A Critical Review of Citizens' Juries: How Useful are they in Facilitating Public Participation in the EU Water Framework Directive?

Citizens' juries (CJs) are recommended as one approach that might be used to encourage the active involvement of interested parties in the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). In this light the paper critically reviews the citizens' jury method in the context of water resource management. It examines three strategic challenges of representation, accountability and the role of experts, and issues of scale related to geography, institutions and time. Innovative adaptations of the CJ approach and other deliberative methods are explored as means to address these challenges. The review concludes by arguing that CJs will only be suitable for use in implementation of the WFD if such adaptations are further developed and used to tailor the CJ approach to the particular needs of water resource management in different circumstances.