Your Right to a Healthy Environment - UNECE

Environment Ministers from Europe and Central Asia exchange views with representatives of nongovernmentalorganizations, the judiciary and parliaments.rights. Governments increasingly recognize that environmental legislation will onlybe effective if individuals have a formal right to obtain environmental information,are empowered to participate fully in environmental decision-making and haveredress to the courts when necessary.Today’s environmental rights derive from a wide range of environmental laws andprinciples adopted over the past several decades. By the 1970s, internationaldeclarations and resolutions began to link environmental concerns explicitly tohuman rights. At the 1992 “Earth Summit”, governments adopted the landmarkRio Declaration; its Principle 10 stresses that “environmental issues are besthandled with participation of all concerned citizens”.To put this principle into practice, in 1995 the member States of the UnitedNations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) adopted the Sofia Guidelines.This document further elaborates the importance of public information, publicparticipation, and access to justice on environmental issues.Then, in 1998, governments took the further step of adopting the AarhusConvention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making