The Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents (CETS No. 205), also known as the Tromsø Convention, will enter into force on 1 December 2020. This is the first international treaty guaranteeing a general right on access to official documents held by public authorities which is essential to transparency, good governance, participatory democracy and facilitates the exercise of other human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The Convention establishes minimum rules for the prompt and fair processing of requests for access to official documents, including review procedures when access is denied. Limitation to access to official documents may be justified only in the narrowly circumscribed cases provided for in the Convention.

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