Allowing the public and civil society to challenge acts and omissions by public authorities and corporations that violate national environmental laws can greatly enhance the strength of a country’s environmental enforcement.
This is because it empowers citizens to serve as enforcers in their own right. Depending on a State’s legal system, granting legal standing to allow citizens and NGOs to bring suits challenging violations of environmental laws can be extremely effective.
The right of the public to take enforcement action independently of the enforcement agency 
as a form of public participation in environmental decisionmaking is just evolving in many nations around the world, spurred by the commitments of these States to the international norms and standards on access to information and public participation articulated in various declarations such as Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration. It is recognised that citizens and expert NGOs acting as “watchdogs” for non-compliance and stepping in when the enforcement agency fails to act can yield effective results for the national environmental enforcement system. The need for this may arise particularly when the enforcement agency is unable or unwilling to act. Some States have established this right through expanded judicial interpretation of the Constitutional provisions for example, India and the Philippines.
States are encouraged by Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration to provide their citizens effective access to judicial and administrative proceedings including redress and remedy. Since the adoption of this Declaration, this principle has found expression in Constitutions and/or Environmental Laws in all regions of the world, both at the national and regional level. The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention) calls on Parties to ensure that any person who considers that his/her request for environmental information has not been satisfied as required by the convention, has access to a review procedure before a legal or administrative body.
In addition to access to justice through courts (including specialised environmental courts), citizens and NGOs often can seek redress through administrative bodies that act in a quasi-judicial manner. The Environmental Commission of Trinidad & Tobago, an example of Guideline 41(o)
, is one such example.
In addition to the case studies below, additional discussion and examples relating to judicial matters may be found following Guidelines 32, 41(a)(v), 41(c)(vi), 41(n) (especially the case study on “Canada’s Environmental Bill of Rights Act”), 41(o), 43(c), 43(d), 46, and 47.
What is “standing ” or “ locus standi ”?
In most States, not everyone interested in a particular legal conflict has the legal right to go to court. Generally the people who are most obviously involved in the conflict have this right. For example, people who live downwind from an industrial facility that is emitting air pollution may have standing, that is they have the right to go to court to address the pollution. However, an environmental group may not necessarily have this right unless it can prove that they should have standing (usually this means they need to prove that their members were injured in some way). In some States, though, the requirements for proving standing for certain laws are more open and virtually anyone taking an interest in environmental protection or the particular issue at hand may have the right to get legally involved.
Standing (or locus standi), then, relates to the legal right of a particular individual or entity (business, NGO, etc.) to go to court.