and sustainably manage the environment. 100 nations include explicit in constitutional protection for the right to a healthy environment a truly remarkable development that has occurred over the past four decades. Of course different constitutions use a lot of different adjectives to describe this right healthy favorable safe clean satisfactory etc but the general meaning is the same the widespread constitutional recognition of the right to a healthy environment is particularly surprising when you consider that none of the global human rights instruments even mentioned this right it's not in the universal declaration of human rights it's not in either of the international covenants or any other global human rights treaty this right is found however in the 1972 Stockholm declaration a political pledge that emerged from the world's first eco summit almost 50 years ago and the first nations to include the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions were Portugal in 1976 Spain in 1978 and Peru in 1979 and that trend from the 1970s continues today with countries like Fiji Cuba and Tunisia recognizing this right in recent years environmental provisions really became common in constitutions during three regional waves of democratic reform making that link that Kevin spoke about in his opening remarks these were the decolonization of Africa the demilitarization of Latin America and the dissolution of the Soviet Union the overwhelming majority of democratic constitutions in these regions today incorporate environmental provisions including the right to a healthy environment in addition to government duties and substantive environmental rights a large number of constitutions also articulate individual duties to protect the environment and procedural environmental rights accessed information public participation in decision-making and of course access to justice some countries have specific provisions in their constitutions in African nations there's a number that prohibit the import of hazardous waste in Ecuador there the rights of nature are actually recognized and as Kevin alluded to in recent years we've seen a growing number of constitutions make references to climate change this existential threat to humanity and ironically the the majority of states where constitutions remain silent on environmental protection are small island developing states whose futures are at greatest risk from the global climate emergency and I would say that this appears to be largely a matter of lack of capacity rather than opposition and I would love to work together with these states international idea and other partners to bring environmental provisions into the constitution of small island developing states so that's really the global landscape of environmental provisions in constitutions but I think it's also critical to ask the question what difference does this make and so I've looked in my research at three questions first do environmental provisions in constitutions contribute to changes in environmental laws second do environmental provisions in constitutions lead to court decisions reflecting these provisions and third do you can't do environmental provisions in constitutions lead to improved environmental performance which is at the end of the day probably the most important question with respect to the first question I found that in more than 80% of states the inclusion of environmental provisions in constitutions was a catalyst for strengthening environmental legislation and this makes sense in democracy democracies because when constitutional commitments are made legislative changes are generally required to enable those commitments to be fulfilled and in a number of countries constitutional changes actually sparked the complete revision of environmental legislation focused on achieving and fulfilling the right to a healthy environment in countries including Argentina Brazil Colombia Costa Rica Portugal France and South Africa in the small minority of states where no legislative changes were made there were often other factors involved such as civil war extreme poverty or weaknesses in the rule of law with respect to the second question I found evidence of court decisions citing the right to a healthy environment in over 50 countries with the number of cases ranging from one for example in Malawi and the Seychelles to hundreds of cases in countries like Brazil and Costa Rica and these statistics are likely an underestimate due to the lack of online databases of court decisions in many countries at the time when the research was conducted and I have to say some of these cases are truly groundbreaking one of my favorites being a decision of the Supreme Court of Argentina in a lawsuit brought by a handful of residents in the poorest neighborhood and poorest and most polluted community in Buenos Aires these citizens alleged that pervasive pollution in the Matanza Rietuela watershed violated their constitutional right to a healthy environment and the Supreme Court of Argentina agreed and ordered all three levels of government municipal provincial and federal to take extensive actions to clean up the area and to build proper infrastructure for drinking water and wastewater treatment billions of dollars have been spent in cleaning up and restoring the Matanza Rietuela river watershed with substantial progress and work ongoing with respect to the third question about environmental performance I'm a lawyer not a statistician but I did some basic analysis and found a strong positive correlation between environmental provisions in constitutions and improved environmental performance so for example states with constitutional environmental provisions reduced air pollution more quickly than states lacking those provisions reduced greenhouse gas emissions more quickly and performed better on a range of environmental metrics and more sophisticated statistical analysis has been performed in recent years by economists who found a causal relationship between constitutional environmental protection and stronger environmental performance so friends and colleagues at the end of the day constitutions serve a triple role in societies they are the highest and strongest form of law they represent a sacred covenant between governments and the governed in which each make solemn commitments to each other and they express our deepest and most cherished values and aspirations as a South African judge once wrote constitutions are like a mirror of a nation's soul to be sure we face a profound implementation gap between the words on paper and actions on the ground but I believe that the trend towards encourage including environmental rights and responsibilities in constitutions is an encouraging and necessary step towards achieving a just and sustainable future for everyone thank you very much for your time today and I look forward to hearing from Patricia Maria and Marcel thank you thank you very much Dr Boyd for that tour around the world about environmental rights we've given us a lot of a lot of issues to think about and I'm sure I will consider them after this this webinar now as as our both both Dr Dr Kevin Zamora and Dr Boyd spoke about constitutions as being the most important legal documents of any country and at the same time we have climate change and the environment that is posing the most important challenge humanity has ever faced now the key is how much these constitutions have said in terms of guarantee substantive provisions and I want to repeat what Dr Boyd said but what we are gathered today to discuss most importantly is about the institutions what kind of institutions have constitutions around the world established to make sure that the promises the substantive guarantees of protecting the environment are actually given life Dr Boyd give us some statistics and what we want to hear and we have three extremely well qualified professionals with us we want to hear from them