Integrated Coastal Zone Management is an approach increasingly applied world-wide for achieving sustainable development along the coast. In 2002, the European Parliament and Council of Europe issued an ICZM Recommendation, which put pressure on the EU countries to develop ICZM Strategies and create legal and institutional structures for the implementation of ICZM. The Black Sea Commission has also been promoting ICZM at a regional level, in particular through the ICZM Advisory Group and a Regional ICZM Strategy and Action Plan.
In Ukraine the draft Law on Coastal Zone has been going through consultation for the last 4 years which resulted particularly in inclusion of provisions on territorial zoning. The draft Law did not correspond to current requirements of the EU regulations and had to be revised in terms of structure, terminology, and content. Thus the legal and ICZM components of the Project in Ukraine were meant to assist the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of Ukraine with drafting a new version of the Law on Coastal Zone and related secondary legislation which would provide proper legal and institutional basis for regulation of the ICZM issues nationwide.
The Legal and ICZM Expert Group was set up to coordinate, direct and support the drafting of the new national legislation on ICZM. The Expert Group currently comprises recognized national experts lead by the Project key legal and ICZM experts (List of Legal and ICZM Expert Group).

A series of Expert group meetings were held. The Minutes of the Expert Group meetings can be downloaded here:

Minutes of the meeting of 29 February 2008
Minutes of the meeting of 17 March 2008
Minutes of the meeting of 19 March 2008
Minutes of the meeting of 23 May 2008

On 19 June 2008 consultation of the Legal WG experts with the representatives of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of Ukraine was held at the Project office.

Minutes of the meeting of19 June 2008

On the 11th of November 2008 a joint ICZM and Legal Expert Group meeting with the Ministry (MEP) representatives took place at the Ministry premises. (List of Participants)

The first version of the draft Law on Coastal Zone can be downloaded here:
The draft Law on Coastal Zone of Ukraine

On 16 March 2009 the ECBSea project team conducted a stakeholder workshop on Legislation on Coastal Zone Management at the Ministry premises. The representatives of Ukrainian central and regional executive authorities: ministries, state administrations in oblasts, city administrations, local agencies as well as research institutes and NGOs participated in this event. The revised Draft Law of Ukraine on Coastal Zone, developed by the ECBSea international and national experts was presented at the meeting and discussed by the participants. 

Agenda of the meeting

List of participants

Minutes

Pictures

Power Point Presentations:

Integrated Coastal Zone Management and Territorial Planning

French Legislation on Coastal Zones

The Example of Crimea: Conflicts in Coastal Zone

Draft Law of Ukraine on Coastal Zone

Territorial development and planning of coastal zones

The comments from the main stakeholders were gathered and considered by key legal expert and national legal experts. The improvemnets were discussed and consultations with the Ministry were conducted. The recomendations on the next steps in the legislative process were developed.

On June 2, 2009, the legal ICZM Working Group meeting was held at the Project office. The aim of the meeting was to discuss further improvement of the Draft Law of Ukraine on Coastal Zone. The Project experts suggested more improvements taking into account Ministry comments and key legal expert recomendations.

Minutes of the meeting

The ECBSea project has recently come up with another document prepared following the decision made of the fourth Steering Committee meeting (April 28, 2009, Kyiv). These are Guidelines on Territory Planning in Coastal Zone. The Guidelines provide ideas and suggestions on terminology system, planning principles, functional zoning, protection and rational use of the coastal zone including water area, based on national legislation in force and in line with the approach exercised in the Draft Law of Ukraine on Coastal Zone developed by the project legal working group of experts. The Guidelines document also includes the procedure of the development, coordination and approval of the Scheme of the Territory Planning in Coastal Zone, as well as suggests its structure and contents.

Coordinated with the Ministry and State Reserve Committee the Survey of current state and perspectives of legal regulation for wetlands of national local importance in Ukraine has been completed by ECBSea Project. It was passed on to the Ministry on 3 September, 2009.

On 2 December 2009 after several rounds of discussions in the Project WG and consultations with the Ministry Draft Law of Ukraine On Coastal Zone (in Ukrainian and English) together with Explanatory note (in Ukrainian and English) was passed to the beneficiary for further legal procedure. Regulation of the coastal zone is a sensitive issue, especially considering various and often contradictory interests of the numerous stakeholders.