In the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union, environmental rights are declared in the constitutions and in subsequent legislation. Nevertheless, many of these rights exist only on paper and are not upheld in practice because the countries lack a tradition of participatory democracy.
In fact, environmental rights existed on paper during the more than 70 years of Soviet rule, but in most cases the public was prohibited from standing up for these rights. The only way the public could get involved in environmental protection was to assist state authorities in carrying out environmental measures that were determined by the state and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). It was not possible for the public to influence governmental decisions because the decisions were made without any transparency. Furthermore, criticizing the government was often dangerous, and, of course, the idea of suing a governmental body was absurd.
Although some gaps still exist in the current legislation of the NIS, especially compared with the legislation of Western countries and with international standards, the public now has the power and the possibility to effect great changes in environmental protection and to build a society based on the rule of law. Unfortunately, the public in the NIS is not aware of all the rights and possibilities guaranteed by the laws. The low level of public environmental and legal awareness, the lack of courage to use the given legal tools to protect citizen rights and the ongoing economic struggles all contribute to the weak implementation of environmental protection measures. The process is further impeded by government officials, who also show little awareness of environmental needs and who prefer to make decisions without public participation. The court system cannot offer much relief because it has not yet grown into its role as an independent branch of power, and because court defense of citizens' environmental rights is a rather new phenomenon in the NIS.
Despite the given setbacks, a number of publications have led to progress in the region. The Manual on Public Participation in Environmental Decisionmaking in Central and Eastern Europe, prepared and published by the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) in English in 1994 and later in a series of local-language manuals, has been an important tool in promoting public participation in the NIS. The report Status of Public Participation Practices in Environmental Decisionmaking in Central and Eastern Europe, also published by the REC in 1995, further encouraged the development of public participation practices. A few locally-produced publications also played a part. The manual "What Environmental Rights of Citizens Are and How to Protect Them Using the Law" was prepared by the public-interest law firm Ecopravo-Lviv in Ukraine and published in 1997 with financial assistance from the Central and Eastern European Environmental Law Initiative of the American Bar Association. A similar manual was also prepared and published by Ecojuris in Russia.
This current survey of the institutional framework and practice of public participation in environmental decisionmaking in the NIS is part of the "Road to Aarhus" project organized by the REC and sponsored by the Danish Government. This report was managed by the NGO Ecopravo-Lviv, and it includes the efforts of authors from five selected countries of the region: Armenia, Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. Nearly all the authors are public-interest lawyers.
The individual country reports were prepared by Aida Iskoyan; Oleg Cherp and Elena Krasney; Ilya Trombitsky, Valeriy Lebedev and Iulia Trombitscaja; Olga Razbash; and Irina Tustanovska and Dmitriy Skrylnikov. The regional overview and preface were prepared by professor Svitlana Kravchenko, the president of Ecopravo-Lviv and the coordinator of the project.
This volume is also part of a series of publications that attempts to draw conclusions on a pan-European level by taking an overview of trends and practices in the NIS countries, Central and Eastern European region and the Western countries. The series is being prepared through a cooperative effort by the REC, the European Environmental Bureau and Ecopravo-Lviv based on surveys from 15 CEE countries, 5 NIS countries and 11 Western European countries. The concept and outline of the project was discussed by the REC Public Participation Working Group including NGO and governmental experts from the NIS, CEE and the West. (See more about the methodology on page 7). Jeremy Wates, Fe Sanchis Moreno (EEB) and Magda Toth Nagy (REC) were the major project partners of Ecopravo-Lviv involved in the European-wide cooperation and coordination of regional activities.
The present volume was published in cooperation with the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe. Experts from REC's Public Participation Program, Marianna Bolshakova and Magda Toth Nagy assisted with content editing of the country reports and coordinating publishing. English language editing and proofreading was done by Michael Lindsay, Daniel McAdams and Reuben Stern. Sylvia Magyar coordinated desktop publishing and printing with the help of Laszlo Falvay, Cynthia Fedler and Craig Snelgrove.
I would like to thank them all for their dedication and commitment.
Svitlana Kravchenko
Ecopravo-Lviv