Article 9 of the Aarhus Convention, its Transposition in the EU and its Interpretation by the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee and the Court of Justice of the European Union: In Search of an ‘EU Effect’?

The Aarhus Convention is an international instrument codifying the environmental procedural rights of access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice, to which both the EU and its Member States are parties. In 2023, the Convention celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday. Still, there are shortcomings in the implementation of the procedural rights contained in the Convention. Indeed, the increasing body of findings of non-compliance made by the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (hereinafter ACCC or ‘the Committee’) and the growing case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) prove that the implementation of the environmental procedural rights is not without any hurdles....