The Aarhus Convention at Ten

Book excerpt: On 30 October 2011, it will be exactly ten years ago that the Convention on Access to information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, signed by representative of 35 States and the European Community at a pan-European ministerial conference in the Danish city of Aarhus in 1998, entered into force. This multilateral treaty, negotiated under the auspices of the UN Economic Commission for Europe, represents the most comprehensive and ambitious effort to establish international legal standards in the field of citizens' environmental rights to date. Though some of these standards were inspired by earlier EU environmental legislation, many provisions of the Aarhus Convention went beyond the rights already guaranteed by the EU and compelled the European Commission to propose new legislature acts, most of which were adopted between 2003 and 2006, to bring EU environmental law up to the Convention's standards. Since its adoption over a --