Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters

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Aarhus Convention
Start date:	1998
Scope:	Global
Policy area:	Environment
Legal status:	Legally binding
Type of instrument:	Regulatory
Form of instrument:	Convention
Language:	English, French
URL:	Aarhus Convention website
Format:	html
Access:	Free
Publisher:	UNECE
Country(ies):	USA
Date:	3/11/2011

The Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention) lays down precise rights and duties regarding access to information, including deadlines for providing information and the grounds on which public authorities may refuse access to certain types of information.

Objective	To keep citizens informed about and involved in environmental matters and to improve the application of environmental legislation
Target	Public access to environmental information
Policy and/or legal framework	Fourth Ministerial Conference in the 'Environment for Europe' process
Monitoring, assessing and reporting	Meeting of the Parties
Linkage(s) to policy processes, instruments and institutions	UNECE, EU, UNITAR, UNEP, UNDP, REC, NATO
Main formal decision making body	Meeting of the Parties
Main implementing body	Community institutions or bodies
Keywords	Aarhus Convention, environmental policy and legislation, environmental information, information services, public participation, access to information

FOREST EUROPE criteria	FOREST EUROPE indicators	ToSIA indicators
Overall policies, institutions and instruments for sustainable forest management	Informational means	No ToSIA indicators for this Policy process and instrument