how the institutions have performed first um from Kenya um professor Camarine Boti um can you please tell us what the origin of the land and and environmental tribunals tribunals are what did the constitution do to them you know to to enhancing their status to enhancing their relevance and and most importantly have they made a difference have these institutions made a difference and the counterfactuals are always difficult um but can you imagine could you imagine these institutions making any difference or as much difference as they have made had it not been for for the constitutional constitutional change and most importantly what are the lessons what can we learn from the experience of these these tribunals from Kenya and then we'll start with these key questions and then proceed to brazil and then to to hungary thank you very much and professor Camarine Boti you have the floor professor you are still on mute professor yeah thank you thank you very much i'd like to appreciate idea for having put this discussion together and also for giving me an opportunity to speak about our environment and land court and basically i think of the the presentation by uh dr boyd is very critical because it puts out where the institutionalization of of the institutions like the environment and land court start and i think you couldn't have constitutionalized institutions without provisions in the constitution on the environment and related substantive and procedural rights the right to a healthy environment locker stand by access to justice etc in kenya the environment and land court was created in 2010 in the 2010 constitution of kenya we have the establishment of a specialized court which is the environment and land court with jurisdiction like that of the high court previously no more courts determined environmental matters and actually we had a checkered history because of the lack of understanding of the issues also because before the court that constitution we didn't have an explicit provision in the constitution of a right to a healthy environment even though it was provided for in the environment and management and coordination act people would always say that you couldn't take it to the level of the constitution and so people depended a lot on the right to life to bring in the right to a healthy environment so with the 2010 constitution we now not only have the recognition of the right to a healthy environment but also an institutional framework for putting that right into a realization and the specialization of this court is seen actually as a very important reform initiative and also has helped our judicial system develop in the area of enhanced access to justice the environment and land court is not the only specialized court we have two specialized court the other one is on employment and liberal relations court but with regard to the one on environment and land it was very clear that it would determine disputes relating to the environment using occupation of entitled to land which are very critical issues in Kenya and people are always dealing with this there is an environment in land court act which elaborated further the jurisdiction and functions of this court and actually more refinement has been seen through jurisprudence within the judiciary if you're looking at the hierarchy the environment and land court would be among the superior courts because we have the subordinate courts which are magistrates courts and then superior courts which are high court court of appeal and supreme court and the environment and land court has the same status as that of the high court it is different and the question of course is what has this meant for the court establishment do we have a separate court what does it mean for judges do we have the same judges as those that go to the high court all do we appoint judges with special qualifications I think you've asked me the question on why do we have specialized courts and I think I start by quoting Jack Brian Preston the chief judge of the New South Wales land and environment court he was very instrumental in the establishment of the Kenya environment and land court and he was of the view that a court with special expertise in environmental matters is best placed to play the role of promoting sustainable and ecological development and of course specialized court help bring more effective access to justice and also they help because they remove specialized issues from the more mundane questions and may actually help in this way to reduce backlog I think specialized courts recognize the fact that legal issues especially where you're dealing with the environment are complex they are inter-multi or trans-disciplinary and therefore having a specialized court helps to focus on specific questions specialized court also give a home for judges with special knowledge and expertise in environmental law and these facilitates the development of stronger jurisprudence that transcends legalistic approaches to law it also streamlines procedures and operations I think before we had the environment and land court what would happen is that even environmental matter was put before court it would be dismissed at technicality level but now they are streamline processes and procedures which helps to dispose the matters more efficiently and also more effectively they also ensure uniformity of court decisions bringing about of course rule of law aims of predictability consistency also higher quality of decisions and we have confidence of litigants the fact that they have special and distinctive nature helps judges concentrate on particular issues and I think here one of the things that we have learned is the importance of training of judges because even though they would know issues of environment and land there are new issues coming up all the time and like I said earlier for our court refinement of the jurisdictional question has happened a lot through case law like we had one case where a bench which had brought together judges of the environment court and ordinary judges of the court of high court actually making a decision on whether a person should be released having been having been convicted of murder and the court up to the supreme court held that the fact that the bench included judges of the environment and land court meant that it was incompetent and therefore the matter needed to go back to being hard so in essence implementing the specialization model calls for being thoughtful about how that bench interacts with others what are the challenges we will face at the beginning I think we didn't have enough judges and this is because specialized courts are courts of first instance so they have very high case load and at the beginning we had the purest implementation of these environment and land court excluding lower courts from hearing environmental matters this was challenged in court and now subordinate courts do hear um environmental matters and they come to the environment and land court on appeal the other challenge is that some of the judges were not as specialized especially on environment because whilst land law is a caucus for law study environmental law is not a core course and has not always been taught in schools another implementation challenge was the institutional design what kind of court I think because we already had a high court there was the question of whether we needed just a bench or an ad hoc bench or you could actually mix the judges and these again was refined through through case law when it was decided that it is important to have environment and land court judges concentrate on environment and land court matters the issue of jurisdiction is also a big issue because if being environment and land the question is what exactly is an environment and land case because many cases tend to have these issues whether they are commercial they may be family or civil cases and what has happened over the years is that the