On The Right To Know Environmental Information

The Right to Know Environmental Information resulting from the context of the environmental crisis is a Procedural Environmental Rights. The environmental problems can be resolved more effectively by establishing and perfecting the Right to Know Environmental Information, breaking the traditional monopoly of governance environment from the government authority, strengthening the civil rights and the government authority with the positive interaction. This thesis mainly researches and analyzes the Right to Know Environmental Information systematically. Full-text is divided into four parts, which includes an overview of the Right to Know Environmental Information, the basis of the right produced, the value and role of the right and the cerebration to our system construction of the right.The first part is mainly an overview of the Right to Know Environmental Information. Due to a clear distinction among the environmental information with the political, economic, cultural and other forms of information and the environmental information has a wide-ranging implications on other forms of information. Therefore, it is necessary to explain the environmental information before analyzing the meaning of the Right to Know Environmental Information. The environmental information is the right meaning the citizen's right to know the country and their own state of the environment as well as national environmental regulation and other relevant environmental information. Specifically it includes environmental knowledge freely and environmental informed request. Early on the study of the right, some scholars continue their intense discussion emerged over the nature of it. Some scholars believe that it is not an independent right, it's the concrete embodiment of right to know in the environmental field, but some scholars hold the opposing opinion. Through the analysis of its upper right-Environmental Rights and the unique nature showed from environmental information, the Right to Know Environmental Information takes on a clear characteristics rather than simply a manifestation of the Right to Know. Study of a right is always from three parts of the angle: the subject, object and content, the same is true of the Right to Know Environmental Information. The traditional view believes that the Subject of Right refers only to the individual citizens. But with the changes and development in environmental issues, while some subjects, such as enterprises, other social organizations and even countries, are the main obligations of the principal, when they are subjected to environmental violations, they also have the conditions to become the subjects of rights. The environmental information is the only object of the Right to Know Environmental Information. The manifestations of environmental information is complex and diverse and the Content is also the all-inclusive. There is a need to make a definition of the scope for the environmental information in order to improve the applicability of right. The "Aarhus Convention" made outstanding contributions in this regard. To sum up the elements of environmental information, it can include three areas: the status of the environment, human activities exert specific effects on the environment and environmental impact on human reaction. The Right to Know Environmental Information is also a bundle of rights, which specifically includes three aspects: the Right to freedom of access to environmental information, the Right to claims of environmental information and the Right to damage of environmental information assistance.The second part is to analyze the basis generated by the Right to Know Environmental Information. From the theoretical foundation level, the right is seriously affected by the Theory of Sovereignty of the People first. Although the theory is in the scope of political theory, it is the basis of the theory of civil rights. Under the traditional "obligation-based" principle, when dealing with the issue of public interest, we are mostly strong constraints on government authority but neglect of public participation in power, which is contrary to the theory of popular sovereignty. In relation to the issue of widespread public interest such as environmental issues, on the one hand, the participation of public power can form a virtuous interaction with government authority, on the other hand, the government authority action can be supervised effectively, so as to achieve the end result of protecting the public interest. The Public Trust Theory comes from the United States, which provides a strong theoretical support for the solution for environmental problems. The environmental factors and other public resources are shared by all mankind, so citizens have the right to know and understand their resources information. The Right to Know Environmental Information is one kind of the Environment Right, so the Environment Right plays an important role in the foundation of the Right to Know Environmental Information. It is in the trend of establishing the Environment Right that the Right to Know Environmental Information is generated in its necessity and urgency. From a practical view at basic level, whether political progress or economic development or social progress also are inextricably linked with the environmental development. The deterioration of environmental condition is closely blind link with the economic development, both the vicious cycle make the environmental degradation to be the biggest obstacle for economic development. Therefore, the healthy economic development requires a good environment for doing support. With the changes in the political system, an increasing number of countries, have carried out the building of democracy, they attach importance to developing the people's democratic rights. Especially in the field of environment, they are also regard the construction and improvement of the people's rights system as the strong measures to resolve the current grim environment situation. After a large number of proven, public participation is an effective measure to solve the environmental problems, so the public participation is the focus on the development of the building the system when many countries were engaged in social reform. It has a major impact on the prevention and resolution of environmental issues.The third part is the analysis of the value and role of the Right to Know Environmental Information. The emergence and development of a right has its own value to guide. It can be said that the value plays a spiritual support role in the legal field. The role of the value runs through the entire period of the right development, different values have different role in guiding. The interests of the maintenance for citizens in the traditional environment because of the maintenance process with government, business and other subjects of these power confrontation has always been the position of the disadvantaged. This is obviously inconsistent with the concept of the legal value of fairness and justice. Therefore, the establishment of the Right to Know Environmental Information is the embodiment of justice, which is a strong guarantee of the citizen and the power confrontation to obtain the right to speak. Freedom is one of mankind's pursuit of the ultimate value. The purpose of setting the rules is also to guarantee the realization of their own liberal values. The environmental resources belong to all mankind, so human beings enjoy the freedom of using environmental resources. On the environment by showing a message, mankind also enjoy the freedom to Know. So in the case of an environmental crisis intensified, it is the manifestation of freedom to request such information in public in order to improve the environment for survival of mankind. "Nothing can be accomplished without norms or standards. "Order Value plays an important role in the process of human development. Human beings regulates the relationship between man and the environment as well as between each other through the order. While the environmental problem is a reflection of an imbalance between man and the environment, they still need the guidance of the order value to be improved. The generation of the Right to Know Environmental Information is inevitable and necessary. The Right to Know Environmental Information has an important role in the process of its emergence and development: First, it plays a role in the premise of building environment right system; Second, the right plays a leading role of development-oriented on the citizens' action; Third, it has an inhibitory effect on the industrial pollution; Fourth, it plays a supervisory role in government actions.The fourth part is on the improvement of our Right to Know Environmental Information System. After the "Rio Declaration" proposing the Right to Know Environmental Information and through the subsequent efforts of a number of international conventions, and later the" Aarhus Convention" in perfect, the development of the Right to Know Environmental Information System has been promoted gradually. Because of the economic early development, some developed countries abroad encountered the earlier threat of environmental problems, these countries also earlier proposed measures to cope with the problems within the context of legal system. In contrast, China's economic development started late, some related systems are not perfect in response to environmental issues. Compared with the international and foreign advanced legislation, our legislation outstanding performs as follows: a lower level for legislative, the law provides for a more decentralized, the regulation of corporate behavior and social norms of the organization are more lag, the relevant legislation is not strong operability and there is a lack of oversight of government actions. To this end, we should improve the problems above from the following aspects: First, we need to establish the Environment Right and the Right to Know Environmental Information clearly in law; Second, we need to strengthen corporate environmental responsibility and enhance the strength of non-governmental environmental protection organizations; Third, we need to improve the institutional system of public participation; Fourth, we need for greater clarity and improve the recognition of the environmental information; Fifth, we need to strengthen the supervision of the information disclosure action from the obligation subject.The establishment of the Right to Know Environmental Information has great significance in resolving the environmental problems and it is also our urgent needs to response to the environmental crisis.