The Foundations of the Aarhus Convention: Environmental Democracy, Rights and Stewardship, EMILY BARRITT, Oxford: Hart, 2020, 188 pp., £70.00
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | SYNDA OBAJI |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12307 |
DOI: ./jo ls.
BOOK REVIEW
The Foundations of the Aarhus Convention:
Environmental Democracy, Rights and
Stewardship
EMILY BARRITT
Oxford: Hart, , pp., £.
With economic forces threatening the integrity of the earth’snatural systems, there have been sev-
eral attempts at national and international levels to enhance environmental protection. Among
the rules and principles set up to deal with environmental problems, those pertaining to access to
information, public participation in decision making, and access to justice in environmental mat-
ters play a crucial role.The Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in
Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (known as the Aarhus Conven-
tion) – having elaborated on the often vague and undetailed provisions on these proceduralrights
in numerous international environmental agreements – was the first international document to
create minimum standards for environmental procedural rights and has remained a force to be
reckoned with ever since.
This book, although titled The Foundations of the Aarhus Convention, does much more than
merely examine the development of the Convention, its scope, and its main provisions.In the f irst
place, it acknowledges that despite the merits of the Convention, it is not without its problems.
The Convention’s textual ambiguities and failure to adequately define the nature of some of its
stated purposes have led to questions about the precise meaning of those objectives, as well as
how they can be effectively implemented within national law.Recognizing the weak points in
the text of the Convention, this book answers questions and examines concepts that lie at the
heart of the goals that the Convention seeks to achieve. In essence, the author is concerned with
providing a deeper understanding of the Convention and the motivations and rationale behind
it, with a view to ensuring that it is implemented in the spirit in which its drafters intended. This
is certainly no mean feat, considering that there is a plethora of information in the explanatory
materials, commentary, and publications about the Convention, but very little that engages with
the meaning and scope of its purposes.
Against this background, the first two chapters set the contextfor the book. Chapter introduces
the Convention, describing the process of its development, its scope, and its main provisions. In
C. Poncelet, ‘Accessto Justice in Environmental Matters: Recent Developments’ () International Community Law
Rev..
M. Lee and C. Abbot, ‘The Usual Suspects? Public Participation under the Aarhus Convention’ () Modern Law
Rev. , at .
© The Author.Journal of Law and Society © Cardiff University Law School
J. Law Soc. ;:–. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jols 481
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