Implementing the "Access Principles": Measuring Nine Countries' Progress in Strengthening Environmental Governance

At the 1992 Earth Summit, 178 governments committed to an idea with profound implications for sustainable development: Every person should have access to information about the environment, opportunities to participate in decision-making processes affecting the environment, and access to justice, including redress and remedy. Articulated in Principle 10 of the Summit’s Rio Declaration (see Box 1), these three “access principles” represent fundamental global norms of equitable and environmentally sound decision-making.

Principles of effective governance—such as transparency, inclusiveness, and accountability—are increasingly recognized as a key factor supporting sustainable development. Moreover, accumulating evidence suggests that public participation in decision-making can improve the quality as well as the acceptance of resulting decisions.

A Unique Approach to Measuring Progress

To what extent have the access principles been integrated in national laws and policies and implemented on the ground? In 2001, research teams in nine countries—Chile, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, and the United States—set out to answer this question. The teams used a common methodology on a pilot basis to assess their governments’ performance in meeting the Rio commitment. Their work was conducted under the auspices of The Access Initiative, a global coalition of civil society groups seeking to promote public access to information, participation, and justice in decision-making affecting the environment.

The research efforts in the nine countries shared two objectives: to identify the strengths and weaknesses of specific national systems of public participation in environmental decision-making, and to test the methodology and evaluate the usefulness of the assessment tool itself.

The approach used by the research teams is unique. It assesses environmental governance in practice as well as in law. It combines original data produced at the national level with independent assessment and application in multiple countries. Use of this methodology produces indicators of performance both in law and in practice.

Because the methodology was somewhat tailored by national teams to their national circumstances, the results do not support overall cross-country rankings. Rather, the intent was to evaluate progress in individual countries using a globally applicable tool based on a common framework. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify areas of relative strength and weakness in national implementation of the access principles, which are summarized in the Access Scorecard (see Figure 1). Because of the diversity of geography, economics, and cultural and political traditions encompassed by the nine pilot countries, collectively their results provide a snapshot of global progress.

• Pilot application of this innovative methodology indicates that diverse national systems of public participation can be assessed within a common framework. Teams from nine countries representing different legal traditions, cultural and political conditions, income levels, development paths, and economic dependency on natural resources were able to apply the methodology, with only relatively minor modifications to capture unique national circumstances.

• While significant progress has been made in implementing Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration, much remains to be done. Most countries have put in place the basic elements of a legal framework to support public access to environmental information, but specific gaps in law and practice were identified in every country studied.

• Implementation is uneven across the three access principles. In most of the pilot countries, governments perform best in law and in practice in providing access to information; they perform less well in facilitating participation and least well in providing access to justice.

• Legal frameworks supportive of the access principles are rapidly evolving. For example, one pilot country (Mexico) passed a Freedom of Information Act while the assessment was underway and another (India) approved such legislation in December 2002.

• Improvements in practice lag behind improvements in law. In most of the pilot countries, the institutional infrastructure necessary to implement the access principles is insufficient.

• Access to information is strong in high-profile emergencies that threaten public health. For example, the quality and accessibility of information provided to the public after a volcano eruption in Mexico, cyanide pollution of a river in Hungary, and cholera outbreaks in South Africa and Uganda were highly rated.
  
• Pilot countries perform well in providing reports on the state of the environment. Most of the pilot country governments have produced such reports regularly over the past decade, providing citizens with data on various environmental trends in a manner that is accessible to the nonexpert.

• Access to information about air and water quality is mixed. Several governments make air quality information publicly available on a daily basis through the popular press and/or on the Internet, but the pilot countries scored weaker in providing access to information on water quality.

• Access to information about private industrial facilities is particularly weak. In most of the pilot countries, citizens cannot obtain information about the compliance of companies, and especially individual facilities, with pollution emission standards.

• Access to justice is hampered by unclear laws. In most of the nine pilot countries, the legal and regulatory framework governing access to information and participation does not provide an adequate legal basis for citizens to seek redress.
  
• Access to justice is constrained by limited mechanisms for redress. In fewer than half the decision-making processes reviewed were administrative or judicial processes available for citizens to contest the resulting decisions.

• High costs are an effective barrier to access to justice. While the costs of administrative and court fees varied across the pilot countries (and in some countries could be waived for individuals or public interest groups), expenses for legal representation were prohibitive in many cases.

• Lack of government capacity constrains implementation of the access principles. Many lapses in providing access to information, participation, and justice can be attributed to a lack of government capacity, including staff, equipment, procedures, and training.
  
• Lack of capacity in civil society also constrains performance. Governments in most of the pilot countries are investing in environmental education programs, but performance is less impressive in providing civil society with accessible, comprehensive information about agencies charged with information disclosure or decision-making.

• Media attention and public scrutiny spur improved performance. Evidence suggests that governments anticipating or reacting to media and public scrutiny do more to provide public access to information and participation.

• The international community has a key role to play in supporting improved national performance. Integrating the access principles in international agreements and the operations of multilateral institutions is an important means of strengthening access, along with donor assistance for environmental monitoring, reporting, and other activities supportive of the access principles.

These findings and conclusions suggest several recommendations for action by a variety of stakeholders operating in both national and international policy arenas (see Box 2). Taken together, these recommendations constitute an agenda for accelerating implementation of Principle 10.