As underlined by the EU`s Hydrogen Strategy for a Climate Neutral Europe and the REPowerEU programme, the development of a hydrogen economy is considered of strategic importance for the achievement of the EU Climate goals by both the EU and several of its Member States. As for any socio-technical transition, the development of the hydrogen economy requires careful policy and regulatory drafting, as well as the concrete implementation of projects affecting the living environment of people. Public participation is mandated under international, European and national law to ensure that the hydrogen economy best fits within the environmental and societal needs of the interested regions. This chapter uses the first fully fledged hydrogen valley in Europe as a case study to map the participatory requirements that should be applied in the development of a hydrogen economy and to show how these requirements have not been (fully) respected so far. In doing so, the chapter will provide data for comparative purposes and for the further development of the conceptual and applied frameworks for the hydrogen economy.

This chapter examines practical forms of citizen engagement occurring in collective problem-solving efforts such as civic enterprises, grassroots initiatives, and self-help groups. Drawing empirical evidence from diverse policy fields, it articulates the distinct experimental and disruptive policy work that citizens enact in these citizens’ governance spaces and challenges dominant interpretations that view them as either a testament to the capacity of citizens to effectively solve complex public problems or a symptom of advanced neoliberalism where states off-load complex problems onto citizens. The chapter moves beyond this dualism to consider the motivations, challenges, available resources, and distinct democratic work enacted by citizens in these spaces of bottom-up governance. It also discusses issues of growth and sustainability over time as well as the implications posed for conventional state and civil society institutions. Citizens’ governance spaces offer important lessons – in terms of both potential benefits and risks – for the project of deepening the quality and reach of citizen participation in modern democratic systems.

The Escazú Agreement has brought a myriad of environmental rights and duties to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), including the recognition of a right to a healthy environment and rights of environmental defenders. As a new agreement, the task of implementing the Escazú Agreement still lies ahead. Significantly, a non-judicial, non-punitive, consultative and transparent Committee to support Implementation and Compliance was established as a subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to promote implementation. Concomitantly, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognised an autonomous right to a healthy environment, establishing it as directly justiciable within the Inter-American System of Human Rights (IASHR). This chapter draws on comparative law to understand the non-compliance and judicial mechanisms available under the IASHR and Escazú, with an especial focus on the right to a healthy environment. Given the broad reach of the regional recognition available in LAC, what are the best mechanisms to use the right to prevent environmental harm? And how does this broad endeavour relate to the need to ensure that parties comply with the Escazú Agreement?

This chapter summarises how understandings of the role of the public in emergencies have changed over time. It proceeds to outline a conceptual framework, the social identity approach, that has proved fruitful for understanding how the public responds during these events. The focus here is on behaviour. However, social identity processes also have implications for mental health. The chapter explains these connections and points to the other chapters that elaborate on these arguments, with empirical examples.

Cities did not somehow emerge fully formed; they developed gradually – usually in oscillating, uneven lurches of development over time. Exacerbated by climate change, extreme weather events and sea levels are rising rapidly. This poses a significant, immediate threat to coastal or riverine cities and the priceless historic resources that make them unique. As protecting cultural heritage becomes a global priority, identifying effective strategies that governments can use to identify, manage, and protect historic resources is critical. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first part discusses some of the public health benefits that historic resources bring to urban areas and how cultural heritage increases urban resilience. The second section analyzes two important technological strategies that governments at all levels should have (or develop) to fulfill their legal obligations to protect cultural heritage by engaging the public more broadly in preservation initiatives.

Chapter 3 examines the Aarhus Convention. The chapter begins by charting the events leading up to the Aarhus Convention and the Convention’s core provisions guaranteeing the right of access to environmental information. The chapter then explores how the Aarhus Convention conceptualises the right of access to environmental information, identifying how the Convention interprets the core substantive and procedural elements of the right. Using this analysis, the chapter identifies the extent to which the Aarhus Convention has influenced the development of the right in England, and its limited influence in the US and China. This is significant, as the influence (or lack thereof) of the Aarhus Convention demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, the Convention does not exert a normative influence over the core substantive elements of the right.

A rapidly deteriorating supply of healthy freshwater resources, exacerbated by climate change, intensifies social and economic injustices and inequalities across the world. Strong public laws and institutions upholding equitable procedures for public participation, access to justice and information regarding the fair distribution of access to sufficient water resources are needed more than ever to protect the most vulnerable. International water law and river basin treaties have poor provisions for public participation. This chapter demonstrates how the UNECE environmental regime, especially through the Aarhus Convention and Protocol on Water and Health, provides a comprehensive framework for the principle of public participation, access to justice and information, including identifying where it fills gaps in international water law and basin treaties. For example, non-state actors including the public and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have limited almost non-existent rights under the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention beyond the procedure on non-discriminatory access to justice. In contrast, the public including NGOs are given a significant participatory role in law making, implementation and enforcement in the UNECE water regime. This contributes to procedural justice and the principle of intra-generational equity in international water law. The Water Convention, however, should be amended to provide for all three pillars of public participation.

Chapter 4 examines the development and operation of the environmental assessment legal regime, with a focus on the Environmental Impact Assessment Law (EIAL) (2018). Environmental impact assessment (EIA) evolved from a project-based pollution prevention instrument under EPL (for trial implementation) (1979) to a technical and statutory process that implements both the preventative principle and participatory principle for projects and plans under EIAL (2002). The chapter analyses project EIA, the statutory process that aims to incorporate both science-based evidence and public input for sound and well-informed decision making by the approval authorities. It further explores strategic environmental assessment (SEA) including the environmental assessment of government plans and policies. The importance of public participation in both EIA and SEA cannot be overstated and deserves in-depth examination for further improvement. The chapter concludes with comment on closer integration between SEA and project EIA to enhance both efficiency and effectiveness of the environmental assessment regime.

Evaluating effectiveness of resilience governance is connected to the ecological factors. Hence, evaluating effectiveness of the role of law in governance for resilience is not just a question of legal compliance and control in a traditional sense. Beside the set of components for effective governance the essence of creating resilience is about understanding the social-ecological system. Understanding its drivers and thresholds to alternative states and make the system stay in the resilient state or move towards a better alterative state. One aspect of assessing the role of law is to assess to what extent law provides an appropriate legal design in terms of adaptivity, polycentric institutions, and participation as such. These components are all connected to effectiveness and controlling the ecosystem. However, for law to be effective legal compliance must be monitored. For the purpose of social-ecological resilience, a non-confrontational or adaptive control system is most likely to be successful.

Stakeholder participation is key for resilience governance and management. Participation is important for bottom-up approaches in adaptive governance, where self-organization and local knowledge are important factors. Different kinds of participation are also important for structural and monitoring issues in multi-level governance. Stakeholders, or NGOs, are in this sense important both in transferring knowledge and information in multidimensional governance structures and for bridging structural or institutional gaps. Emphasizing the role of stakeholder participation can be seen as a democratic and decentralized approach. Participation by the public is seen as an important feature for assuring transparency, legitimacy, and accountability, which have been established as important for governance structures in general. Trust building and effectiveness are also closely tied to issues of participation. Law generally includes pathways for participation at all levels. However, the purpose of participation in legal structures is somewhat different than the purpose of participation in resilience governance.