Aarhus Convention

In 1998, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matter was formed and entered into force in 2001. This UNECE Convention was a part of the "Environment for Europe" process and took place in Aarhus, Denmark. Overall, there are 47 parties to the Convention which are required to "guarantee the rights of access to information, public participation in decision-making, and access to justice in its environmental matters". This means:
 * 1) The right to access environmental information entails that citizens or organizations can request information from public authorities on the state of the environment, policies relating to it, or the state of human health and safety that may be related to environmental factors. Public authorities are also required to release any envrionmental information in their possession
 * 2) Public authorities are required to enable the public affected and environmental non-governmental organisations to comment on decisions and take those comments into consideration.
 * 3) If the two previous stipulations have been overlooked, the public has the right to review procedures to challenge those public decisions.