Public participation has become a recurring theme and a topical issue in the field of international environmental law, with many multilateral environmental instruments calling on states to guarantee effectively the concept in their laws and practices.This book focuses on public participation in environmental governance, in terms of public access to environmental information and public participation in environmental decision-making processes. Drawing on the body of international best practice principles in environmental law and taking a comparative stance, Uzuazo Etemire takes Nigeria as a key case, evaluating its procedural laws and practices in relation to public access to information and participation in decision-making in environmental matters. In working to clarify and deepen understanding of the current status of environmental public participation rights in Nigeria, the book addresses key issues in environmental governance for developing and transitional countries and the potential for public participation to improve the state of the environment and public wellbeing.Demonstrating the extensive transnational value of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention and its relevance even to non-Party states, Uzuazo Etemire uniquely utilises the regime in a non-UNECE context. Showing that its provisions largely indicate international best practice with respect to the subject-matter it deals with, the book employs the Convention, its implementation guidelines and decisions from the convention's Compliance Committee, amongst others, as a guide for assessing the adequacy of, and improving similar domestic regimes of an African and non-UNECE country.
