Public participation in decision-making and access to justice in EC environmental law: the case of certain plans and programmes

Article abstract:

This article outlines public awareness, public participation and access to judicial review as concepts of international and EC environmental law, as means of enforcement of EC environmental law against Member States and as remedies against political perceptions of 'democratic deficit' in EC environmental decision-making. As an illustration the article examines in comparative detail Directive 2001/42/EC on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment which establishes procedures for Strategic Environmental Assessment, i.e. environmental assessment of public plans or programmes which are likely to have significant environmental effects, and serves as a de facto implementation of Article 7 of the 1998 UN/ECE Aarhus Convention into EC law.
The analysis suggests that the precision and substantive contents of the Directive are legally insufficient to implement the Convention's requirements of effective public participation and access to judicial review before the Court of First Instance and the European Court of Justice, and makes suggestions for EC legislative and/or judicial action to allow for a wider admissibility of private actions in the field of public interest litigation of EC environmental law than afforded by the standing ECJ interpretation of the Treaty of the European Communities Article 230(4).