The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, usually known as the Aarhus Convention, was signed on June 25, 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus. It entered into force on 30 October 2001. As of July 2009, it had been signed by 40 (primarily European and Central Asian) countries and the European Union and ratified by 41 countries. It had also been ratified by the European Community, which has begun applying Aarhus-type principles in its legislation, notably the Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC).
The Aarhus Convention grants the public rights regarding access to information, public participation and access to justice, in governmental decision-making processes on matters concerning the local, national and transboundary environment. It focuses on interactions between the public and public authorities.
Read more about Aarhus Convention: Content
Famous quotes containing the word convention:
“No convention gets to be a convention at all except by grace of a lot of clever and powerful people first inventing it, and then imposing it on others. You can be pretty sure, if you are strictly conventional, that you are following genius—a long way off. And unless you are a genius yourself, that is a good thing to do.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)