Overview

The EU and its 27 Member States are all Parties to the Aarhus Convention – the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters. It is the leading international agreement on environmental democracy. The Aarhus Convention protects every person’s right to live in a healthy environment. It guarantees the public three key rights on environmental issues.

Access to information refers to the public’s right to receive environmental information held by public authorities. This includes information on

• the state of the environment
• policies or measures affecting the environment
• public health and safety where these are affected by the state of the environment

Public participation refers to the public’s right to participate in environmental decision-making. Public authorities are required to allow the general public and environmental NGOs to meaningfully participate in decision-making regarding projects affecting the environment and plans and programmes relating to the environment.

Access to justice refers to the public’s right to review by a court or another independent body to ensure that public authorities respect the rights to access to information and public participation, and environmental law in general.

Objectives

The Aarhus Convention is at the heart of ensuring environmental democracy, by

• laying down a set of basic procedural rights for the public
• imposing obligations on public authorities to make these rights effective
• increasing transparency
• making governments more accountable to the people

Law

The Aarhus Convention and EU Member States

Access to information 

The Access to Environmental Information Directive (2003/4/EC) aims to ensure that environmental information is systematically made available by the authorities to the public either actively or upon request.  

For further information on the reporting and guidance documents related to this Directive, see

• Guidance document for Member States’ reporting under Article 9 
• Reports from the Member States under Article 9  
• Evaluation report from the Commission COM(2012)774  

Public participation  

The Public Participation Directive 2003/35/EC provides for public participation with respect to formulating certain plans and programmes relating to the environment. 

Provisions for public participation in environmental decision-making are also found in a number of environmental directives, such as the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive 85/337/EEC and the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive 2001/42/EC.

Access to justice 

Both Directive 2003/4/EC on public access to environmental information and Directive 2003/35/EC on public participation include access to justice provisions.

While there is no directive specifically dedicated to access to justice in EU Member States which would apply horizontally in all sectors, the Court of Justice has developed extensive jurisprudence on the subject. In addition, there is a growing number of access to justice provisions in new and revised EU law. An example is the Seveso III Directive (2012/18/EU), which provides for access to justice in cases of acts and omissions in the context of prevention of major accidents involving dangerous substances.

2021 amendment to the Aarhus Regulation 

On 6 October 2021, the EU adopted Regulation (EU) 2021/1767 that amended Regulation 1367/2006 to allow for better public scrutiny of EU acts affecting the environment by NGOs and other members of the public. The 2021 revision significantly increased the range of decisions that may be subject to internal review under the Regulation.

Related links

Main laws: Aarhus Convention (2005/370/EC), Access to Environmental Information Directive (2003/4/EC), Public Participation Directive 2003/35/EC, Aarhus Regulation (Regulation (EC) N° 1367/2006) as amended by Regulation (EC) 2021/1767