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Public Participation in Environmental Matters: A Consultation
Introduction
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, at its Convention at Aarhus, Denmark in 1998, created a framework for public access to environmental matters to which over fifty countries subscribed. UK was one of those and the UK government expects to advise the UN shortly of the arrangement that its authorities have made to implement the Convention's provisions.
However, the European Union, itself a signatory to the Convention, has adopted two Directives as a basis for its Member States' transposition of the provisions. Scottish Ministers are committed to implementing the provisions of the Directives in Scotland and hence contribute to UK ratification of the Convention.
The first part of the Convention dealt with public access to environmental information. An EU-led regime had operated in UK since 1992. EU Directive 2003/4/EC of 28 th January 2003 provided a new Aarhus-based text to update the regime. Scottish Ministers have recently transposed the Directive in new Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004. These came into effect on 1 st January 2005 alongside the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
The second part of Aarhus provides for public participation in decisions on specific activities and also for public participation concerning plans, programmes and polices relating to the environment. The public participation provisions of the Aarhus Convention are set out in the Public Participation Directive 2003/35/EC. New Scottish legislation is prepared with the requirements of the Aarhus Convention and the Public Participation Directive in mind. However, Scottish Ministers need to amend certain provisions within existing legislation in order to fully comply with the Directive. It is these amendments that are the subject of this consultation paper. In Section 3 we discuss the participation of environmental NGOs in procedures for IPPC permitting and access to justice.
Government, public authorities and other bodies frequently take decisions which may have a significant effect on the environment, as well as on public health and wellbeing. Effective public participation in environmental decision-making enables the public to express, and the decision-maker to take proper account of, opinions and concerns which may be relevant to the decisions. This increases the quality, accountability and transparency of the decision-making process and contributes to public awareness of environmental issues.
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