The Aarhus Convention entered into force more than 20 years ago. It lays down the pillars of environmental democracy, that is a governance systems where citizens and civil society organisations are fully involved in the decisions affecting the environment we all live in. On the one hand the Convention drew on the experience of those jurisdictions where environmental concerns run deeper. On the other hand, once enacted, it was expected to bring about important changes in those jurisdictions wh...

The background to this collection of papers is formed by the changes in contemporary society. In modern-day western societies it is thought that individualism trumps collectivism. There is change from the paradigm of hierarchy to a paradigm of cooperation. This affects administrative law, which is traditionally top-down, but is slowly accepting and incorporating mechanisms of negotiation and bottom-up involvement of stakeholders and concerned individuals.

The contributors to this volume inves...