court has made the courts have made a decision that you look at what is the principal thing that took the person to court so even if the matter has a commercial transaction in a land issue you don't just look at the issues that arise you look at what it is that the person that went to court was seeking and and this has really helped in fact what the supreme court of Kenya has held is that the environment and court and land court is a special cadre of court with soil generous jurisdiction so these issue of mixing benches or having them decide or manner of cases is not allowed so what are the key achievements I think we now have about 52 judges in 33 or 47 counties rising from 14 in 12 counties in 2012 we are actually seeing then robust jurisprudence on EIA relationship between the national roman management authority and lead environmental agencies and even the cases that I'm talking about where you have clarification of jurisdiction of the environment and land court vis-a-vis the high court you see very good jurisprudence on the predominant papa steps what is it that took the litigant to court in the first instance and now I think it is established that all environmental matters all appeals on environmental matters go to the environment and land court even if they present as a judiciary view they actually have to go to the environment and land court and and actually we see a court now that is very strong and which is making pronouncements on very many critical issues so in terms of what we have learned and looking forward the environment and land court in Kenya demonstrates that specialized courts set apart towards sustainable environmental management I think what Dr. Boyd was saying about having better laws or having a better management of the environment I think for us if we didn't have a robust environment and land court the prescription of single use plastics may not have happened in the way that it did then implementing specialized court takes time and needs to carry other institutions here needs to carry the ordinary courts in Kenya we have a plural legal system so we do have customary traditional institutions that resolve disputes and these need to be carried along so that all of them work towards sustainable environmental management think the other thing that needs to be thought about finally is career progression of judges in specialized courts because if you have specialization at the environment and land court which is at the high court level then you may actually have a very robust jurisprudence at that level but it is not the same when you go to the court of appeal all to the supreme court so if we want to make specialization stick along the continuum of access to justice career progression of judges of specialized courts needs to be thought about I thank you thank you very much professor very very important I think the fact that you point out the interdisciplinary nature of the issues that environment raises and the interdisciplinary expertise that it requires is very very important you spoke about I think you know the importance also of ensuring compliance with environmental impact assessments and I think the case you mentioned about the prescription of single-use single-use plastic bugs maybe hopefully we'll have a chance to discuss in a bit more detail later but thank you very much for sharing Kenya's experience to our participants if you'd like to ask questions please put them in the Q&A if they are substantive for the panelists the chat function is principally for technical issues now thank you again professor and now Kenya has has unique specialized courts and Brazil has established unique public defending organs they call them the public prosecutors maybe my Portuguese is very bad so we we have Maria Antonia Tigre to tell us a little bit about the origins how what what led to their constitution the constitutionalization of these bodies how they delivered you know how have how have they performed and most importantly what are the lessons for for the rest of the world you have the floor and 15 minutes Maria thank you thank you very much it's a pleasure to be here and talk a little bit about Brazil's experience with the Ministry of Public Works just call it MP and explain a little bit the difference it's not exactly a public prosecutor's but similar to that so it's a mix of a couple of different things that I'll talk about so I'll start by just explaining briefly how the right to a healthy environment is like David mentioned in the Brazilian Constitution it's a fundamental right in so along other traditional human rights so article 225 of the Brazilian Constitution provides that all have the right to an ecologically balanced environment which is an asset of common use and essential to a healthy quality of life and both the government and the community shall have the duty to defend and preserve it for present and future generations so there's the right and then there's the duty right there the duty to defend it and so public authorities have a legal obligation to protect the environment and preserve it for present and future generations so the Ministry of Public Works so the MP is a powerful example and a very effective monitoring and enforcement body that was established in the Brazilian Constitution so in 1988 when the Constitution was adopted so the Constitution provides MP with broad powers to monitor and enforce violations of among other things constitutional rights so the Constitution established MP is a permanent institution that's essential to the jurisdictional function of the state and that is functionally independent from from the three branches of government right so it's often referred to as the fourth branch and has the duty to defend the rule of law the democratic regime and social and individual interests as a permanent institution guaranteed by the Constitution the prosecutor's main job is to uphold justice and the rule of law and due to this constitutional mandate the public prosecutor's office is globally recognized as a sweet generous institution so like I mentioned it's a sort of a mix between a couple of different things and they have complete financial and political autonomy which is very significant for the work that they do so the public prosecutor's office is the body of public prosecutors at the federal and state level it operates like I said independently from the three branches of government has often been referred to as the fourth branch so I have a really bad cold so hopefully you won't be too horrible for me to speak so already cold 129 off the Constitution I'm sorry take your time right so I'll start oh try to speak even slower so that we can get to it so it outlines the functions of the MP to institute civil investigation and public civil suits to protect public and social property and the environment specifically as well as other diffusing collective interest and because of this mandate they have been incredibly active in the area of environmental protection including in terms of enforcement and policy development as well so this prerogative of promoting unconstitutionality claims and this almost unlimited jurisdictional scope in the defense of rights has made the MP responsible for bringing very bold cases to Brazilian courts and I'll talk a little bit about those towards end of my presentation so but just to give you an example in the state of Sao Paulo alone the MP has brought over 4000 environmental cases and in recent years the MP has also used the trap the only the threat of threat of a prosecution as a means to negotiate settlement agreements with polluters which are referred to as conduct adjustment agreements so sort of the extra judicial role that it has as well so I'll also talk a little bit about sort of these two different roles that they have and these agreements allow them to avoid the high costs and delays and uncertainty of the judicial system so there's a traditional role that they have