[Index]
AARHUS CONVENTION RATIFIED
BY THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
Four EU member
States also to become Parties to
environmental rights treaty
Geneva, 25 February 2005 - The
European Community has ratified the Aarhus
Convention on Access to Information, Public
Participation in Decision-making and Access
to Justice in Environmental Matters of
the United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe (UNECE). The ratification,
which took place on 17 February 2005,
ensures that the Community will become
a Party before the opening of the second
meeting of the Parties to the Convention,
in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on 25 May 2005.
On 23 February, the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland became the latest country to ratify
the Convention, joining Austria, Netherlands
and Spain, which also recently ratified
and will also have the full status of
Parties at the Almaty meeting. The Convention
enters into force for each country 90
days following its ratification.
The new ratifications
will bring the total number of Parties
to the Convention to 35 by the time of
the second meeting of the Parties.1
The Aarhus Convention
is the world’s most far-reaching
treaty on environmental rights. It seeks
to promote greater transparency and accountability
among government bodies by guaranteeing
public rights of access to environmental
information, providing for public involvement
in environmental decision-making and requiring
the establishment of procedures enabling
the public to challenge environmental
decisions.
The Convention was adopted
in Aarhus, Denmark, in June 1998, and
signed by 39 European countries and the
European Community. It entered into force
in October 2001 and its Parties now include
most of the countries of Central and Eastern
Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia
and three-quarters of the EU member States.
Mr. Kaj Bärlund,
Director of the UNECE Environment and
Human Settlements Division, welcomed this
milestone: “The ratifications by
the European Community and four of its
member States mark the treaty’s
coming of age. 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. The commitment to
environmental democracy made by UNECE
Governments now rests largely on the successful
implementation of those laws.”2
Over the past few years,
the European Community has developed various
pieces of legislation in preparation for
ratification, including directives on
access to information and public participation.3
However, the fact that the European Community
has ratified the Convention does not mean
that all of its 25 member States automatically
become Parties. Each must ratify separately,
and to date six member States have yet
to do so: Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg,
Slovakia and Sweden.
For further information, please visit
www.unece.org/env/pp
or contact:
Mr. Jeremy WATES
Secretary to the Aarhus Convention
UNECE Environment and Human Settlements
Division
Palais des Nations
CH - 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Phone: +41 (0)22 917 23 84
Fax: +41 (0)22 917 01 07
E-mail: [email protected]
__________
1 Albania,
Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus,
Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia,
Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of
Moldova, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Tajikistan,
the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Turkmenistan, United Kingdom, Ukraine
and the European Community.
2 The UNECE
region encompasses the whole of Europe
and five Central Asian countries, as well
as Canada, Israel and the United States.
3 For details,
see http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/aarhus/index.htm.
Ref. ECE/ENV/05/P01