The Aarhus convention and process cosmopolitanism

Duncan Weaver ()
Additional contact information
Duncan Weaver: Keele University

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 2018, vol. 18, issue 2, No 3, 199-213

Abstract: Abstract The convention on access to information, public participation in decision making and access to justice in environmental matters (Aarhus) celebrates its twentieth birthday in 2018, yet its ethical potential remains unexamined. This paper assesses its ethical potential via the ethico-normative lens of the English School of international relations, eliciting the degree of pluralism and solidarism evident. It first presents pluralism and solidarism as ideal types against which research objects are assessed. Second, it analyses Aarhus’ trinity of procedural rights, identifying solidarist potential whilst noting pluralist realities. Third, it casts Aarhus as exemplifying a nascent process cosmopolitanism, rendering sovereignty more responsible by enriching it with humanity, which here denotes a rudimentary sense of affinity between humans, irrespective of territorial identities, based on the rights shared by, and duties towards, one another. The paper concludes that Aarhus demonstrates the presence of, and contributes to, a solidarist international society, delineated by convention membership. If weaker cosmopolitanism accords equal concern to humans and stronger cosmopolitanism requires equal treatment, Aarhus demonstrates the feasibility of a stronger cosmopolitanism emerging in international environmental politics. Chiefly, Aarhus seeks to reduce imposed harm, suffered by humans who lack the knowledge and autonomy to influence decisions that affect them. Such headway is tentative, but this is welcomed as evolutionary reform coheres with the persistence of sovereign statehood. Aarhus’ cosmopolitanism, yielding a moderating influence on sovereignty, will not emerge without a stable framework in which states institutionalise it. International politics remains, but can be enriched by procedural approaches to foregrounding human rights, which states must accommodate to be deemed legitimate.

Keywords: Information access; Participation; Justice; Pluralism; Solidarism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10784-017-9369-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ieaple:v:18:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10784-017-9369-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10784

DOI: 10.1007/s10784-017-9369-6

Access Statistics for this article

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics is currently edited by Joyeeta Gupta

More articles in International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().