Webinar 3: Access to environmental information – How to tackle contentious exceptions

The webinar “Access to environmental information – how to tackle contentious exceptions” was held on December 5th 2019.
It was organised by ClientEarth within the EARL A2J project and intended for public interest lawyers, judges, public authorities and NGOs.

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Presenters : Anne Friel & Sebastian Bechtel, “Environmental Democracy” Programme, ClientEarth

In this webinar, we discussed in detail the exceptions that EU institutions and national public authorities most often rely on to refuse access to environmental information, and equip participants with legal arguments to challenge refusals.

We dealt with the following specific exceptions, discussing what the law says, how this has been developed in the case law and providing case examples:

• Refusal to disclose information on the basis of an ongoing internal decision-making procedure;
• Refusal to disclose information on the basis of protecting commercial interests;
• Refusal to disclose information on the basis of protecting the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits;
• Exception to the exception: Information on emissions into the environment.

Watch the webinar