1 Introduction: the Italian context
The access to justice in environmental matters in Europe, as
crystallized in Article 9 of the Aarhus Convention (i.e. Convention
on access to information, public participation in decision-making
and access to justice in environmental matters taking place in
Aarhus, Denmark on 25 June 1998) and covered in Italy by a number
of different regulations, has been the object of extensive
discussions in the recent past, with respect to the effectiveness
and substantial compliance of the Italian legal system with its
requirements, also in a comparative view.
The Italian perspective1 is
certainly peculiar for its historical and political context: albeit
a general sense of compliance of the legal system with the pillars
of access to justice, anyone wishing to enter into the details of
the matter has to confront the theory with the immense
criticalities of a local judicial system that hardly reflects and
spreads the innate sense of real
