Credits: Aelisir Illustrator for the Sensing for Justice project
By: Anna Berti Suman
Background
Civil society actors - ranging from individuals to organised collectives such as non-governmental organisations and civic associations - often respond to environmental issues by gathering evidence with monitoring devices (for example a ‘do-it-yourself’ water quality kit or a smartphone with an app to detect noise) and/or their senses (for example, using their smell to detect odours when a monitoring device is not needed). People and civic collectives do so out of concern and/or distrust towards institutional or corporate monitoring. I frame this practice as ‘civic environmental monitoring’. These initiatives may react to environmental injustices; challenge the status quo; enact political contestation through data; bring new paradigms to foster change, and embody practices of care.
Civic environmental monitoring has been on the rise, due to technology advancements and growing public environmental literacy and concern. The notion borders on other typologies, such as citizen science and citizen sensing. Building on practice theory, I regard civic monitoring practices as ‘complexes’ of agents, knowledge, and processes. Adopting a practice-oriented definition, civic monitoring can be seen as encompassing multiple civic engagement practices that entail some monitoring and produce environmental evidence and understanding (i.e., ‘civic knowledge’).
An enlightening case of civic monitoring in response to a ‘crisis of trust’ is the Dieselgate scandal, which exploded in 2015. The scandal revolved around the negligence of car manufacturer Volkswagen in correctly reporting the real emission levels of its vehicles. In particular, manipulated devices were installed in millions of diesel vehicles to show that emissions complied with existing regulations, whereas real emission levels infringed on the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and European Union’s (EU) standards. This fuelled numerous civic monitoring initiatives on air quality, such as the project SensorCommunity, which deployed thousands of sensors worldwide. The resulting open-access data, which is constantly updated, provides a robust knowledge base on air pollution and associated civic concerns.
In response to the scandal, the EU accelerated its law-making process, enacting new standards and stronger enforcement mechanisms, inspiring legislation worldwide. Was such law-making triggered by or even partially based on the evidence from civic monitoring multiplying after this and similar scandals? Air quality is a strong case for the effectiveness of civic evidence, as explicitly recognised also by the European Environmental Agency, but in several other fields, the practice is also proving its value, as stressed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
My previous research demonstrated that civic monitoring could inform policies (policy uptake) and offer evidence for law enforcement (judicial uptake). In this blogpost, I go a step further, positing that civic evidence can trigger and/or inform new laws or contribute to amending existing ones (legal uptake), especially when (I) it signals official informational gaps, and/or (II) it includes knowledge from underrepresented civic actors, and it contributes to fully achieving procedural environmental rights.
Prominent cases mapped indicate that civic knowledge is making its way to legislative processes, for example in the case of civic evidence submitted through courts to shape a right to clean air; the uptake of civic knowledge in the legally binding UN plastic treaty; civic monitoring triggering the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (hereafter: SDGs) in legislation; and civic evidence informing law-making through citizens’ assemblies.
Pressing questions that motivate further inquiry
Despite its relevance, scholarly discourses on public participation in environmental matters rarely engage with the question of how, if at all, civic knowledge shapes environmental law-making processes and which legislative frameworks may support it. This is the case despite the existence of international conventions, such as the Aarhus Convention, promoted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and the Escazú Agreement, promoted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), that enshrine environmental democracy principles. The conventions notably establish a right to public participation in environmental decisions, which is an essential procedural environmental right enabling individuals to exercise their right to a healthy environment. Especially Art. 8 of the Aarhus Convention and Art. 7 of the Escazú Agreement offer useful provisions to legitimise the contribution of civic evidence to shape legislation. For example, Art 7.13 of the Escazú Agreement interestingly notes that “Each Party shall promote regard for local knowledge, dialogue and interaction of different views and knowledge.”
Authors, including myself, have argued that these conventions are foundational for legitimising civic evidence and grounding a new right, i.e., the right of every person to contribute environmental information. However, other authors have noted that environmental groups make little use of the participatory opportunities offered by such conventions.
These are only interpretations as, at present, there is neither a legally binding right to contribute to law-making with civic knowledge, nor a set of standards to do so. This makes tracing the legal uptake difficult. Rarely is explicit reference made to civic sources in laws, although they may have played a role. In addition, civic actors may disregard the legal relevance of their data. Complexity also stems from the diversity of evidence and law-making processes. In the table below, I offer some possible ways in which civic knowledge may interact with (environmental) laws.
The societal impact of this inquiry
Civic actors increasingly mobilise, demanding an active role in contributing to (environmental) law-making, including by producing environmental data that can be key to advancing societal knowledge on environmental issues. While sometimes they act from a desire to improve laws, other times, anti-environmental agendas may motivate them. With due ‘gatekeeping’ by institutions such as UNECE and ECLAC, civic contributions through environmental data could be appropriately channelled to inform law-making.
In particular, gatekeeping here refers to the act of checking by competent institutions that civic-produced environmental data are gathered in a consistent, reliable and accurate way and that they are not fabricated. These controls are the preconditions to a successful integration of civic data within institutional environmental databases. A good example of this integration is the platform Samen Meten, an initiative supported by the Dutch Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). For analysis of this model of integration, see a comparative study published in the Citizen Science Theory & Practice Journal. Possible shortcomings, such as the risk of inaccurate civic information and fabricated evidence, should be addressed so that civic monitoring can improve, rather than hamper, law-making.
Greater reliance on civic knowledge could enrich the evidentiary basis on which decisions are taken and increase their legitimacy. This would align with - among others - SDG 16.7, which aims to “Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making.” Already in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, we read that “in sustainable development, everyone is a user and provider of information.”
In light of what was discussed, it is advisable that future research and practice aim to bridge the gap between civil society’s knowledge and law-making. This would enhance epistemic diversity and foster greater environmental democracy in legislative processes, ultimately improving the quality and public acceptance of environmental legislation.
Bio:
Anna Berti Suman is a researcher, lawyer and activist on public participation in environmental matters, in particular through civic environmental monitoring. She is currently Senior Researcher at Luiss University - Law School, Rome. She is Qualified Barrister under the Bar of Rome, following climate and environmental law cases for the environmental NGO A Sud. She founded the Sensing for Justice project, which inspired her book “Civic monitoring for environmental law enforcement” (Edward Elgar, 2024).