History
The first public interest environmental law conference for lawyers of NIS And CEE (which later became known as the “Guta Conference”) was held in Guta, Ukraine, in June 1995 at a sports resort complex in the Carpathian Mountains. It was organized by Prof. Svitlana Kravchenko, members of her NGO, EPL, and Steve Stec (then of the American Bar Association CEELI program, later of REC, and now of CEU). About 40 people attended, from 8 countries.
Steve Stec remembers:
“In November 1994, Svitlana Kravchenko, representing the three Ecopravos, Steve Stec of ABA/CEELI and Jay Austin of ELI decided to make a joint funding proposal to ISAR through its cooperative grants program for an international meeting of environmental lawyers and advocates, the first of its kind anywhere in Eastern Europe. Ecopravo already had an agreement with Milieukontakt Oost-Europa to hold a ‘summer camp’ on environmental law for Ukrainian environmental NGOs, so the idea was to extend the summer camp to two weeks, one week for the NGOs and one week for the international group of lawyers. In December, Svitlana, Steve and Jay developed the ISAR proposal, which was submitted in early January 1995. During January, Svitlana and Steve visited Mr. Lazarov in Ivano-Frankivsk, who at that time represented the ‘Historico-Scientific-Cultural Cooperation Organization’ or something like that. What it meant was that he had control over all the local conference facilities. He offered possibilities in Yaremcha and Guta. In fact, at the time Yaremcha was the favored site, but as soon as Svitlana and Steve visited the Guta complex, they were struck by its natural surroundings, its quiet isolation, its comfortable feeling, and the irony of having an environmentalist conference at the summer vacation retreat of Uralneftegaz (?). It was also during this trip that Steve fell in love with the Koliba restaurant and convinced Svitlana to bring the group there for an evening”
John Bonine says:
“There were intensive discussions and lots of building of new friendships at the first Guta meeting. John Bonine of E-LAW US brought simulation software and trained participants in a new technology called “elektronika pochta” –e-mail. A “field trip” took the participants for a walk in the mountains, culminating in a dinner at a restaurant known for wild game. Ukrainian and American participants joined together in song, but to a large degree sat at separate tables, challenging one another to perform. During this session, one American participant, Bob Shostak, whose mother and father had come from Ukraine (meeting each other in a labor camp run by Germans in Poland), moved over to the Ukrainian table. Without knowing what was happening, he suddenly started singing in Ukrainian, and speaking it to others. He had no memory of learning Ukrainian, but realized that when he was a small child his parents had spoken it at home. The memories came flooding back and tears rolled down his face.
“We had a rich cultural program, each evening for a different region: The first was Ukrainian, with songs presented by all 3 Ecopravos and a modern dance by Svitlana’s daughter Mariya. Others followed, with the most disorganized being a spontaneous presentation in Kolyba Restaurant by John, Pat, Bob, and Steve”.
Guta I was the first meeting of the Environmental Advocacy Network, which was established in 1994. The EAN started with 16 charter members and published ‘Environmental Advocacy,’ a forum for exchange of information about cases, legal developments, and professional funding opportunities. The publication, originally based in CEELI’s regional environmental office in Budapest, was later taken over by the Guta Association.
The Guta meeting was initially intended to be a one-off event, but it turned out to be groundbreaking. The experience was such a positive one that the ‘Guta spirit’ arose, and the participants decided to try to make it into an annual event. At that point, Sandor Fulop of EMLA volunteered to take the lead on organization of Guta II. The second Guta Conference took place in June 1996 in Matrahaza, Hungary – near another town appropriately called “Huta.”
In 1997, Ilya Trombitsky and Piotr Gorbunenko of the Biotica Ecological Society, along with a new Moldovan EPAC organized the conference, which was on its way to becoming an annual event. The meeting was held at a former Communist Party sanatorium along the banks of the Dniester River in Holercani, Moldova. During Guta III, simultaneous translation between Russian and English was introduced for the first time, with professional translators. Guta III was the first meeting which began to discuss the idea of transforming the EAN into a formal association.
The Guta Conferences continued to move around the region in 1998, with the fourth meeting organized by Jerzy Jendroska of the Poland Environmental Law Association (PELA) and held in Wroclaw, Poland. At this meeting, steps toward creating an Association went further.
The fifth Guta meeting returned to Ukraine in 1999, and was held in Yaremcha town, in the Carpathians. At this Guta the statute of GUTA Association was adopted.
In 2000 Guta VI returned to Hungary – this time it was held in Budapest. It was in 2000 that the Guta Association was legally established as an NGO with international scope registered in Hungary.
The founding members of the Association were:
Aida Iskoyan
Alexei Shumilo
Andrey Andrusevich
Anne O’Malley
Antonina Bobkova
Ara Nazaryan
Boris Vasilkovskiy
Brian Rohan
Cynthia Alkon
Dmitry Skrylnikov
Douglas Tookey
Elena Laevskaia
Eva Kovacechova
Florin Vasiliu
Ilia Trombitskiy
Iurii Pislari
Jan Jerzmansky
Janet Katz
Jerzy Jendroska
John Bonine
Jurii Miagkohod
Karin Krchnak
Magda Toth Nagy
Maria Longi
Marianna Bolshakova
Merab Barbakadze
Milena Novakova
Nadia Kobetska
Olga A. Razbash
Olga N. Davidova
Olga Samonchik
Patrick McGinley
Peter Gorbunenko
Peter Roschenko
Rita Annus
Sandor Fulop
Semen Svitelman
Sergei Varlamov
Sergei Vykhrist
Stephen Stec
Suren Kristasatiryan
Suzanne Weise
Svetlana Kravchenko
Vesselina Petrova
Victor Basay
Victor Cotruta
Victor Stratila
Vitezslav Dohnal
William Haak
Zoryana Kozak
Guta VII took place in Lviv. The guest of honor was Aleksandr Nikitin, former Russian military officer who exposed corruption and negligence in the nuclear fleet. At this meeting two co-directors were elected – Svitlana Kravchenko and Dmitry Skrylnikov – and the headquarters of the GUTA Association moved to EPL, Ukraine.
Guta VIII was organized in 2002 in Dobogoko, Hungary, attended by around 40 participants from 10 countries. Guta meetings became more sporadic following this meeting, and normally took place in Ukraine, where Guta IX and X were held. One of the reasons for the infrequency of the meetings was the passing of the co-founder and “mother” of Guta, Professor Svitlana Kravchenko. A few years after her death, her colleagues sent out a call to the Guta Network with a plea to revive it in her memory.
At Guta XI, held in Zhdenijevo, in the Carpathian region where the first Guta meeting had been held, the 34 attendees from seven countries adopted a declaration renewing the Association in Svitlana’s memory. At this time a new issue facing international environmental law had arisen, which was the environmental consequences of military conflict and international environmental law in occupied territories.