An Assessment of Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Decision-making in Asia-Pacific - Technical Briefing Paper prepared for Expert Meeting on Human Rights and the Environment

The objective of this assessment is to provide an overview of good practices that have emerged in relation to the implementation, protection and promotion of procedural access rights to enable the right to a safe, clean healthy and sustainable environment. The scope of the assessment covers the provision of access rights and the development of an enabling environment for the exercise of those rights. The report also provides some references to the role of environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) as these are both important mechanisms for the implementation of access rights. Lessons learned from the implementation of EIA and SEA can assist in the development of the broader application of access rights. This report broadly covers the good practices, advancements, issues and challenges of access rights in Asia-Pacific, but further detailed investigation and analysis are warranted. The report makes some broad recommendations on the way forward for the discussion of these achievement of these rights in the ESCAP Region, and more specifically in the ASEAN sub-region.