Digital citizens’ participation right in defense of the environment

The Aarhus Convention of June 25, 1998, of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters, introduced the commitment of each signing State to ensure, within the framework of its national regulation, that citizens could suit and appeal any decision, or any action or omission that falls within the scope of public participation regarding issues on environmental matters. Hence, citizens are entitled to appeal administratively and judicially against public environmental decisions if they invoke a legal infringement in relation to this issue. Access to justice for violation of the rights of public participation are set out in the same terms on Regulation (EU) number 1367/2006, of September 6, relating to the application, to the institutions and community bodies, of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice on environmental matters. Although the right of access is quite broad, it is not exempt from exceptions, such as those indicated on the Directive 2003/4/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, of January 28, on public access to environmental information, which has recently been interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Union on the Judgement (First Chamber) of January 20, 2021 in the Land Baden-Württemberg case (Communications internes). However, all this is not useful if citizens are not granted with the possibility of accessing to control judicially administrative decisions that do not comply with environmental policies with the same extension, because the opportunity for any citizen to be entitled to effectively control these actions is being excluded. This paper aims to analyze the extent of the right of citizens to participate digitally in public decision-making of an environmental nature, and determine if such right is consistent with the possibilities of access to justice in this matter, since only through judicially control of the administrative decisions it is possible to make the participation right effective.

How to Represent the Silent Environment? An Update on Germany’s Struggle to Implement Article 9 (3) of the Aarhus Convention

With Germany’s signature to the Aarhus Convention in 1998, the country committed to strengthening the legal position of environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (eNGOs). Since, traditionally, in Germany, “public interest litigation” was legally impossible, the country had to consider fundamental changes to its system of judicial review. More than 20 years later, the German implementation of Article 9(3) of the Aarhus Convention (ac) has seen several amendments, but is still cause for controversy. Despite Germany’s prolonged efforts to adapt its legislation, there are, currently, two admitted complaints concerning Germany’s system of legal standing of eNGOs waiting for a (final) decision by the ac Compliance Committee, while several cjeu judgments have clarified the much-needed interpretation of Article 9(3) ac particularly also in view of the notion of effective judicial protection. These developments, together with scholarly criticism, indicate a need for further legal change in the German approach.

The Right of Access to Environmental Information

The book discusses the normative impact of the Aarhus Convention on how England, America and China guarantees the right of access to environmental information. Through this analysis the book identifies each of these jurisdictions' unique conceptualisations of the right which, in turn, influences the design of their respective environmental information regimes. This allows these jurisdictions potentially to act as sources of legal reforms for each other to improve how the right is guaranteed via legal transplant theory, challenging the normativity of the Aarhus Convention. This is not to suggest that the Aarhus Convention exerts no normative influence on how the right is guaranteed; there are core substantive and core procedural elements which have to be met for the right to be effectively guaranteed, and the book shows that the Aarhus Convention does exert a normative influence over the procedural elements of the right.

The democratisation of European nature governance 1992–2015: introducing the comparative nature governance index

European environmental governance has radically transformed over the past two decades. While traditionally enforcement of environmental law has been the responsibility of public authorities (public authorities of the EU Member States, themselves policed by the European Commission), this paradigm has now taken a democratic turn. Led by changes in international environmental law and in particular the UNECE Aarhus Convention (UNECE, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention (1998). Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention), signed on June 25, 1998.), EU law now gives important legal rights to members of the public and environmental non-governmental organisations (“ENGOs”) to become involved in environmental governance, by means of accessing environmental information, participating in environmental decision-making and bringing legal proceedings. While doctrinal legal and regulatory scholarship on this embrace of “bottom-up” private environmental governance is now substantial, there has been relatively little quantitative research in the field. This article represents a first step in mapping this evolution of environmental governance laws in the EU. We employ a leximetrics methodology, coding over 6000 environmental governance laws from three levels of legal sources (international, EU and national), to provide the first systematic data showing the transformation of European environmental governance regimes. We develop the Nature Governance Index (“NGI”) to measure how the enforcement tools deployed in international, EU and national law have changed over time, from the birth of the EU’s flagship nature conservation law, the 1992 Habitats Directive (Directive 92/43/EEC). At the national level, we focus on three EU Member States (France, Ireland and the Netherlands) to enable a fine-grained measurement of the changes in national nature governance laws over time. This article introduces our unique datasets and the NGI, describes the process used to collect the datasets and its limitations, and compares the evolution in laws at the international, EU and national levels over the 23-year period from 1992–2015. Our findings provide strong empirical confirmation of the democratic turn in European environmental governance, while revealing the significant divergences between legal systems that remain absent express harmonisation of the Aarhus Convention’s principles in EU law. Our data also set the foundations for future quantitative legal research, enabling deeper analysis of the relationships between the different levels of multilevel environmental governance.

The Belt and Road Initiative in North Eurasia: Changing Geographies and the UNECE Multilateral Environmental Agreements

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by China in 2013 to increase economic and transport connectivity along the Eurasian continent and beyond, has posed unprecedented environmental and social risks, many of which are transboundary in nature. International legal tools contained in Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) can play an important role in mitigating such transboundary risks across space and time, as well as reduce the negative impacts of large infrastructure projects, such as are being developed under the auspices of the BRI. However, the adoption of MEA policy tools has been very uneven across the continent. Three conventions in particular, the 1991 Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment, the 1998 Aarhus Convention, and the 1992 Helsinki Water Convention (the UNECE MEAs) - have the least amount of ratifications by BRI countries. In this paper we discuss these three conventions and demonstrate their relevance in addressing the transboundary risks of large infrastructure projects which require complex coordination and long-term planning.Extended ratification of these UNECE MEAs by nations along the BRI corridors should significantly assist in positively changing geographies by minimizing BRI environmental risks and threats on a transboundary and national dimension, but simultaneously (i) create a more unified approach towards sustainability across the BRI, (ii) raise involvement (and likely subsequent) support within communities for BRI projects, (iii) help to reduce related economic risks throughout Eurasia.

Access to justice in environmental matters in the Republic of Moldova

The formation and development of environmental legislation have been and continue to be strongly influenced by a number of external factors determined by the objective processes of globalization and internationalization of environmental issues. From the first analyzes of the environmental policies adopted in the Republic of Moldova based on the Aarhus Convention, we find that so far no strategy has been developed to ensure access to justice on the ecological damage recovery, a strategy that would constitute the "lifeline" for the injured subjects, the authorities responsible for ensuring the full recovery of the damage caused to the environment, the courts that will resort to the laws adopted on the basis of these strategies.

“Unlocking Legal Gridlock in High-Income Countries: How Excessive Litigation Hampers Growth and Harms Democracy”

The paper focuses on rules of standing in the context of environmental law. With the implementation of the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention) in European law, interest groups have become major players in the enforcement of environmental regulations. Although such interest groups can help to reduce enforcement deficits, their involvements create the risk of regulatory gridlock, with excessive litigation lengthening approval processes which can discourage investment in public and private infrastructure. The paper discusses the implementation of the Aarhus Convention in Germany, highlights ways to overcome administrative gridlock and facilitate effective approval procedures. If implemented, these strategies will enable Germany’s economy to remain competitive, supporting the maintenance of the country’s high standard of living and strong welfare state.