Access to Legal Information Books and eBooks on the Human Right of Access to Law

The Relevance of the Aarhus Convention to the Concept of Access to Legal Information

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention) is relevant to the concept of access to legal information because public legal information is included in its definition of “environmental information. Section 2(3) of the Aarhus Convention states:

“3. ‘Environmental information’ means any information in written, visual, aural, electronic or any other material form on:

(a) The state of elements of the environment, such as air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites, biological diversity and its components, including genetically modified organisms, and the interaction among these elements;

(b) Factors, such as substances, energy, noise and radiation, and activities or measures, including administrative measures, environmental agreements, policies, legislation, plans and programmes, affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment within the scope of subparagraph (a) above, and cost-benefit and other economic analyses and assumptions used in environmental decision-making;

(c) The state of human health and safety, conditions of human life, cultural sites and built structures, inasmuch as they are or may be affected the state of the elements of the environment or, through these elements, the factors, activities or measures referred to in subparagraph (b) above . . .”

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe introduces the Aarhus Convention as follows:

“The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters was adopted on 25th June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus at the Fourth Ministerial Conference in the ‘Environment for Europe’ process.

Together with its Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers, it protects every person’s right to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being. They are the only global legally binding global instruments on environmental democracy that put Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in practice. . . .”