of bringing criminal charges trying criminal cases and eventually conducting criminal investigations which is sort of similar to what a classic prosecutor does in other countries but they can also bring action against private individuals commercial enterprises as commercial enterprises the union state federal district and municipal government in defense of minorities the environment and consumers as well in the civil society in general and they also have mandates to control public administration and protect the rights of citizens which are functions that usually in other countries fall upon different institutions such as the non-Budsman or a defense of the people so you know that this the this important role that the public prosecutors have in protecting the public interest in fundamental rights is a constitutional guarantee so it's in addition to the provisions of the constitution to talk about the mp and environmental protection there's a specific provision that makes that role an immutable clause within the constitution so that also you know it's another it's another guarantee of the work that they do so the constitution also established some of the institutional principles so there's there's the unity of the mp as in it's one body the indivisibility of it as in one prosecutor can substitute the other but there's also functional independent so one cannot arbitrarily replace the other and this functional independence aspect guarantees ample freedom to exercise the role according to existing legal norms and conviction and as the society's primary guardian the mandates of the mp include the control of policies on health rights environmental rights elections so a bunch of different areas on fundamental rights that are essential to to their role so i'll talk a little bit about now about in terms of environmental protection the extrajudicial role that i mentioned briefly here so usually an extrajudicial solution is more effective because courts are slow and have little sometimes little knowledge about the particular aspects of the environment when when they're not environmental courts it's harder to produce proof so there are lots of challenges to actually you know getting to an effective solution towards like using the court so there's this the the mp can then conduct investigations which allow them to have more conviction about the facts that were brought to their knowledge as violating collective interest or rights and they have several administrative instruments that are conferred upon them that allows for negotiation and ensuring full consideration of all the aspects involved such as time techniques and costs and increased rate of implementation of decisions so it enables a change of conduct which sometimes is not necessarily illegal but that's ineffective for environmental protection so using this threat of a prosecution can actually lead to sort of that adjustment of conduct from from companies inform bodies of the government itself so a solution is only adopted after several meetings with public authority scientific communities and civil society and ensure ensuring this consensual consensual decisions that have more legitimacy and they can also call for public hearings to mediate different interests ensuring public participation which also you know increases the the degree of legitimacy and all of the these mechanisms really ensure that mp can fulfill this constitutional mandate that they have of protecting the fundamental rights such as the right to a healthy environment but then if that solution if an extraditional solution is not possible they can also they also have this role in in public interest litigation so the investigations that they make can eventually lead to a public civil action if there's no extraditional solution and a study from the early 2000s has shown that the mp is responsible for around 90 percent of environmental public civil action so it's a very significant number I think the scenario has likely changed a bit as NGOs have been more active in courts recently but it still represents the vast majority and there are actually some critics that have argued that one of the unintended consequences of the of this role of the mp lies in the lack of influence of civil society organizations in the judicial and political sphere but from what I see of recent cases especially in climate litigation is that they're actually a lot more involvement from civil society organizations and political parties as well starting new cases so I think it has you know has obviously a very important effect in in introducing that aspect of public of public interest litigation and now which is now brought me to other actors as well so it's one of the most useful mechanisms for the protection of collective rights just the right to a healthy environment and the way that it works nowadays that the mp really responds to the non-enforcement problem of Brazilian environmental law which is that Brazilian Brazil has a very strong constitution in terms of environmental rights and very strong environmental laws are very you know there's a significant framework of environmental laws in Brazil but which are very strong on the books but there's their weak in practice so the Brazilian constitution protection of the environment and the corresponding environmental laws have really lacked compliance generally so this prosecutorial enforcement has reshaped environmental protection by providing a new type of environmental enforcements and they become very active in environmental protection enforcing environmental laws against both public and private actors and I think one of the significant ways in which this role has increased recently is through strategic planning to ensure that the priorities are met because they obviously receive complaints about several issues that are going on around the country which is you know a huge country and it's sometimes a little hard to ensure that the priorities are met so I wanted to mention you know this strategic planning through the example of a task force that was created in 2018 on the defense of environmental public policies there are a priority for the federal government and for the two environmental federal environmental agencies in Brazil and it's called the Amazonia Task Force so specifically protecting the Amazon rainforest and you know uniting the because the Amazon rainforest I don't know if you notice but even within Brazil it's spread across different Brazilian states so sometimes there wasn't a lot of communication between the MPs in in each of those regions because we have the federal MP and then the state MPs so this task force was created exactly to so that they could talk and you know have joined actions to actually ensure that the priorities are met than the biggest polluters were you know brought to justice so they uh over the the since 2018 uh this task force has called for the payment of over 3 billion uh heis from environmental offenders to guarantee the recovery of 151,000 hectares of the legal amazon so this concentrates over 500 investigations in 18 criminal cases that were initiated and has allowed uh a joint action by those working in Amazonia and targeting criminal activities related to deforestation in the hot spots in Amazonia and targeting public policies related to enforcement of policies or the lack of enforcement of those policies such as zoning and the invasion of indigenous territories and emergency measures that produced enforcement of policies during the pandemic um and I think one of the most important issues was actually that it was targeting also corruption by public body bodies that have facilitated illegal deforestation um so no that's the the sort of the last example that I wanted to give in terms of the the role of the MP and I'm happy to you know answer any questions that you may have thank thank you very much Maria very very interesting and I think one of the the key points that I picked up is