Aarhus Convention - National Implementation Report

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Public consultation is currently being sought by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government for Ireland's first National Implementation Report under 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, better known as the Aarhus Convention.

Background

The Convention was signed in Aarhus, Denmark in June 1998 and entered into force in October 2001. Ireland ratified the Aarhus Convention on the 20th June 2012. Public participation in decision-making under the Aarhus Convention has been implemented by Directive 2003/35/EC on public participation ('the Public Participation Directive'). Several pieces of legislation have been used to transpose the Public Participation Directive into Irish law.

The Aarhus Convention lays down a set of basic rules to promote citizen's involvement in environmental matters and improve enforcement of environmental law. Its provisions are broken down into three Pillars:

  1. Access to Environmental Information: the right of everyone to receive environmental information that is held by public authorities.
  2. Public Participation in Environmental Decision-Making: the right to participate in environmental decision-making.
  3. Access to Justice: the right to review procedures to challenge public decisions that have been made without respecting the two aforementioned rights or environmental law in general.

Public Participation

The views of the public are important as we can play a very important role in environmental protection and, in particular, the quality of decision-making related to the environment.

The purpose of this consultation is to provide the UNECE, the Aarhus Convention Secretariat and the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee with opinions on issues related to the implementation of the Aarhus Convention in Ireland. Anyone with an interest in the protection of the environmental is recommended to submit comments on the implementation of the Aarhus Convention into Irish law.
The draft report and a copy of the UNECE Aarhus Convention text are available below:

Preliminary Draft of Ireland's National Implementation Report 2014 – www.environ.ie/en/Environment/AarhusConvention/PublicConsultations/ 

Comments on the first phase of this public consultation should be submitted by email or received by post no later than 5pm on Friday 9th August 2013.

For more information, please go to www.environ.ie/en/Environment/AarhusConvention/PublicConsultations/ 
 

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