Strengthening and protecting young people’s involvement in EU environmental justice: The 1998 Aarhus Convention

This paper aims to spotlight the role that the 1998 Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters can play not only in preserving the fundamental rights of young environmental activists even in exceptional, pandemic contexts, but also in exploring how young people individually and collectively engaged in environmental justice can benefit from its provisions at the EU level. To this end, this contribution also intends to assess the impacts of the recently released Commission proposal to facilitate civil society’s involvement in EU environmental policy and review, also highlighting the opportunity of the Commission to fruitfully engage the young public in fostering the climate transition at the core of the European Green Deal.