Abstract
From a comparison of Article 9 of the Aarhus Convention and the related Japanese environmental laws, issues of Japanese public participation law systems will be examined. As the concept of the Aarhus Convention, environmental rights are recognized as citizens' rights to exercise democratic public participation. On the other hand, since environmental rights are emphasized as a duty for the government to manage environmental conservation, access to justice has a limited role in Japan. In order to make public participation system more citizen-centered, Japanese environmental law needs to recognize environmental rights and to apply wider standings.
