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The purpose of our scholarly work is to explore legal regulation of access to environmental information and public participation in environmental decision-making in Ukraine and the EU. The article considers how the Aarhus Convention has been implemented in EU member states and Ukraine, concentrating on the public access to information as a valid instrument for environmental protection. Taking part in the Erasmus + Jean Monnet Module "EU Environmental Policy and Law" we have analyzed the possibility of obtaining operative environmental information on the state of the environment in cities and villages of Ukraine. We also have studied European standards in the sphere of disclosure of environmental information and public participation, found some gaps in Ukrainian legislation and filled them in. We offer an interdisciplinary approach: integration of information law, environmental law, international law, human rights and national security. This will allow us to form a conceptual understanding of the legal regulation of information on the environment as an object of realization of information human rights and a component of national security in the context of environmental threats.

This scholarly work examines the environmental protection legislation of Ukraine and its application in practice, aiming to identify the main challenges it faces in the context of the required harmonization of Ukrainian environmental legislation with EU law according to the Association Agreement, while also making suggestions on how to better respond to these issues. This paper also refers to the experience of EU member states in the field of environmental liability. Legal nature, content and meaning of the criminal liability of legal persons in the environmental sphere according to the law of EU member states were studied in order to determine the appropriateness and mechanism of implementation of such responsibility in Ukraine. Arguments for establishment of criminal liability of legal persons were presented. Keywords: Environmental policy, environmental crime, environmental responsibility, adaptation of Ukrainian environmental legislation to EU standards.

In order to build effective democratic governance under the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine, local governments and elected representatives must have the knowledge and tools to manage modern and efficient resources, and local governments in general must increase their transparency, activities to strengthen citizens' trust in local political institutions. In its ambitious plans to implement effective governance, the Government of Ukraine is working to create a modern system of local self-government that promotes the dynamic development of regions and transfers as much power as possible to the level closest to citizens - communities. The article is devoted to the issue of ensuring the sustainable development of local self-government in Ukraine on the basis of the experience of building the system of local self-government in the European countries. Foreign experience with the existing system of local governments of Ukraine is compared. Local governments are classified into representative and executive. The practice of organizing their activities is studied. Both regional and local representative bodies and municipalities were studied. Different types of individual and collegial executive bodies of local self-government of foreign countries, methods of their formation, management models are given. The real state of the results of the reform of local self-government and decentralization, as well as the administrative-territorial system in Ukraine has been established. The main positive features of the system of local self-government bodies of foreign countries are identified and options for implementing sustainable development methods for self-government of Ukraine are proposed, including through effective state control, election of key local government officials, codification of local self-government legislation and balancing the status and powers of representatives and executive bodies of local self-government.

Climate change and global warming are challenging for humanity. International cooperation and the formation of joint approaches to solving global challenges are of paramount importance for sustainable development. Like many countries in the region, Ukraine threatens to increase the number of natural disasters, floods in the Carpathians, transformation southern region steppe into the desert, flooding coastal parts and a shortage of drinking water in the central and eastern regions. Thus, this study explores the international mechanism of the environmental information access as a complex multi-level system, which determines various types of international cooperation. Environmental information access is of great practical importance both for humanity as a whole and for further reformation of the legislation of individual countries in order to ensure sustainable development, as well as to improve the practical activities of civil society. The findings show the need for people`s lifestyle changes, their environmental education and work. We therefore propose the international mechanism of the environmental information access as cooperation framework which enables companies and business communities more effectively and creatively solve economic and social problems.Keywords: Environmental information, information human rights, sustainable development, EU environmental policy, environmental human rights