how they have a lot of flexibility not just to conduct investigations but also to use the trait of prosecution to bring about public government as well as corporate change of policy and behavior I think you know in Kenya we saw that it's more you know it's a court so it needs somebody to to uh to keep you know to start to start the machinery to keep things in motion but in in in Brazil it's actually the opposite they are the ones that actively initiate uh the processes so very quite quite an interesting contrast and I understand that in Kenya there are other entities that are not in the constitution that perhaps also have investigative roles um so I think it would be useful to see whether there are multiple institutions or single institutions uh leading leading the ways but thank you thank you very much um and we now have a professor Marcel Sabo from from Hungary um you know Kenya has the courts um Brazil sort of has a you know entities that that act like public prosecutors and Hungary has experience with a genuinely forced branch institution um called the and he will tell us the details but the commission for future generations and that commission has undergone several reforms since it was since it was established and we have one of the first commissioners of that that entity to speak with us so professor Sabo tell us what happened how was it that it got expression in the constitution um and again same question how has it performed and and crucially what are the key lessons for the rest of the world thank you very much professor you first need to have the voice um thank you very much for the floor uh thank you very much for the possibility to speak about the Hungarian experiences uh in relation to institutions related to the protection of future generations and this is not only the institutionals of the ombudsman for future generations and as I understand one of the underlining concept of this gathering is to have the process of Chile to have its constitution is its constitutionally reshaped and first of all I checked whether Chile has currently an an ombudsman type institution so that we can have something in common to to say and and to continue but as as far as I see in South America uh currently it is Chile the the country Chile is the country which is currently missing the institution of ombudsman but there is an institution called the National Institutes for Human Rights and the transparency council that have certain rights to to highlight the legislation and the jurisdiction that that certain issues are not going in line as it should be in relation to human rights the institution of the ombudsman is generally a spokesperson who is speaking on behalf of the public and having certain rights to issue reports to step in into individual cases and to mediate uh in order that a solution for a citizen whose rights are infringed to be solved directly that's the the the normal concept of the ombudsman as you know very well so it is a very interesting and specific task how to represent future generations uh there is a long-standing theoretical debate whether there is one person who could stand for uh future generations how what could it say and in in which matters could it interfere as we know that in fact probably all aspects of our current decision making is having an impact on future generations so immediately the big question is arising how can some person come out and say I am capable uh and competent to say what future generations are needed uh let alone the discussion on the potential uh conflict between the interests of future generations and generations even later in the further uh in the in the role so can can I represent future generations uh do I represent my grandchildren's generations and my grandchildren my grandchildren or nation's grandchildren's generations can have rights or interests which could be in sharp contraversity with interesting subsequent further generations well in in in practice I think uh all despite all these all these question marks uh the institution of the ombudsman for future generations as it is regulated in the Hungarian Constitution now is a very successful successful institution and what it is doing uh in practice and how it can represent future generations in practice it is very much intertwined with a section of the Hungarian Constitution which I actually put on the chat board uh and that is article p of the Hungarian Constitution that says that all natural resources in particle arable land forest and the reserves of water biodiversity in particle native plant and animal species and culture artifacts shall form the common heritage of the nation it shall be the obligation of state and everyone to protect and to maintain them and to preserve them for future generations so there's a constitutional leg uh which is very important I will return to this very very quickly uh that that prescribes for the preservation of natural resources the basic living conditions for future generations and if I can sum up my work as an ombudsman for future generations very briefly uh in theory an ombudsman for future generations could cry out for a better education for kids so for a better future a better social system uh not to have loans uh uh overburying uh interest of future generations but you cannot as a single person act as a force branch of government alone and trying to say what would be good for future generations so although the Hungarian constitution uh mentions the and prescribes for the institution of the ombudsman for future generations as part of the institution of the general ombudsman for human rights but with an independent mandate the ombudsman for future generations mainly focuses on on on measures legislation and also to other acts that are endangering the natural resources the basic living conditions of future generations of our country citizens so that that that is what I think in a nutshell is the key function and how it functions uh it is functioning uh uh in as a as a mediator person of course there's a significant portion of the society who do care for the future generations interest and it can be the ombuds person can be a middleman between that section of the society and the political power uh somebody who can who can impersonate needs christ uh representing the interests of future generations the other very important helping factor is science it's very often that the government wants to do something which is beneficial in the short term but could be terribly damaging damaging on the long run and as we know that the current economical thinking and measurement doesn't really have uh with uh minimizing the long-term damage impact in the cost analysis of a current currently this project so and science is also problematic because as we know science is never entirely black and white uh it can it can only express itself in in hypothesis and with the probabilities and the politicians need the black and white to clear yes and no answers and actually the ombuds person for future generations back back by the big probability of uh of a bad event in the distant future underlined by the science can be the person impersonating that danger uh and showing that danger to the society and crying out in in his own personal capacity uh to the to the country uh if there is a just one single object a very very very valuable 2000 years of tree uh that is planned to be cut off uh an ombuds person can chain himself to the tree and can impersonate himself trying to uh step in and the uh the media coverage can be very useful and has been useful in a in a in a very significant amount of time to prevent actions uh uh which were nearly to be taken by the government but uh the ombuds person for the ombuds man for future generations has a legal piece as well uh i as an ombuds person as an ombuds man for future generations a i have the right to go into the parliament and while a piece of legislation was negotiated in the parliament uh i can enter