The Aarhus Convention and eDemocracy

1
The Aarhus Convention and e-Democracy
Michael Stanley-Jones Environmental Information
Management Officer Aarhus Convention
Secretariat Environment, Housing and Land
Management Division United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe Second Plenary meeting of
the ad hoc Committee on e-democracy Strasbourg,
8-9 October 2007
2
THE AARHUS CONVENTION

• UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public
  Participation in Decision-making and Access to
  Justice in Environmental Matters
• " The adoption of the Aarhus Convention was a
  giant step forward in the development of
  international law in this field. ... 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 .. As such, it is the most ambitious
  venture in the area of environmental democracy
  so far undertaken under the auspices of the
  United Nations...."
• Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations

3
AN UNCONVENTIONAL CONVENTION

• Unique among MEAs in the extent to which it seeks
  to guarantee procedural rights of the public
  addressing the environment / human rights
  interface
• A treaty less about Party-to-Party relations,
  more about the relations between governments and
  civil society
• An international treaty is not a blueprint -
  national and local procedures can and must go
  into more detail (cf art. 3.1)
• Unprecedented involvement of civil society in its
  negotiation and governance

4
ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THE CONVENTION

• June 1992 Principle 10 of Rio Declaration
• ? taken up within Environment for Europe process
• Oct 1995 UNECE Guidelines on Access to
  Environmental Information and Public
  Participation in Decision-making (Sofia
  Guidelines) adopted.
• 1996 1998 Negotiation of the draft Convention
• June 1998 Adoption of the Convention at the 4th
  Ministerial Environment for Europe Conference,
  Aarhus Denmark. Signed by 39 countries and the
  European Community
• Oct 2001 Entry into force of the Convention
• Oct 2002 1st meeting of the Parties (Lucca,
  Italy)
• May 2005 2nd meeting of the Parties (Almaty,
  Kazakhstan)
• June 2008 3rd meeting of the Parties scheduled
  (Riga, Latvia)

5
STATUS OF RATIFICATION
Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lithuania
Luxembourg Malta Moldova Netherlands Norway
Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain S
weden Tajikistan Turkmenistan Ukraine United
Kingdom European Community
Albania Armenia Austria Azerbaijan Belarus
Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech
Republic Denmark Estonia Finland Former Yugoslav
Rep. of Macedonia France Georgia Germany Gree
ce Hungary Italy
TOTAL 41 PARTIES
6
CONTENT OF THE CONVENTION

• Objective, definitions, general features (arts.
  1-3)
• ACCESS TO INFORMATION (arts. 4-5)
• PUBLIC PARTICIPATION (arts. 6-8)
• ACCESS TO JUSTICE (art. 9)
• Final clauses (art. 10-22)
• Annexes

7
GENERAL FEATURES

• Recognition of citizens' rights
• Procedural rights to information, participation,
  justice
• ? Substantive rights of present and future
  generations to live in an environment adequate to
  health and wellbeing
• Broad definition of 'the public
• Any natural or legal person, plus informal
  groups
• Broad definition of public authorities
• All sectors and levels of government, excluding
  bodies acting in legislative or judicial capacity

8
GENERAL FEATURES

• European Community is a Party
• ? EU institutions covered
• Anti-harassment, non-discrimination provisions
• Rights to be enjoyed irrespective of
  citizenship, nationality, domicile etc
• Compliance review arrangements
• Open to non-ECE countries

9
ACCESS TO INFORMATION

• Passive (art. 4)
• Any person has access (no need to prove or even
  state an interest)
• Broad definition of environmental information
  (art. 2)
• Time limit as soon as possible, max 1 month,
  plus 1 more month.
• Charges not to exceed reasonable amount
• Finite set of exemptions, with restrictive
  interpretation
• public interest to be taken into account
• Potential effects of disclosure must be adverse

10
ACCESS TO INFORMATION (2)

• Active (art. 5)
• Transparency and accessibility of information
  systems
• Immediate dissemination of information in cases
  of imminent threat to health or environment
• Dissemination of international agreements, laws,
  policies, strategies, programmes and action plans
  relating to the environment
• Sufficient product information to ensure informed
  environmental choices
• Pollutant release and transfer registers
• Increased access to information through Internet
• State of environment reports (max 4-year
  interval)

11
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

• Specific Projects or Activities (art. 6)
• list of types of activity covered (Annex I)
• timely and effective notification
• reasonable timeframes
• free inspection of relevant information by public
  concerned
• comments in writing or public hearing
• due account to be taken of outcome of public
  participation

12
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION (2)

• Programmes and Plans (art. 7)
• appropriate practical and/or other provisions
  for the public to participate during the
  preparation of plans and programmes relating to
  the environment
• reasonable timeframes, early participation
• due account to be taken of the outcome of public
  participation

13
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION (3)

