A Critical Review of Citizens' Juries: How Useful are they in Facilitating Public Participation in the EU Water Framework Directive?

Abstract

Citizens' juries (CJs) are recommended as one approach that might be used to encourage the active involvement of interested parties in the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). In this light the paper critically reviews the citizens' jury method in the context of water resource management. It examines three strategic challenges of representation, accountability and the role of experts, and issues of scale related to geography, institutions and time. Innovative adaptations of the CJ approach and other deliberative methods are explored as means to address these challenges. The review concludes by arguing that CJs will only be suitable for use in implementation of the WFD if such adaptations are further developed and used to tailor the CJ approach to the particular needs of water resource management in different circumstances.

Acknowledgement

The author is supported by a Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD) Senior Research Fellowship. Thanks are due to two anonymous referees for helpful comments.

Notes

Some might argue that this is not therefore a proper CJ, but it is argued that since the CJ format is followed it can still be classed as a CJ.

However, to the author's knowledge there is no evidence to show that this has ever happened.

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