This project investigates the development of environmental rights in Armenia, in particular the implementation of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.

Increased transparency, stakeholder involvement and the establishment of new environmental governance practices is vital in the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus convention). Access to information, decision-making and justice is commonly referred to as the 'three pillars' in the discourse on environmental rights, and the Aarhus convention seeks to promote environmental democracy through a set of standards that are designed to be achievable across a large and politically diverse region.

The Republic of Armenia ratified the Aarhus convention in 2001. Armenia has overseen quite substantive efforts to implement the Aarhus convention and yet the Compliance Committee to the convention in 2008 concluded that Armenia fails to be in compliance with any of the three pillars. This PhD project investigates the development of environmental rights in Armenia and more specifically the implementation of the Aarhus convention along several dimensions.

The main research questions are:

1) How does the potential for redistribution of power through access to information, participation and justice collude with local attitudes, perceptions and entrenched practices within the environmental management sector and civil society in Armenia?

2) Are new forms of environmentality relevant for how Armenians relate to the state and their living environment?

3) How are processes related to environmental rights intertwined with already existing elite networks, webs of social relations and practices at the local level?

Project period: 2009-2017