My first impression travelling from Berlin's hippest street to Moldova's capital Chisinau with its crumbling sowjet-area buildings are two worlds apart.
This appeared to be even more the case when the preparation meetings to the Aarhus Convention MOP4 started - but suddenly it was the other way round.
The day started with a meeting of the Compliance Comittee - the body that decides whether Parties breaches the conditions, either in general or specific cases.
Coming from the negotiations of the CBD and its Protocols I'm used to Industry and some Parties arguing that Compliance should be only ever be assessed based on some legally non-biding guidelines, without consequences and of course behind closed doors. This meeting was different and from what I can see one of the best examples of implementing Principle 10 of the Rio Convention.