• Policies (art. 7)
• General obligation to endeavour to provide
  opportunities in the preparation of policies
  relating to the environment to the extent
  appropriate
• Rules and regulations (art. 8)
• Obligation to strive to promote effective public
  participation in rules/regulations and other
  legally binding instruments that may have a
  significant effect on the environment

14
ACCESS TO JUSTICE (art. 9)

• Review procedures to challenge the handling of
  information requests (any person)
• Review procedures to challenge legality of
  project-level decisions requiring public
  participation (restricted to concerned public)
• Review procedures to challenge general violations
  of national law relating to the environment
  (standing may be established by Parties)

15
ACCESS TO JUSTICE (2)

• Procedures to be fair, equitable, timely and not
  prohibitively expensive
• Decisions in writing, court decisions publicly
  accessible
• Injunctive relief 'as appropriate
• Mechanisms to remove financial barriers to be
  considered

16
MAIN AREAS OF ACTIVITY (1)

• Protocol on pollutant release and transfer
  registers (PRTR) adopted at EfE-5 (Kiev, May
  2003), signed by 36 States and EC
• Genetically modified organisms guidelines
  adopted at MoP-1, amendment adopted at MoP-2
• Access to justice task force set up to exchange
  information on good practices, prepare
  recommendations
• Electronic information tools task force set up
  to exchange information on good practices,
  prepared recommendations on their more effective
  use to provide public access to information,
  adopted at MoP-2
• Public Participation in International Forums
  guidelines adopted at MoP-2 on implementation of
  article 3, paragraph 7 task force set up and
  international consultation on PPIF undertaken

17
MAIN AREAS OF ACTIVITY (2)

• Compliance mechanism Compliance Committee
  established, mandated to consider communications
  from the public
• Capacity building diverse activities,
  co-operation framework for regional and
  international organizations, co-ordinated by
  secretariat
• Clearinghouse mechanism launched July 2004 at
  http//aarhusclearinghouse.unece.org

18

• Aarhus Clearinghouse for Environmental Democracy
• a place to exchange ideas, good practices and
  capacity-building
• resources for implementation of the Aarhus
  Convention,
• its the Protocol on Pollutant Release and
  Transfer Registers
• principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on
  Environment
• and Development globally
• Content management system allows registered
  national and other information nodes, including
  civil society organizations, to submit content
  (news features and resource entries)
• More than 500 entries provided by
  non-governmental organizations and networks

19
(No Transcript)
20
DECISION II/3 ON ELECTRONIC INFORMATION TOOLS
ANDTHE CLEARING-HOUSE MECHANISMadopted at the
second meeting of the Partiesheld in Almaty,
Kazakhstan, on 25-27 May 2005
21
AnnexRecommendations on the more effective use
of electronic information tools to provide public
access to environmental information gt Alert the
public to their respective opportunitiesgt
Ensure that the public can provide publicly
documented feedback on proposed activities,
plans, programmes, policies and legally binding
instruments electronicallygt Promote
participation in the Conventions clearing-house
mechanism
22
Questionnaire to assess implementationof the
recommendations

• Circulated in October 2006 responses collected
  by February 2007
• Asks inter alia
• Which types of environmental decision-making
  process (in the sense of arts. 6, 7 and 8) may
  public participation take place electronically
• Whether comments of third parties on draft
  permits and conditions are
• generally, partly or not available through the
  Internet, and whether thispractice is legally
  required
• Plans to progressively improve access to public
  comment

23

• Among EU member States, 9 out of 11 reported
  public participation in environmental
  decision-making processes electronically
• Among EECCA member States, 2 out of 7 reported
  electronic public participation (one not
  reporting)
• Comments of third parties Question 2 (d) I, iii
  and iv
• 1 EU reported as generally and 3 as party
  available 6 as not available (1 not
  reporting) 1 as legally required
• 0 EECCA reported as generally and 1 as party
  available
• 5 as not available (1 not reporting) 2 as
  legally required

24
Implementation of electronic public
participation is at best characterized as partial
in EU member States and only weakly in evidence
in EECCA countries. (Summary report, para.
36) Specifying the procedures for electronic
public participation in environmental
decision-making processes . . . would promote
transparency and provide useful guidance both to
members of the public wishing to use
e-participation techniques and to government
officers dealing with public consultation
(para. 40) Training in the use of electronic
public access and participation tools was
generally absent across the region. (para. 41)
From Report of the fifth meeting of the task
force on electronic information tools. Addendum,
Summary report on the implementation of the
recommendationsMeeting of the Parties on
electronic information tools (decision II/3)
ECE/MP.PP/WG.1/2007/L.3/Add.2
25
MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE AARHUS
CONVENTION WEBSITE AND CLEARINGHOUSE http//www.
unece.org/env/pp and http//aarhusclearinghouse.
org