5 - The Right of Access to Environmental Information in the United States

Summary

Chapter 5 analyses how the United States’ environmental information regime, set out in the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 (FOIA), has guaranteed the right of access to environmental information. Similar to Chapter 4, this chapter provides an overview of the FOIA regime and concludes that the US’ conceptualisation of the right is different from that of the Aarhus Convention in two key ways: first, the FOIA regime is primarily based on promoting transparency rather than protecting the environment; second, the regime has adopted an identity-driven conceptualisation that emphasises the role of information disseminators. This alternative conceptualisation does operate to guarantee the core elements of the right, challenging the substantive normativity of the Aarhus Convention. However, the US also shares, and has adopted, various procedural elements from the Aarhus Convention, evidencing the procedural normativity of the Aarhus Convention.