Internship opportunity at Spherical

The project goal is to research and collect information on the practical arrangements for Freedom of Information Requests and particularly requests for environmental information of different developed countries, and to test these arrangements.

The work result is published under the intern's name.

Title

Listing and testing the arrangements for Freedom of Information Requests (FOIR) in developed countries.

Background

"Freedom of Information" is a concept that establishes the public "right to know" anything about the work of the government employed with taxpayer's money except in a very limited set of conditions where disclosure of such information is not in the public interest. Many countries have established legislation and procedures to respond to public queries (FOIRs) and provide governmental information, typically allocating a wide range of rights to information and limiting officials' ability to withhold data.

The Aarthus Convention and other international treaties further expand the public right to information about environment. Signatories to these treaties agree on an even narrower set of circumstances where environment-related information may be withheld.

An important aspect of FOIRs is that the data obtained with their help is, by definition, in public domain i.e. it may be used for any purpose whatsoever.

Scientific research rarely resorts to FOIRs to seek input data; FOIRs are also typically practised for a narrow purpose and therefore from a small subset of countries or even from a single country. Good sources of information about arrangements for FOIRs on a worldwide scale do not exist or are commercial and costly.

Project Goals

The project goal is to research and collect information on the practical arrangements for FOIRs and particularly requests for environmental information (REIs) of different developed countries and to test these arrangements by requesting one dataset that all developed countries must have. In particular, for each country, the project seeks to find out:

  • Does the country have Freedom of Information legislation, what is its currently applicable version and where is it located?
  • What are the logistical details for generic FOIRs? What is the address to send requests to, can requests be addressed by email and/or post and/or other means?
  • Are requests accepted from anyone or only taxpayers (citizens/residents/legal entities in the country)? * Is the country a signatory to any international treaty on Environmental Information?
  • Does the country have Environmental Information legislation, what is its currently applicable version and where is it located?
  • What are the logistical details for EIRs, if different from generic FOIRs?
  • What are the committed turnaround times for FOIRs and EIRs?

In order to test the efficiency and the turnaround times for EIRs, one dataset, the country's greenhouse gas inventory report in XML format, will be requested according to the legislation from each developed country.

Expected Outcomes

  1. A spreadsheet/table with answers to the questions from the list above for every country
  2. Communications logs with all countries
  3. The outcome of the test (the XML file provided or a refusal to provide it) for every country

All outcomes will be published with attribution to the intern's name and to Spherical, and assigned to the public domain

Team and Support

The intern will work in collaboration with a supervisor who will be available for any questions and discussion. The intern will be expected to attend the daily planning video meeting with the rest of the team and report on progress. Exploration of other fields of Spherical's work, suggestions and evaluation of possible longer-term collaboration are highly encouraged.

Requirements

  • Basic environmental literacy
  • Basic legal literacy
  • Confident use of computers, Internet and office productivity software
  • Basic awareness of the UNFCCC process and greenhouse gas reporting
  • Excellent command of written English, fluent verbal communication in English.
  • Active enrolment in a university-level study programmes of Environmental Management, Law, Business Administration, Governance or related disciplines

To apply

Send your motivation letter, CV and explanation about the expected status of this internship (is it mandatory for your course of study etc.) to services@spherical.pm. For any questions, get in touch with Michael Vartanyan using any messengers and social media contacts provided.