AARHUS CONVENTION

Background
Meetings (New: Opening Doors to Justice mini-conference)
Capacity Building and Workshops

The first meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention (Lucca, Italy 21-23 October 2002) decided to establish a task force on access to justice to support the implementation of the third pillar of the Convention by inter alia, examining good practices, sharing experience with implementation of particular paragraphs of article 9 of the Convention and assessing the impact of certain barriers in access to justice such as costs and delay.

At their 2nd meeting (Almaty, Kazakhstan, 25-27 May 2005) the Parties adopted decision II/2 on promoting effective access to justice (E, F, R) and established a Task Force to carry out further work with practical focus in relation to the elements of that decision.

The Task Force on Access to Justice is expected to:

(a) Continue the analytical work initiated by the previous Task Force, making full use of the information gathered;

(b) Develop information and training or analytical material and activities at appropriate levels, and organize this work within the framework of the Convention's overall capacity building programme;

(c) Consider, based on the experiences the effective contribution of remedies available under different legal systems to the achievement of the Convention's objectives, including the relevance of interim and permanent injunctive relief;

(d) Further examine the issue of the establishment of appropriate assistance mechanisms to remove or reduce financial and other barriers;

(e) Explore the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and consider how these approaches might contribute towards the achievement of the objectives of the Convention;

(f) Consider and share relevant expertise, experience and examples of good practice;

(g) Share and disseminate its findings through appropriate means, including the clearing-house mechanism;

(h) Take into consideration the work being undertaken in other fora in order to benefit from it and avoid duplication; and

(i) Present the results of its work for consideration and appropriate action by the Working Group of the Parties.

 

Meetings

The 2nd meeting of the Task Force was held on 10-12 September 2007 in Geneva.

The first day of the meeting took the form of a ‘mini-conference’ on the theme of ‘ Opening the Doors to Justice: The Challenge of Strengthening Public Access ’, with presentations by a number of leading experts in the field. This was intended to allow the opportunity for a free exchange of opinions on the ‘burning issues’ in the implementation of the third pillar of the Convention between a wider range of stakeholders than normally participate in task force meetings.

The Task Force meeting provided an opportunity to review the outcome of the regional workshop on access to justice involving senior members of the judiciary from six countries of Eastern Europe and South Caucasus (Kiev, 4-5 June 2007) and to consider plans for further such workshops as well as other awareness-raising and capacity building activities. The Task Force had also been asked by the Working Group of the Parties to discuss options for future work on access to justice at the forthcoming meeting. The mini-conference provided input to and inspiration for that discussion.

For further information about the work of the Task Force, see decision II/2 of the Meeting of the Parties which sets out its mandate.

We would like to draw your attention to paragraph 31 of Decision II/2 of the Meeting of the Parties which invites representatives of ministries of justice and/or similar national bodies with responsibility for the administration of justice and judicial authorities themselves, as well as representative organizations of the legal professions, to participate in the work of the Task Force.

Title	English	French	Russian
Provisional agenda for the second meeting		-
Report of the 2nd meeting of the task force on access to justice (ECE/MP.PP/WG.1/2007/L.10)
Key challenges in implementing access to justice: an overview by Prof. Dr. Ludwig Kraemer, Universities of Bremen, Germany and Copenhagen, Denmark	pp	-	-
Access for whom? -- The issue of legal standing by Ms. Carol Hatton, WWF-UK, United Kingdom	pp	-	-
Effective remedies – Do they exist? by Prof. Jan Darpö, University of Uppsala, Sweden	pp	-	-
Public interest advocacy: a key to better implementation? by Ms. Olga Melen, Lawyer, International Foundation Environment People Law, Ukraine	pp	-	-
The costs of justice and “Getting SLAPPed” by Prof. John Bonine, University of Oregon, USA	pp	-	-
Providing access to justice in transboundary cases by Prof. Jonas Ebbesson, University of Stockholm, Sweden		-	-
Implementation challenges in the regions and how to address them? by Prof. Svitlana Kravchenko, University of Oregon, USA and Dr. Csaba Kiss, Environmental Management and Law Association, Hungary	pp	-	-
Judges and the Convention – How the judiciary can further the implementation of the third pillar: An EU perspective and an EECCA perspective by the Hon. Luc Lavrysen, Constitutional Court, Belgium	word	-	-
Judges and the Convention – How the judiciary can further the implementation of the third pillar: An EECCA perspective by the Hon. Vera Macinskaia, Supreme Court, Moldova		-	word
Networking and sharing of experiences by the Hon.William Birtles, South Eastern Circuit Court, United Kingdom	word	-	-
List of participants		-	-

 

The 1st meeting of the Task Force took place on 16-17 February 2006 in Geneva.

