Editors' Summary: Numerous commentators have urged that government increase opportunities for citizen participation as a way to advance a variety of public policy goals (enhancing government legitimacy, promoting more informed government decisions, etc.). In this Article, David L. Markell explores the experience of an international decisionmaking process that relies heavily on citizen participation, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation's (CEC) citizen submissions process, through the lens of the procedural justice literature, which seeks to understand the reasons why citizens are satisfied with decisionmaking processes. He offers some thoughts about the design and operation of the CEC process in terms of its effectiveness in promoting citizen participation and also considers more generally the design of government processes intended to engage citizens and to promote meaningful public participation in governance.
David Markell is the Steven M. Goldstein Professor at Florida State University College of Law. [Editors' Note: This Article is an updated and edited version of longer treatments of this topic the author has previously published, particularly Understanding Citizen Perspectives on Government Decision Making Processes as a Way to Improve the Administrative State, 36 Envtl L. 651 (2006) [hereinafter Understanding Citizen Perspectives]. The citations for this previous work, which is cited with permission, include Governance of International Institutions: A Review of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation's Citizen Submissions, 30 N.C. J. Int'l L. & Com. Reg. 759 (2005) [hereinafter Governance of International Institutions]; The CEC Citizen Submissions Process: On or Off Course, in Greening NAFTA: The North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation 256 (David L. Markell & John H. Knox eds., 2003) [hereinafter Greening NAFTA]; and The Commission for Environmental Cooperation's Citizen Submission Process, 12 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 545 (2000).]
