Right to Information about, and Involvement in, Environmental Decision Making along the Silk Road Economic Belt

Abstract

The ecological vulnerability of the regions within the Silk Road Economic Belt requires environmental protection. The infrastructure-pillared structure of the Belt and legal procedures on environmental impact assessment (EIA) of various infrastructures inform the article’s approach to environment protection along the Belt through the right to information about and involvement in environmental decision-making (the right to information and involvement). How to protect this right along the Belt? The rights-approach to environment, as the paper first examines, lead to an exploration of the social and historical background of the adoption of the Convention on Access TO Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention). Parties to the Aarhus Convention largely overlap with the countries within the Belt. Critical analysis of the EIA legislation and it in practice, and the contradiction within the principle of “public participation” reveal the inadequacy of formal legislation in protecting the right to information and involvement. A case study on informal participation in environmental decision-making in China illustrates the value of informal participation in protecting this right. Informal participation is forming a communicative form of environment governance in Singapore, in which the right to information and involvement is protected. This article argues that informal participation can facilitate the protection of the right to information and involvement along the Belt.