into any commission and raise my voice that it is not going to be good it is going to be against the interest of future generations and although my in my own personal capacity as ombuds man for future generations i couldn't turn myself to the constitutional court but i could turn to the head of the office uh the general ombuds man for future generations and look uh as a sociological thing one ombudsman will not turn down the other ombudsman so the general ombudsman always said yes let's try to do it let's try let's go ahead and uh try to uh petition the constitution court and ask for an element of a piece of legislation uh which is damaging the interest of future generations and uh now i am in the seat of uh justice of the constitution court and recently the current ombudsman for future generations via the general ombudsman for future generation the general ombudsman for human rights was petitioning the constitution court and we annulled a very significant portion of the hungarian forest management legislation uh which was changed recently and which was changed in a very negative dimension uh endangering the interest of future generations so that's a good institution because it has peace it can create publicity and what is what i think is why it is a very good legal solution in the hungarian constitution is that the general institution of ombudsperson for human rights is such a why such a widely known and recognized institution and lobbying for a specific deputy only dealing with the interest of future generations i think it is something which is in all times easy or could be easier probably uh to achieve than finding new find out that entirely new and independent institution but if in Chile you are considering the introduction of the institution of an ombudsman please consider at least a deputy for future generations and one very important correlation between the work of of the general ombudsman and his deputy uh working for future generations is an ombudsman uh the general ombudsman for human rights can only act when a human rights violation has already occurred while it's by the it's that it's deputy the ombudsman for future generations can cry out in precautionary principle matters when there is only a very distinct probability for a harm when the ombudsman the general ombudsman couldn't have the possibility to act an ombudsman for future generations with this nice title can all can already cry out and can only already demand that an appropriate action should be taken so that is the main concept of the ombudsman for future generations in Hungary and thank you very much for your attention thank you very much professor Sabo if i i think you know i picked up a few things first that the the future the ombudsman for future generations actually wear several hats one is is to translating popular ideas popular demands for for better policies into into decision makers and you also talked about how it can engage policy makers as they draft policies as they take measures and as necessary you said through the hate of the ombudsman for human rights to approach the constitutional court including the recent case that that you spoke about so it it wears several hats and and also you said that it's an important entity that has popularity and that has made that has made difference over over the years now thank thank you very much again so we've heard about the the three country cases now um and i have it's we can open it for questions and i see that there's already a few questions out there so what i'll try and do is read some of them and invite the most appropriate person to speak on on on those issues first question from us to a PhD student from the university of Edinburgh they are asking particularly for professor Camarine Bote about the courts and she's asking about the qualifications how are the judge selected how are they trained um considering as you said the interdisciplinary needs of of the job uh professor Camarine can you can you quickly address that thank you yes thank you very much the judges are lawyers but they are required to have some experience in environment and land matters uh so there's no requirement that people would have taken a master's course though usually people the judges would have taken those postgraduate courses but it is not a requirement in the constitution to be a judge so what they'll be looking at is if you've been a judge what matters have you been deciding if you're not a judge what exposure do you have to land in environment matters thank thank you very much i hope that is helpful and you can always look for professor Camarine Bote's address and and maybe reach out to to her as well she's she's obviously very busy and she's soon taking up a new position as director of the UN environmental program the legal office but i'm sure she'll make the time question from a Senegalese colleague Usmane Mane he asked it's an enduring question about the challenge of the divide between aspiration constitutional guarantees and realities implementation and you know we've heard about Brazil and professor professor also spoke about Hungary that if you can tell us one or two lessons why why you know you've said that the institutions in Brazil and Hungary work and what is the trick what can be done and in particular did the constitutionalization of these institutions help i'll start with professor professor Sabo and then i'll i'll go to Maria absolutely i think the constitutional uh uh standing uh as uh as we have heard uh with uh professor David Boyd he was excellent in highlighting how in in how and in which ways it was uh perfectly helping the the constitution standing of environmental legislation uh a higher profile in the court proceedings in and also in political decision making uh but i believe that uh the international obligations of states such as for example being part of the biodiversity biodiversity convention which is nearly universal uh or or or or also the Kyoto protocol for for the climate issues i think these can these can be cornerstones uh that could be used by national judges and i i see in europe also where even in european countries sometimes necessary legal tools from the domestic legislations do not exist uh they can grab it from from the institute from the international level i think the higher profiles may have the people may tend to believe more that it has a they have an obligation to do something thank you very much essentially the key message is that if it is in the constitution at least actors like the judiciary which whenever they have the willingness they will be able to make their mark so it matters that they are in the constitution it's one predictor one indicator that uh that they could perhaps be more more implementation Maria do you want to add from from brazil's experience is asking you know you have rights you have institutions but they don't they don't they don't do their jobs um what what is what is right what is wrong in in brazil i think uh one of the main benefits of having the ministério publico in brazil is the functional independence and uh i think that definitely helps because they can call on all the branches of government and on uh on private private parties as well to actually um do what the the constitution says about environmental protection and ensuring that the right to a healthy environment and that the duty to protect the environment were preserved so that um that independence comes in several different ways but i think importantly the um the financial independence is also key here because they can also invest in their own training and um learn about new theories and come up with both new cases and legal theories that are able to enforce the existing law so for example it was just a recent case that they brought just very groundbreaking because they um they're they're uh brought in action against a cattle rancher so a big cattle rancher who owns you know very a very large area uh and have asked