We ensure that existing environmental law is enforced by fighting for access to justice for environmental organizations and individuals and coordinating legal proceedings. In doing so, we also give the courts the opportunity to contribute to social transformation.
Environmental law is enforced because there are comprehensive rights to information and participation and broad access to the courts. These rights are valued by society. In With GLI, the international Aarhus Convention, which secures these rights, has a strong advocate in Germany.
We pursue our objectives through various complementary projects:
For several years, we have been campaigning for the necessary reform of the Environmental Appeals Act. This law serves to implement the Aarhus Convention in Germany, an international treaty that aims to strengthen civil society participation in environmental matters. The Environmental Appeals Act regulates the legal recognition of environmental associations and their participation in environmental proceedings. It also gives them the right to take legal action in cases of violations of existing environmental law. The Environmental Appeals Act has been reformed several times, but continues to fall short of the requirements of the Aarhus Convention because it still restricts the rights of associations and thus civil society participation. Further reform is therefore necessary. GLI, in cooperation with other environmental organizations and our members who are lawyers, has submitted a proposal for reforming the law.
Since 2022, we have been hosting the Green Legal Lab every year: a practical training course lasting several weeks that matches young jurists with experienced environmental lawyers and representatives of environmental associations. Participants work in small groups of four to seven people to address a specific legal issue relating to the environment. An environmental association acts as the client. For the organizations, the Lab is a legal testing ground where they can submit a specific environmental problem with one or more related questions and receive one or more legal answers. The Lab is explicitly designed to offer the opportunity to move away from specific individual cases and focus on the broader environmental legal context and medium- and long-term legal strategies.
We launched the Climate Helpdesk in collaboration with FragdenStaat. The helpdesk provides support in accessing environmental information. We help with submitting requests, offer legal assistance, connect stakeholders, and advise on campaigns and research.
The basis for environmental-related inquiries is the Environmental Information Act (UIG). It gives everyone the right to obtain environmental information from government agencies. Our Climate Helpdesk helps people to exercise this right to information.
Would you like to submit a request under the Environmental Information Act and have a question beforehand? Or do you have a campaign idea on the topic of freedom of information, climate, and the environment and would like to discuss it? Just send us an email!
To climate[at]fragdenstaat.de
The Public Participation Forum, organized twice a year in cooperation with the Independent Institute for Environmental Issues (Unabhängiges Institut für Umweltfragen e.V.), is an information and exchange platform for full-time and volunteer representatives of environmental associations.
There are no current English language publications, for a full list of our publications please visit Publikationen.