Access to justice in environmental matters – developments at EU levelJean-François Brakeland This article highlights the recent judicial and legislative activities at European Union ("EU") level relating to access to justice in environmental matters, undertaken to ensure compliance with the obligations of the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, signed 15 years ago at Aarhus in Denmark ("the Aarhus Convention").As this article will show, most of the recent progress towards full implementation of the "3rd pillar" of this "Driving Force for Environmental democracy" has come from the EU court system, thanks to the close cooperation between national courts, including at the highest level, and the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. The question that is now open is therefore whether the evolution will continue to be purely judge-made, or whether the EU legislators in Brussels and Strasbourg will now step in the debate, as proposed by the European Commission since 2003.
