On Cracks, Lights and Environments

Abstract

Participatory rights have been the focus of global attention in recent years, as people have fought over access to courts in all things climate-related. Access to information has gained lesser attention, though it is a pivotal first step in holding the decision-makers accountable. In his volume, Sean Whittaker offers the reader a bird’s-eye view on how this aim is conceptualised, understood and executed in three different jurisdictions—England and Wales, the USA and China. Using legal transplant theory prospectively, he explores the potential of each solution to serve as a provider or receiver of transplants. Whittaker’s clear analysis delivers on the calls of contingent and ambitious comparative environmental law scholarship. In carefully examining the substantive and procedural cores of the access to environmental information right, Whittaker explores the details of the right and, by doing so, also presents a fine-tuned understanding of the global normativity of the Aarhus Convention.