ENVIRONMENT: New Powers to Europeans, If Only They Knew

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Feb 28 2005 (IPS) - Britain joined a group of European countries last week in ratifying an agreement that gives citizens an extraordinary say in environmental matters. But in Britain, as elsewhere, few people know of these rights.

Thirty-four countries in Europe, including the 25 European Union (EU) members, have either ratified or acceded to the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.

More simply, this is called the Aarhus Convention. It was adopted Jun. 25, 1998 in the Danish city Aarhus, and came into force Oct. 30, 2001.

The European Union ratified the convention Feb. 17. But all 25 European Union member states do not automatically become parties to the Convention. Each state must ratify the Convention separately.

To date six member states have yet to do so: Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Sweden.

Britain ratified the Europe-wide Convention Feb. 23. Austria, the Netherlands and Spain have also ratified it recently.

Give the public greater access to environmental information held by public authorities. This seeks to increase the transparency and accountability of the government.

Provide an opportunity for people to express their opinions and concerns on environmental matters and ensure that decision-makers take these into account.

Provide the public with access to review procedures when their rights to information and participation have been breached. It also gives people the right to challenge more general violations of environmental law.

But European governments have not exactly gone out of their way to publicise the Convention.

That is despite strong support for the Convention from the United Nations. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called it "the most ambitious venture in the area of environmental democracy so far undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations."

Ratification by several European countries is still short of implementation.

"People need to use their rights," Helen Burley from Friends of the Earth told IPS. "It gives people a lot of power, but people need to know they have the option to use it."

The rights people have been given can become effective "if people have easy access to courts," Burley said. "That cannot remain prohibitively expensive."

Friends of the Earth said in a statement that Britain still falls far short of its obligations under the Convention in relation to access to justice, where "members of the public still face potentially huge costs if they wish to go to court to protect the environment."

The group is calling on the British government to "ensure that access to the courts in such cases is improved."

The prohibitive cost of access to courts has remained the biggest hurdle in implementation of these rights in the European countries that have ratified the convention. Few people fully understand the kind of information Aarhus gives them the right to, and what they could do to secure these rights.

The implications of these powers are immense. It gives people the right, for instance, to challenge genetically modified foods, or the location of industry in their immediate environment.

It would give people a say also in matters such as granting of waste licences in their areas, local planning decisions, the location of nuclear power or conventional coal-fired power stations, destruction of natural habitat for tourism or other development purposes, and a whole range of government decisions that affect the environment in some way.

A big enough group of local people would have the potential to scupper a government project, or at least impose limitations and modifications upon it under rights given to them by the Aarhus Convention. Few environmentalists are surprised that governments have not gone out of their way to publicise these rights.

Issues around implementation of the Convention are expected to be taken up officially at the second meeting of the parties to the Convention in Almaty, Kazakhstan, May 25 this year.

Director of the environment and human settlements division of the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Kaj Bärlund, said ratification by the European Community would be a milestone for progress of the Convention.

"The ratifications by the European Community and four of its member states mark the treaty’s coming of age," he said in a statement. "As a direct result of the Convention, an increasing number of UNECE countries are expanding their laws guaranteeing the rights of citizens to shape their environmental future."

But Bärlund too added: "The commitment to environmental democracy made by UNECE governments now rests largely on the successful implementation of those laws."