for climate damages so it's the first time that they asked for climate damages for compensation of climate damages about because of all the illegal deforestation that he has caused so i think that independence is essential in in bringing those cases thank you very much so constitutional status but also independence is is is central but i think also one of the points that professor sabu spoke about is popularity the ability of these institutions to anchor themselves and and build popular constituencies which obviously enhance their voice and i thank you very you muted yourself can can you hear me now um so the the the other question from mariano mashado i think it's from from from chile um it is more about substance and i i don't know if uh if dr boyd is still with us and we'll be happy to take i understand you know he's not part of the panel but i think we can draw from his expertise as well uh are you with us would you like to take one question for us dr boyd sure adim i'd be happy to thank you thank you so he's so mariano is asking um so you you have new new policies new legislate new constitutional provisions and that obviously requires a harmonization process an alteration of existing normative foundations and how does how does that work and what are the challenge that that can create and how can they be how can they be addressed yes thank you obviously a super important question and i think there are actually some good examples to draw upon mariano's asked two questions one about harmonization and one one which he refers to as weaponization which is an interesting phrase but i'll take the latter question first so there are examples of national constitutions where specific types of environmentally damaging activities have been prohibited and i mentioned in in my remarks the fact that a number of african countries for example have specific constitutional provisions prohibiting the import of hazardous wastes into their country so that there is definitely space in terms of constitutional drafting to come up with specific provisions uh turning that around a more positive approach i would say is like for example the constitution of butan requires that country to retain at least 60 of its land in four in forests so maintaining 60 forest cover for all eternity which is you know a terrific example of something which is environmentally progressive and as professor saba would say protects the rights of future generations and so that has that constitutional provision has enabled butan to continue to be from a perspective of climate change a carbon neutral nation because those forests are absorbing more carbon dioxide than the society is producing through the combustion of fossil fuels which is quite remarkable in terms of harmonization i think one of the key challenges that countries have faced is that traditionally we have given greater emphasis and priority to economic and social rights than we have to environmental rights which is how we've gotten ourselves into this terrible global environmental crisis and so some constitutions are specifically stating that uh one of the that they do recognize people's property rights but those property rights are subject to the overarching public interest in the protection of the environment so i think it's really important to have those kind of constraints on property rights in order to protect the collective interest in sustainability and that's something that we've seen in in literally dozens of constitutions now is that putting that protection in place so i hope those observations are a beginning of and i'd be happy to continue that conversation thank you thank you doctor board i think it's very you bring a very interesting question because often we see social economic rights and environmental rights as complementary but there is there is a tension especially if we're pursuing social economic development at any cost and i think that is an interesting point to to investigate further so thank you very much for for that explanation and we have victor kind of he raised a similar question to our our friend from from from Senegal same you know you have provisions in the constitution but the enforcement remains a big challenge he says for instance in in major and some from other places and i understand that you know we have asked professor Sabo and Maria about it but perhaps i can give you quick you know quick one or two minutes you know we've spoken about having rights in the constitution having institutions in the constitution and making sure that they are independent but we've also spoken about constituency building right these institutions must anchor themselves in society so that they have a real political influence but but what other tips can can you provide and i'll i'll go back perhaps we can start from Maria if there's any additional points that countries like Nigeria where enforcement is is a challenge can can draw on and we can go to professor Camero in Bota and then and professor Sabo Maria you have the floor sure i think obviously brazil's case is very particular because there's a there's a an institution that was created by the constitution to ensure that there's enforcement of the environmental laws that we have um i think if if doing something similar is not an option definitely ensuring a procedural environmental rights is the way to go so ensuring that there's access to justice uh you know that there's and and access to justice it means i think in particular getting the funding for civil society organizations to bring those cases forward so which is obviously not a problem in brazil because we have that institution that is uh already funded for by the government so um but yeah i think that's the access to justice and all the ramifications of that is definitely the answer here thank you very well i think we you know we spoke about substantive guarantees we spoke about institutions and now Maria has brought about an important third aspect which is with the procedural aspect which access to justice for instance uh guarantees of access to justice perhaps of cognition of public interest litigation and all of that can can work but overall i think civil society in Nigeria in in Senegal have a lot of work to do to advocate for for the constitutionalization of some of these guarantees and also to seek for access to justice and other other access to information as well very very critical for for these institutions to be able to lead um successful case in courts and other other platforms professor kameri kameri bote thank you very much additional tips for our colleagues from Senegal and Nigeria i think uh one of the things that we lose sometimes is over concentrating on the former institutions and i think constitutions many constitutions in Africa now recognize the role of traditional institutions uh so so for me i think rather than just look at the institutions that have been created like in kenya the environment and land court the same constitution actually talks about uh institutions that deal with land and environment traditional institutions and Nigeria kenya and other countries have plural legal systems so we are likely to have just one place where you find institutions so we need to look at different spaces and especially for environment because it occurs at the very local levels so the principle of subsidiarity would demand that people at the lowest level are involved in decision making and also the norms and processes at that level as long as they promote sustainable development thank you very much i think another important angle um you know we we shouldn't only look at the institutions but also the process of participation in decision making how do you how do you ensure that people actually participate in decisions that affect the environment and and broadly looking at beyond the core fundamental institutions and looking at this at the systemic level i think that's uh that that is that is critical um and