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The Aarhus Convention and e-Democracy

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

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The Aarhus Convention and e-Democracy

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  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 1998Adoption 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 Sweden 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 Greece 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 toexchange 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 practicesand capacity-building resources for implementation of the Aarhus Convention, its the Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers principle 10 of the RioDeclaration 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. DECISION II/3ON ELECTRONIC INFORMATION TOOLS ANDTHE CLEARING-HOUSE MECHANISMadopted at the second meeting of the Partiesheld in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on 25-27 May 2005

  20. AnnexRecommendations on the more effective use of electronic information tools to provide public access to environmental information > Alert the public to their respective opportunities> Ensure that the public can provide publicly documented feedback on proposed activities, plans, programmes, policies and legally binding instruments electronically> Promote participation in the Convention’s clearing-house mechanism

  21. 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 whetherthispractice is legally required • Plans to progressively improve access to public comment

  22. 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

  23. “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

  24. MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE AARHUS CONVENTION WEBSITE AND CLEARINGHOUSE: http://www.unece.org/env/pp and http://aarhusclearinghouse.org

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