IMPORTANT
NEWS:
United Nations Economic
Commission for Europe
PRESS RELEASE - Geneva, 9 August 2001
AARHUS
CONVENTION STARTS COUNT-DOWN TO ENTRY INTO FORCE
The
Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation
in Decision-making and Access
to Justice in Environmental Matters will come into effect
on 30 October 2001. This comes as a result
of the recent ratification of the Convention by Armenia and
Estonia, which became the sixteenth and
seventeenth countries to do so.1
The Aarhus Convention was negotiated by the United Nations
Economic Commission for Europe
(UNECE) as part of its pan-European environmental legal framework.
It is generally intended to lift the
veil of environmental secrecy and strengthen citizens’ environmental
rights. It has now been ratified
by Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Denmark, Estonia,
Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Romania, the former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Ukraine.
Recent ozone peaks have again highlighted the need for people
to have timely information about the
environment so that they can take precautions and keep their
vulnerable children indoors, for instance. The Aarhus Convention
aims to ensure that everyone has access to this type of information
and to prevent Governments from covering up environmental
disasters. This should prevent any repetition of the denials
and confusion that followed the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
The Convention also gives ordinary citizens a voice in any
decision-making that affects their environment, such as the
siting of toxic waste dumps. Finally, the Convention is intended
to ensure that public authorities and polluters that break
the rules can be challenged in court either by individuals
or by non-governmental organizations.
Welcoming the relatively swift progress made towards entry
into force since the Convention was adopted in 1998, the Secretary
to the Convention, Jeremy Wates, noted the particular importance
of the Convention to the countries with economies in transition:
"The Convention is not only a powerful weapon in the
struggle to protect the environment but also a tool for democracy.
Especially in countries which have recently introduced democratic
systems, it is of crucial importance to establish principles
of transparency, accountability and involvement of civil society
to ensure stability and security."
However, this does not mean that western countries are turning
their backs on environmental rights.
Several are known to be putting the final touches to legislation
to comply with the Convention and will, no doubt, be on board
by the time the Parties hold their first meeting. The European
Union has also vowed to apply the Convention to its institutions.
The Convention is the most far-reaching instrument promoting
environmental democracy under the
auspices of the United Nations. As a result, its entry into
force could prove to be an important input
to the so-called Rio + 10 Conference in Johannesburg in 2002.
The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan,
has suggested that the Rio + 10 Conference would be "a
timely occasion to examine the relevance of
the Aarhus Convention as a possible model for strengthening
the application of principle 10 [of the Rio
Declaration] in other regions of the world". 2
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