professor professor sabo any additional points here i think it is very important that our politicians will be interested in what our public is interested in but of course what is our public is interested in is often related to what they what what they can see in the media media bubble in which they are all living and the way how environment matters can get into the media bubble is often uh catastrophe scenarios and uh that may lead certain people to depression and the turning away they have entirely to the matters that are really really demanding and would need a very urgent and dramatically quick solution uh and i think education and uh and trying to and the group and civil organizations role in raising awareness in the society that may on the long-term penetrate into the political thinking that is the way that can that can have somehow i think the institutions as we can know different institutions can be turned for good purposes new institutions can be created i apologize for all uh all listeners from chile because i just learned from the remark of uh david there is a child on busman and there is also a possibility just to show an example of creativity to think that the right of the child should not only be protective from a directly uh child low perspective so not only uh procedural rights in relation in relation and material rights in relation to their parents and to the immediate society that is surrounding them but also uh the way of life that it is going to surround them in 50s 60 years uh and and a very dramatically changed landscape may even require a child on busman to to say something in the for for the preservation of natural resources and and trying to have to preserve the interest of unborn children currently unborn children so i think creativity is uh is breaking through at different points in different countries and i think it's wonderful all the institutions as well as new institutions can be used but without the widespread public support and widespread support without very hardworking civil society and civil groups cannot really lead too much further you know i think the the key point is is basically we need to build a constituency we need to build popular media organized pressure on decision makers so that they pay attention and that in turn that in turn strengthens the position of entities established to promote environmental rights and environmental justice very important we have i have um let's see there's where we have one more minute so what i'm gonna ask maria um you know there's a question about the independence of the ministry of you know how how are they set up how how does the constitution and in practice how do these institutions keep their their independence and in related to that i think you know considering the importance of conflict do you think their work has actually reduced the risk of conflict in certain areas particularly you know considering environmental advocacy and and some of the tensions that that that exists in in in in brazil and then final question we might take two three minutes but i want to ask professor kamari both about gender the gender aspect um do you think the the the the tribunal the tribunal in particular but broadly the environmental mobilization in kenya has it in any way advanced or or mainstream the the issue of of gender uh first maria and then professor kamari both it thank you um sure so the independence is guaranteed by having it be separate from the three branches of government so because the constitution ensures that it's completely separate they have that functional independent um and also through the the the funding of it that i mentioned before so i think that these are sort of the two aspects that make it uh completely independent and and having no sort of oversight from other branches of government accept their own obviously there's a hierarchy and um and then the other question was about conflict is that it if if if it reduces conflict has it reduced the risk of conflict in particularly when they deal with him you know amazonia and all um you know it may it may not be i may be imagining it um but have they in a way contributed these institutions to reducing the risk of conflict yeah i think it's um it's a little harder to assess that uh i don't know if i have a perfect answer for it but i think um it definitely contributes to ensuring accountability but uh i think there's still obviously conflict between i mean especially in the amazon region since it's so broad it there's no way that um they could oversee all of the cases and all of the conflicts and all of the illegal acts that are going on within the region um so you know it it has helped to bring accountability to it but obviously uh you know the threats to environmental defenders for example which is a huge uh source of conflict is still a very big issue in brazil and uh and i think one of the essential roles is actually to bring the people who have you know either threaten or you know eventually murder environmental defenders to justice is one of the big roles that the mp could actually um take on which it hasn't really done a lot as of yet no thanks so they are playing a role in in a way they they play some kind of deterrence role because of the threat of prosecution of those who are who may be targeting environmental advocates uh no thank you very much i think it's something we could look into more uh professor kameri i i hope i didn't put you on the spot as well uh if it's not related it's okay but do you think that that gender aspect comes out and i know we are three minutes ahead and this will be the last the last question i promise actually uh you it you've not put me on the spot because one of the areas that i've worked on is just looking at the relationship between environment and gender environmental rights and uh rights relating to gender and i think because constitutions now i think uh uh dr void talked about democratization and opening up of spaces constitutions now require gender equality participation of the citizenry and that includes environmental governance institutions and of course even though you're looking at a space where women may not have participated more now it's no longer uh on to say that this is not a women space so we are seeing incremental uh engagement of women actually what i now see needing to be worked on is the engagement of young men and women because you see when we talk about intergenerational equity these are the people who will we are going to leave the environment too so if the young men and women are not engaged then there is a problem for that future uh rights thank you very much not just i think they they they're the emphasis on incremental in relation to women but also the importance of engaging the youth who are in fact the you know they probably have longer time to live uh than than the older generation thank you thank you very much professor kamer in both a thank you very much professor zabo thank you very much uh maria tigwe kimana you have you have the floor i have the floor but all i have to say is the same that you just said which is thank you so much for all of you to making the time to be on this panel i think we could speak for hours and hours about all of these issues and hopefully this is only the first of of many upcoming conversations on these issues um so thanks also to all the participants for all their key and super interesting questions um and i have to say thank you also to adam and to sharon hickey without whom this this webinar would not have happened so thank you so much for that um and i hope to see you all very soon again perhaps for our next constitutional design innovations webinar but in any case uh in in this continuing conversation of this really critical critical topic thank you so much thank you thank you very much for playing this together thank you very much enjoy your day enjoy evening everybody thank you thank you very much muchas gracias a tolos okay