Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)
Who is afraid of the Aarhus Convention? With its recent judgment in the Vereniging Milieudefensie and Stichting Natuur en Milieu cases (Cases C 401 to 403/12) the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) once again, blocked an attempt to improve the legal position of environmental NGO's seeking administrative and/or judicial review of decisions of the EU institutions affecting the environment. The complicated problems regarding locus standi at the Court of Justice challenging acts of the European institutions are well documented (cf. the editorial in REALaw 2011/1) The cause of all this? The requirement of Article 263(4) TFEU of direct and individual concern, as it has been interpreted by the CJEU since many years. The leading 'environmental' case on the admissibility of interested third parties trying to annul decisions of the EU institutions affecting the environment is still the Greenpeace case (Case C 321/95 P) As far as the locus standi of Greenpeace was concerned, the Court of Justice upheld the view of the Court of First Instance (now General Court) that an association formed for the protection of the collective interests of a category of persons could not be considered to be directly and individually concerned, for the purposes of Article 263(4) Although the CFI, in the Jego Quere case (Case T 177/01) tried to change this restrictive attitude, the Court itself made it abundantly clear, in its judgment in case Union de Pequenos Agricultores v. Council (Case C 50/00 P. that any changes should be the result of amending the EU treaties.