LEGAL ASPECTS OF ACCESS TO ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION IN UKRAINE UNDER MARTIAL LAW

Abstract

Within the framework of this study, an analysis of the legal aspects of the mechanism for implementing the right to access to environmental information in Ukraine under conditions of military aggression was carried out. The article, based on the analysis of the norms of the current legislation of Ukraine, defines the main restrictions on access to environmental information in the conditions of martial law, as well as information security measures that are applied in the conditions of martial law. It was established that despite the war in Ukraine and its consequences, access to environmental information should be ensured. This is due to the fact that access to environmental information is an important guarantee of the realization and protection of everyone's right to a clean and safe environment for life and health. Moreover, precisely in the conditions of martial law, high-quality and operational access to public environmental information is a necessary condition for ensuring the proper functioning of state and public institutions, and the natural environment, since normal life, safety, and, ultimately, life and health depend on it I am people. It is certain that this access for citizens within the entire territory of the state, in view of a full-scale military invasion, cannot be guaranteed and ensured to the full extent, as it was the case in peacetime. The military aggression provoked a whole series of temporary restrictions and measures of information security, which are dictated by the conditions of martial law, and regarding free access to environmental information as well. But, despite all the obstacles and restrictions, even in the conditions of war, the mechanisms of ensuring the environmental legislation of Ukraine continue to be developed and improved access to environmental information. In particular, the main developments in the legislation in the conditions of military aggression relate to the improvement of such areas as waste management, the creation and functioning of the national register of emissions and transfers of pollutants in order to ensure public access to complete, consistent and reliable data on emissions and transfers of pollutants and waste, as well as the introduction changes to the resource and nature protection legislation of Ukraine regarding the state system of environmental monitoring and information support of management in the field of environment, etc.