Title	English	French	Russian
Registration form	doc	-	-
Provisional agenda for the first meeting	doc	-	doc
Report of the meeting	doc	doc	doc
Information, Training and Analytical Materials and Training Events	doc	-	doc
Information note on practices in the UK	doc	-	n/a
Access to Justice and Remedies (presentation by Prof. Jan Darpo, Uppsala University, Sweden)	powerpoint	-	powerpoint
Environmental mediation as an ADR instrument (presentation by Ms Anna Muner, Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water management)	powerpoint	-	-
Promoting environmental mediation as a tool for public participation and conflict resolution (presentation by Ms Kaidi Tingas, REC)	powerpoint	-	-
Access to Justice: the Hungarian Story (presentation by Mr Gabor Baranyai, Hungarian Ministry of Environment and Water)	powerpoint	-	-
Assistance mechanisms and costs (presentation by Prof. John Bonine, ELAW/European ECO Forum)	powerpoint	-	-
ICT tools for training on access to justice (presentation by Iordanca-Rodica Iordanov, Milieukontakt Oost-Europa)	powerpoint	-	-
List of participants	pdf	-	-

 

Capacity Building and Workshops

Mandate

Having in mind the practical focus of its mandate, the Task Force at its first meeting, proposed that capacity-building activities initially be aimed at supporting the judiciary, if possible at all levels, particularly in countries with economies in transition.

It noted that while the independence of the judiciary should be fully respected, the main objectives should be

(a) to increase awareness of the Convention among the judiciary; and

(b) to enable them to exercise their discretion in a way that promoted effective implementation of article 9 of the Convention.

The Task Force underlined the importance of effective outreach to ensure that interested members of the judiciary were aware of the activities and had the opportunity to participate.

The Task Force consequently invited the Chair to:

(a) investigate which relevant ongoing or planned capacity-building activities in the broader context of environmental law undertaken by other actors, such as UNEP and the REC, could usefully incorporate an access to justice component, and to offer the Task Force’s cooperation in organizing appropriate Aarhus modules, emphasizing the third pillar of the Convention, within those activities; and

(b) further explore the possibilities and develop a proposal for organizing capacity-building activities, in particular for the higher levels of the judiciary and initially focusing primarily on the sub-regional level, which could be organized under the auspices of the Task Force and/or in cooperation with other actors. The proposed focus on the judiciary would not exclude the possibility that other actors might be involved in the activities.

Having considered the report of the Task Force, the Working Group of Parties to the Convention at its 6th meeting in April 2006 agreed that subject to funding, at least one subregional workshop focusing in particular on the higher levels of the judiciary should be organized before the next meeting of the Task Force.

Consultation process

In accordance with his mandate given by the Task Force and the Working Group of Parties, the Chair of the Task Force, Mr. Håkan Bengtsson (Sweden), has initiated a consultation process on various aspects on the work of the Task Force, including the concept paper on workshops for the judiciary in the EECCA region. The concept prepared by the Chair and the accompanying letter from the secretariat were communicated to the Task Force on 13 July 2006.

The members of the Task Force were invited to provide comments on the concept of the workshops by 1 October 2006. They were also invited to share information on remedies in their respective systems by 1 November 2006.

Several responses received are included in the table below

From	Received
WWF UK	5 September 2006
European Commission	8 September 2006
Armenia	12 September 2006
Sweden	19 September 2006
European ECOForum (J.E.Bonine)	19 September 2006
United Kingdom	20 September 2006
European Forum of Judges for the Environment (EUFJE)	20 September 2006
European ECOForum (A. Andrusevych)	31 October 2006

Workshop for high-level judiciary (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine) - Kiev, Ukraine
4-5 June 2007