Amending the Aarhus Regulation: an internal review mechanism that complies with international law

The document argues that the European Commission's proposal to amend the Aarhus Regulation contains loopholes that would leave the EU in breach of the Aarhus Convention. It specifically criticizes the exclusion of acts requiring national implementing measures and state aid decisions from internal review. The paper proposes amendments to broaden the scope of reviewable acts, ensure that costs of litigation are not prohibitive for NGOs, and explicitly link the Regulation to the EU's international obligations under the Aarhus Convention.

• The European Union is currently in breach of the Aarhus Convention because environmental NGOs lack an effective review mechanism to challenge EU decisions that contravene environmental law.
• The Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC) has stated that the Commission's proposal to amend the Aarhus Regulation would fail to bring the EU into compliance with the Convention unless it is significantly revised.
• The Commission's proposal excludes EU acts that explicitly require 'national implementing measures', a provision the ACCC identifies as a breach of the Aarhus Convention.
• The proposal continues to exclude Commission state aid decisions from internal review, despite these decisions significantly impacting the energy market and environmental law compliance.
• The current wording of the proposal limits internal review to acts with 'legally binding and external effects', which the authors argue has led to unjustified refusals of review requests in the past.
• There is a risk that the costs of public interest litigation before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) are prohibitive for NGOs, particularly when EU bodies hire private law firms and seek to pass those costs to unsuccessful applicants.

APA

ClientEarth (n.d.). Amending the Aarhus Regulation: an internal review mechanism that complies with international law. https://www.clientearth.org/media/pqcmb3hc/position-paper_clientearth-eeb-je_aarhus-regulation_2021-03-02_final_clean.pdf

Chicago

ClientEarth. Amending the Aarhus Regulation: an internal review mechanism that complies with international law. n.d. https://www.clientearth.org/media/pqcmb3hc/position-paper_clientearth-eeb-je_aarhus-regulation_2021-03-02_final_clean.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=ClientEarth |title=Amending the Aarhus Regulation: an internal review mechanism that complies with international law |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/pqcmb3hc/position-paper_clientearth-eeb-je_aarhus-regulation_2021-03-02_final_clean.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{clientearthndamending, author = {{ClientEarth}}, title = {{Amending the Aarhus Regulation: an internal review mechanism that complies with international law}}, publisher = {ClientEarth}, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/pqcmb3hc/position-paper_clientearth-eeb-je_aarhus-regulation_2021-03-02_final_clean.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }