EU Citizens Need Free Access to EU Laws

Page 25 EU ages greater awareness of issues afecting the environment and increases public participation in decision-making. Educating the population stimulates citizen activism to pressure industry, enabling a more sophisticated analysis of environmental impacts of products and services to ensure climate-friendlier manufacturing practices. Institutions and world-leading conferences have shown the urgency of access to accurate information in the EU and in the wider world. In 1998 the Aarhus Convention was signed, ensuring access to information, public participation in decision-making, and access to justice in environmental matters. Te Convention is one of the most important international environmental agreements to which the EU is a party, encouraging compliance through non-judicial means and providing for a compulsory state-to-state dispute settlement mechanism. It guarantees everyone the right to receive environmental information held by public authorities, including information on the state of the environment, human health and safety, policies or measures, the right to participate in environmental decision-making, and the right to challenge public decisions that are non-compliant with environmental law. One of the key mechanisms that facilitates compliance with the Convention is the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC), a non-judicial consultative body that is empowered to review the conformity of members with the Convention, amongst other things, based on communications with the public. Te Committee issues its recommendations to the Meeting of the Parties, which is responsible for determining appropriate measures to ensure such compliance with the Convention by the party concerned. Tus, the ACCC gives both citizens and environmental organizations an independent and external means of addressing compliance with the Convention. As part of the Aarhus Convention and its incorporation under EU law, the European Union sets an important example of providing access to information that strengthens the access to justice in environmental matters. Disturbingly, despite the comprehensive and efective regulations of international law already in place, this crucial public access to environmental information is not always guaranteed. Tis was exposed by the recent legal action taken by two NGOs: Right to Know Clg and Public.Resources.org. Te Irish NGO Right to Know Clg defends the rights of citizens to access information, The access to information and to strengthen democracy and trans- parency, while the US-based not-for- legislation is one of the most basic proft public charity Public.Resources. org was established to make govern- principles of our democratic society, an ment information more broadly avail- NGOs requested to inherent part of the rule of law, able. Together, both view public safety standards, includ- toys, such as the which the EU commission is flatly ing the safety of composition of children’s chemical sets present in products denying in the case at hand. and the chemicals such as fnger paint. Tese kinds of stan- upon by a private Access to information is a dards are agreed body called the European Committee (CEN), which then widely-regarded international human for Standardisation sells the agreed standards for prof- NGO’s complaints, rights norm. it. Regarding the the European Commission refused to give the requested information, disclosing that the standards could be purchased from the CEN and that, due to copyright issues, they were not available for gratuitous publication. Of course, this refusal is incredibly problematic: following the European Court of Justice in James Elliott Construction (C-613/14), harmonized standards, such as those requested by the two NGOs, or references to such standards, form part of EU law. Tus, in the commencing proceedings, the NGOs will argue that no copyright protection of these requested harmonized standards is possible because they are part of EU law. Te standards lack originality and therefore do not beneft from copyright protection; and the EU commission did not actually demonstrate the alleged undermining of the commercial interest of the standardization organization. More importantly, however, as the NGOs put forward, the concepts of the rule of

EU Page 26 law and fundamental rights require free access to the laws of the European Union. Tey argued that the requested standards contained environmental information - in particular, information on emissions into the environment which therefore must be released under the Aarhus Convention. Reviewing the facts of the case at hand, one must ask - how odd is it that EU citizens must pay for access to environmental information (which should be available for free and without restriction on re-use or dissemination) due to the fact that it forms part of EU law? How can we satisfy our duty as EU citizens when we cannot even access the laws that we agreed to adhere to? With the initialization of proceedings against the EU Commission, the two NGOs are drawing attention to an even wider problem than the “mere” denial of access to environmental information and the breach of the Aarhus Convention: to adhere to the law everyone needs to know what it is. Te access to information and legislation is one of the most basic principles of our democratic society, an inherent part of the rule of law, which the EU commission is fatly denying in the case at hand. Access to information is a widely-regarded international human rights norm. In fact, Article 19 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights and Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights both state that the right to freedom of expression includes not only freedom to “impart information and ideas of all kinds,” but also the freedom to “seek,” “impart,” and “receive” them “regardless of frontiers.” An earlier decision of the European Court of Human Rights (Magyar Helsinki Bizottság v Hungary) roots the right to access to information in Article 10 of the ECHR, holding that it includes “the right to receive and impart information and the right to freedom to hold opinions.” Access to information is also the prerequisite to the facilitating of access to justice, one of the most important fundamental rights that encompasses the core principles of democratic governance: participation, transparency, and accountability. Access to justice maintains peace within society, as it afords us a better alternative to violence in resolving personal and political disputes. It enables democracy to function as it gives life to our laws. It gives us the opportunity to amend and change our laws, and to speak up about injustices within the law. Informed debate is the lifeblood of democracy, and it is only possible if individuals of the public have access to information, enabling them to avail of the justice system. By denying access to the requested information, it can be argued that the EU Commission is not only breaching the Aarhus Convention, but that it is also breaching international human rights norms for access to information. Te overall mechanism involving the CEN suggests that those norms ensuring the rule of law are constantly disregarded. Justice must be served, and this mechanism must change in the upcoming General Court’s decision in the Right to Know andPublic.Resources.orgcase against the EU Commission. EU citizens absolutely need free access to EU laws. We need access to environmental information as well as to all other kinds of information, to ensure that the right to access to justice is completely fulflled.

EU v Big Tech

Orla Murnaghan SS Law and Political Science

When Germany assumed its Presidency of the Council of the EU in July 2020, its use of the phrase “European digital sovereignty” gained considerable traction across the continent. Tis particular manifesto point of Angela Merkel’s government, which references the growing importance of a coordinated approach in the EU’s struggle against the dominance of Big Tech, is more than a mere paying of lip service to Brussels. President of the European Commission, Ursula Von Der Leyen - a self-professed “tech optimist” - has previously argued that technology can ultimately be a force for good. And while this statement undisputedly holds weight - with innovation making every facet of life more fun, convenient, and even safer - it seems that the EU is becoming increasingly aware of the encroaching infuence held by a handful of American “Big Tech” companies in almost every sphere of the human experience. Tese tensions, bleeding through the cracks to become frmly embedded in every legislative action passed by the Commission, are in a much wider sense rapidly transforming