On 17 March 2006, the Argentine-based NGO Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA) requested information from the Finnish Government on a pulp factory project in Uruguay. Five weeks later, CEDHA received an official response from the Ministry of Environment and a separate response from Finnvera, an independent limited company wholly owned by Finland, which is processing the grant of an export credit to the project.
The responses were forwarded to CEDHA by the Finnish National Focal Point to the Aarhus Convention. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
The Finnish Government said it saw no need to evaluate which of the information requested by CEDHA belonged within the scope of environmental information and which was outside that scope. “The provisions of the Convention relating to environmental information have been implemented by the Act on the Openness of Government Activities and the regulations given under this Act,” the Ministry noted. The Act on Openness of Government has a broader scope and covers all the categories of information.
Although Finland's national languages are Finnish and Swedish, the Ministry of the Environment provided an unofficial English translation of its response to CEDHA, in addition to its official response in Finnish. CEDHA's original request had been submitted in English.
The Aarhus Convention guarantees the public rights to access information, participate in decision-making and have access to justice in environmental matters without discrimination as to citizenship, nationality or domicile. In the case of a civic association (“legal person”), these rights are without discrimination as to where it has its registered seat or an effective centre of its activities.
"By answering our request, Finland has upheld the important principle of non-discrimination between NGOs working internationally to protect environmental interests", said Victor Hugo Ricco, coordinator of CEDHA's access to information and public participation programme.
(Revised 12 May 2006)
