Meaningful Public Participation in a COVID-19 World

The document outlines five key areas for designing and implementing virtual or hybrid international meetings to prevent the erosion of public participation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It emphasizes that while virtual formats can increase access for some, they often lack the depth of in-person interaction and introduce new risks regarding censorship, digital divides, and participant security. The guide argues that in-person meetings should remain the default for high-stakes policy negotiations, while innovative virtual tools should be used as parallel options to expand breadth of participation without consigning civil society to remote access.

• Virtual meeting design must proactively address specific barriers to ensure meaningful participation, including geographic time zones, unstable internet connectivity, disabilities requiring captioning or sign language, language interpretation, and economic constraints.
• To maintain the openness of forums, organizers should avoid censorship, prior vetting of comments, or undue control over participants' ability to use their own cameras and microphones in real-time.
• Virtual formats can undermine the quality of engagement by removing the possibility of casual side conversations and the nuances of face-to-face interaction, which the document describes as essential for innovation and high-stakes policy negotiations.
• The shift to virtual meetings introduces distinct security risks, including hacking, data leaks, and increased potential for reprisals against environmental and human rights defenders, necessitating strict anonymity tools and zero-tolerance policies for retaliation.
• Virtual meeting formats adopted during the pandemic should be explicitly temporary and not serve as a precedent to replace in-person meetings, although some accessibility improvements should be retained as parallel options.

APA

Center for International Environmental Law (n.d.). Meaningful Public Participation in a COVID-19 World. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Meaningful-Public-Participation-in-a-Covid-19-World.pdf

Chicago

Center for International Environmental Law. Meaningful Public Participation in a COVID-19 World. n.d. https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Meaningful-Public-Participation-in-a-Covid-19-World.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Center for International Environmental Law |title=Meaningful Public Participation in a COVID-19 World |url=https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Meaningful-Public-Participation-in-a-Covid-19-World.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{centerforinternationalenvironmentallawndmeaningful, author = {{Center for International Environmental Law}}, title = {{Meaningful Public Participation in a COVID-19 World}}, institution = {Center for International Environmental Law}, url = {https://www.ciel.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Meaningful-Public-Participation-in-a-Covid-19-World.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }