Aarhus convention

The Crid has been consulted by the Health Federal Public Service to study the integration in Belgian law of the Aarhus Convention. Within the critical points to study, the CRID principally focused on the exceptions to the information right foreseen by the Convention. The Aarhus Convention mentions for example that "a request for environmental information may be refused if the disclosure would adversely affect the confidentiality of personal data relating to a natural person where that person has not consented to the disclosure of the information to the public". The same provision is foreseen to protect intellectual property rights. CRID's role was to study the compatibility of the Belgian laws with the Aarhus Convention, particularly in the framework of the exceptions to information right.
The Belgian laws taken into account were:

- Loi du 31/08/98 concernant la protection juridique des bases de donnes
- Loi du 30/06/94 relative au droit d'auteur et aux droits voisins
- Loi du 08/12/1992 relative la protection de la vie prive, modifie par la loi du 11/12/98
- Loi du 04/07/1962 relative la statistique publique