MAIN GOALS - GENERAL ACTIVITIES - FIELD OF EXPERTISES
The central mission of the CIDCE is to “bringing together environmental lawyers from around the world to help the advancement of environmental law at international and regional meetings and conferences”.
The International Center for Comparative Environmental Law (CIDCE) is an INGO (French scientific association governed by the law of 1 July 1901) and was created in Limoges (FRANCE) in 1982. It was created following the Center for Compared Law Studies in Strasbourg. It is an organization that is composed of environmental lawyers. It is hosted by the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Environmental Law, Land and Urban Development (CRIDEAU), thematic team équipe of the OMIJ-EA 3177, Faculté de droit et des sciences économiques, of the University of Limoges.
Since 2005, the CIDCE has received support from the Limousin region, from 2016 part of a larger Nouvelle Aquitaine Region, through the instrument of an “associative job.”
CIDCE has obtained several Recognitions and Accreditations from international Organizations, Institutions and Conventions :
* Special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 2015.
* Observer Status with the United Nations Environment Assembly and its subsidiary bodies (UNEA) since 2016
* Consultative Status with La Francophonie (since 2018)
* Observer Status with the Barcelona Convention for the protection of the marine environment and the coastline of the Mediterranean and its protocols (UNEP – 2001)
* Observer Status of the ESPOO Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (2004)
* Observer Status of Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters of the United Nations Economic Commission of Europe (2004)
* The CIDCE is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), created in 1948 and reuniting over 1,000 member organizations and some 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique worldwide partnership. The IUCN’s mission is to influence companies worldwide to encourage and help the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature and ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable. In the framework of international conventions, it has helped over 75 countries to prepare and implement their national strategies for conservation and biodiversity. IUCN is a global organization with 1,000 employees in 44 countries, including a hundred based at headquarters in Gland (Switzerland).
* Since 2010, the CIDCE has been a member of the NGO CIVILSCAPE, an international network dedicated to promoting the European Landscape Convention.
* The CIDCE helped create the African Society for Environmental Law (SADE) and the European Association of Environmental Law (AEDE), which it helped constitute.