The

UNECE The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE or UNECE) is one of the five regional commissions under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It was established in order to promote economic cooperation and ...

Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, usually known as the Aarhus Convention, was signed on 25 June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus. It entered into force on 30 October 2001. As of March 2014, it had 47 parties—46 states and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

. All of the ratifying states are in Europe and Central Asia. The EU has begun applying Aarhus-type principles in its legislation, notably the

Water Framework Directive The Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC is an EU directive which commits European Union member states to achieve good qualitative and quantitative status of all water bodies (including marine waters up to one nautical mile from shore) by 2015. ...

(Directive 2000/60/EC). Liechtenstein and Monaco have signed the convention but have not ratified it. The Aarhus Convention grants the public rights regarding access to information, public participation and access to justice, in governmental decision-making processes on matters concerning the local, national and transboundary environment. It focuses on interactions between the public and public authorities.

Content

The Aarhus Convention is a multilateral

environmental agreement An international environmental agreement or sometimes environmental protocol, is a type of treaty binding in international law, allowing them to reach an environmental goal. In other words, it is "an intergovernmental document intended as legall ...

through which the opportunities for citizens to access

environmental information Environmental data is that which is based on the measurement of environmental pressures, the state of the environment and the impacts on ecosystems. This is usually the "P", "S" and "I" of the DPSIR model where D = Drivers, P = Pressures, S = State ...

are increased and transparent and reliable regulation procedure is secured. It is a way of enhancing the

environmental governance Environmental governance (EG) consist of a system of laws, norms, rules, policies and practices that dictate how the board members of an environment related regulatory body should manage and oversee the affairs of any environment related regu ...

network, introducing a reactive and trustworthy relationship between civil society and governments and adding the novelty of a mechanism created to empower the value of public participation in the decision-making process and guarantee access to justice: a "governance-by-disclosure" that leads a shift toward an environmentally responsible society. The Aarhus Convention was drafted by governments, with the highly required participation of

NGOs A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

, and is legally binding for all the States who ratified it becoming Parties. Among the latter is included the EC, who therefore has the task to ensure compliance not only within the member States but also for its institutions, all those bodies who carry out public administrative duties. Each Party has the commitment to promote the principles contained in the convention and to fill out a national report, always embracing a consultative and transparent process

General features

The Aarhus Convention is a rights-based approach: the public, both in the present and in future generations, have the right to know and to live in a healthy environment. A distinction is made between "the public", all the civil society's actors, and the "public concerned" precisely, those persons or organisations affected or interested in environmental decision-making (e.g. environmental NGOs). " Public authorities" are the addressees of the convention, namely, governments, international institutions, and privatized bodies that have public responsibilities or act under the control of public bodies. The private sector, for which information disclosure depends on voluntary, non- mandatory practices, and bodies acting in a judicial or legislative capacity, are excluded. Other significant provisions are the "non-discrimination" principle (all the information has to be provided without taking account of the nationality or citizenship of the applicant), the international nature of the convention, and the importance attributed to the promotion of

environmental education Environmental education (EE) refers to organized efforts to teach how natural environments function, and particularly, how human beings can manage behavior and ecosystems to live sustainably. It is a multi-disciplinary field integrating discip ...

of the public.

The Three Pillars

# Access to information: any citizen should have the right to get a wide and easy access to environmental information. Public authorities must provide all the information required and collect and disseminate them and in a timely and transparent manner. They can refuse to do it only under particular situations (such as national defence); UNECE, 2006 # Public participation in decision making: the public must be informed over all the relevant projects and it has to have the chance to participate during the decision-making and legislative process. Decision makers can take advantage from people's knowledge and expertise; this contribution is a strong opportunity to improve the quality of the environmental decisions, outcomes and to guarantee procedural legitimacyUNECE, 2006 # Access to justice: the public has the right to judicial or administrative recourse procedures in case a Party violates or fails to adhere to environmental law and the convention's principles.

