ENVIRONMENT : COURT RULES AGAINST COMMISSION FOR REFUSING ACCESS TO INFORMATION.

Any document containing information related to emissions into the environment must be made accessible without restriction, in line with the Aarhus Convention(1), ruled the EU Court of Justice, on 8 October (Case T545/11). The court's judgement condemns the European Commission for failing to respect this principle by refusing to transmit to Greenpeace and PAN-Europe certain parts of the assessment report on glyphosate (an active substance used in the production of pesticides). The EU judges thus held that public interest prevails over individual interests on matters of the release of substances into the environment.

The two NGOs had requested from the Commission several documents related to the initial marketing authorisation for glyphosate, issued under Directive 91/414/EEC, including a copy of the assessment report drawn up by the rapporteur member state (Germany) and a complete list of all tests plus the full, complete and original test documents supplied by the operators seeking the inclusion in Annex 1 of the directive (marketing authorisation) in so far as the list concerns long-term toxicity, mutagenicity, carcinogenicity and neurotoxicity tests and reproduction studies.

The Commission transmitted parts of the first document requested, explaining that its file on notification of the substance was incomplete. The two organisations accepted this explanation. On the other hand, after Germany refused on the ground of protection of the intellectual property rights and commercial interests of the companies concerned, the executive turned down the request...