Following the Stockholm Declaration in 1972 emphasizing an essential need for a clean environment, a number of international proclamations were issued that contributed to international recognition of a substantive right to a clean environment as embodied 20 years later in the Rio Declaration. Since that time, there has been a movement for recognition of procedural rights to provide information to the public as it attempts to participate in the decisionmaking process with respect to environmental matters.  Development and exercise of these procedural rights not only provide opportunities to protect environmental rights, but can also further the development of a substantive right  to a clean environment.