Further reflections

The Aarhus convention is a "proceduralisation of the environmental regulation", it focuses more on setting and listing procedures rather than establishing standards and specifying outcomes, permitting the parties involved to interpret and implement the convention on the systems and circumstances that characterize their nation. This model embodies a perfect example of a multi-level governance. The risk could lay in a loss of time and resources that could be otherwise invested in defining the outcomes, notwithstanding the fact that it renders the convention vague, weak and open to multiple interpretations. Other critiques note the fact that private bodies are excluded from the mandatory procedures (Mason, 2010), and that, moreover, it can also be debated whether the NGOs involved are faithfully representing environmental interests, ordinary citizens often do not have the financial means to participate effectively and are therefore have no choice but to be represented by these larger organisations. The relative differences between the participants and social groups' resource inequalities also suggests the possibility for irregular and imbalanced

environmental protection Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment by individuals, organizations and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where possible, to repair dam ...

Compliance Committee

The Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee was established to fulfill the requirement of Article 15 of the convention on review of compliance to establish arrangements for reviewing compliance with the convention. The convention has a unique Compliance Review Mechanism, which can be triggered in four ways: # a Party makes a submission concerning its own compliance, # a Party makes a submission concerning another Party's compliance, # the Convention Secretariat makes a referral to the committee, or # a member of the public makes a communication concerning the compliance of a Party. The Compliance mechanism is unique in international environmental law, as it allows members of the public to communicate concerns about a Party's compliance directly to a committee of international legal experts empowered to examine the merits of the case (the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee). Nonetheless, the Compliance Committee cannot issue binding decisions, but rather makes recommendations to the full Meeting of the Parties (MoP). However, in practice, as MoPs occur infrequently, Parties attempt to comply with the recommendations of the Compliance Committee. As of August 2009, 41 communication from the public – many originating with non-governmental organizations – and one submission from a Party had been lodged with the convention's Compliance Committee.

Pollutant Release Protocol

The Kyiv Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers to the Aarhus Convention was adopted at an extraordinary meeting of the Parties on 21 May 2003, in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

, Ukraine. 36 States and the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

signed the Protocol. As of May 2016, 34 states plus the European Union have ratified the Protocol. The Kyiv Protocol is the first legally binding international instrument on

Pollutant Release and Transfer Register A pollutant release and transfer register (PRTR) is a system for collecting and disseminating information about environmental releases and transfers of hazardous substances from industrial and other facilities. PRTRs were established in several co ...

s (PRTRs). PRTRs are inventories of pollution from industrial sites and other sources such as agriculture and transport. The objective of the Protocol is "to enhance public access to information through the establishment of coherent, nationwide pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTRs)." The Protocol places indirect obligations on private enterprises to report annually to their national governments on their releases and transfers of pollutants. Parties to the Protocol need not be Parties to the convention. The Protocol is in this sense a free-standing, international agreement. The Kiev Protocol on PRTRs will enter into force 90 days after the sixteenth State ratifies or accedes to the agreement. An amendment to the Aarhus Convention on "Public Participation in Decisions on Deliberate Release into the Environment and Placing on the Market of Genetically Modified Organisms" was adopted at the Second Meeting of the Parties on 27 May 2005, in Almaty, Kazakhstan. As of August 2009, it had been ratified by 21 countries. The GMO amendment will enter into force 90 days after at least three-quarters of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention ratify it. United Nations Secretary-General

Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founde ...

(1997–2006) has said, "Although regional in scope, the significance of the Aarhus Convention is global. It is by far the most impressive elaboration of principle 10 of the

Rio Declaration The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, often shortened to Rio Declaration, was a short document produced at the 1992 United Nations "Conference on Environment and Development" (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit. The Rio Decl ...

, which stresses the need for citizens' participation in environmental issues and for access to information on the environment held by public authorities. As such it is the most ambitious venture in the area of environmental democracy so far undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations." The influence of the Aarhus Convention also extends beyond the environmental field. At the 2nd

Internet Governance Forum The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a multistakeholder governance group for policy dialogue on issues of Internet governance. It brings together all stakeholders in the Internet governance debate, whether they represent governments, the priv ...

, held on 12–15 May 2007, in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

, the convention was presented as a model of public participation and transparency in the operation of international forums.

References

External links

UNECE Aarhus Convention website

UNECE Aarhus Convention Clearinghouse website

Case Law of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (2004–2008)

2nd Edition of the Case Law of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (2004–2011)

For the Second Meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention. 2005

For the Third Meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention. 2008

For the Fourth Meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention. 2011

For the Fifth Meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention. 2014

The Aarhus Convention: A Legal Guide
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