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CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ
DO THE EUROPEANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO GET INFORMATION ABOUT…
Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Access to Information,
Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental
Matters, which was adopted on 25 June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus (Århus) at
the Fourth Ministerial Conference as part of the “Environment for Europe” process.
55
The Aarhus Convention entered into force in 2001. “The Aarhus Convention is
the first multinational environmental treaty or convention that focuses exclusively
on obligations of nations to their citizens and nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs).”
56
The so-called “three pillars” of the Convention are dedicated to the
following rights: to know, to participate, and to go to court.
57
The first pillar – the right of the public to access the environmental information
in the Aarhus Convention – includes both “passive access” (that is, the right to seek
information from public authorities, under Article 4 of the Convention), and “active
access” (the duty of the government to collect, disclose and disseminate information
about the environment regardless of the requests of the public, under Article 5 of the
Convention).
58
The second pillar ensures public participation, whereby the “public
concerned” is to be given the right to participate in environmental decision-making
by having the opportunity to submit its views before decisions are made. The last
pillar deals with access to justice, whereby a court or other similar body is allowed to
review decisions that concern the first two pillars.
59
Article 4 of the Aarhus Convention obliges every state to ensure that “public authorities,
in response to a request for environmental information, make such information available
to the public, within the framework of national legislation, including, copies of the actual
documentation containing or comprising such information:
(a) Without an interest having to be stated;
(b) In the form requested unless:
(i) It is reasonable for the public authority to make it available in another
form, in which case reasons shall be given for making it available in that
form; or
(ii) The information is already publicly available in another form.”
60
Furthermore, Article 4 sets out the term for the provision of information as
one month, extendable to two months when the information is voluminous and
complex. The grounds of refusal for submitting the information needed are set out
55
Aarhus Convention (supra n 31).
56
SVITLANA KRAVCHENKO ‘The Aarhus Convention and Innovations in Compliance with
Multilateral Environmental Agreements’(2007) 18
Colo.J.Int’l Envtl.L.& Pol’y
1, 2.
57
PAVIA BEJFKOVD ‘The Aarhus Convention and the Right to Know’ (2010) 11
Common L. Rev.
44, 45.
58
PETER SAND ‘The Right to Know: Freedom of Environmental Information in Comparative and
International Law’ (2011–2012) 20
Tul. J. Int’l & Comp. L
. 203, 217.
59
BEJFKOVD (supra n 57) 45.
60
Aarhus Convention (supra n 31), Article 4, para 1.