LIFE Better Enforcement

Introduction

The BeLIFE project focuses on the role citizens and civil society can play in the enforcement of and compliance assurance with European Environmental Law, specifically the European Green Deal.

Project Goals

The overall goal of the proposed project is to improve compliance with EU environmental and climate law and to strengthen environmental democracy rights. The European Green Deal has introduced a host of new and updated pieces of legislation which increase the standards of environmental and climate protection throughout Europe.

Challenges in Implementation

It is fair to say that one challenge, if not the biggest, of the EU environmental law acquis, is its implementation. The proposed project will contribute to enabling private compliance assurance and enforcement.

Tools for Empowerment

Through giving individuals and NGOs the tools to obtain access to justice and to enforce their rights to obtain environmental information and to participate in environmental decision-making, the project will support European-wide environmental governance. These tools are enshrined as environmental democracy rights in the UN Aarhus Convention to which the EU and all its Member States are party.

Horizontal Contribution

Rather than focusing on compliance of one single aspect of environmental and climate law, the project aims to make a horizontal contribution to compliance of the whole European Green Deal. The intervention logic is based on the assumption that empowered individuals and civil society will exercise their environmental democracy rights to assure better compliance with EU environmental and climate law.

Empowering Citizens

The project aims at influencing the “rules of the game” and to empower people to use the law for the benefit of the environment and climate.

Consortium Composition

The consortium is made up of four Pan-European environmental NGOs, each representing vast networks of NGOs. It will aim to:

1. Improve the available resources on environmental democracy rights.
2. Build capacity of environmental and climate defenders.
3. Improve the quality of environmental rights complaints.