Private ‘bottom-up’ enforcement has been central to the efforts of the European Union (EU) to promote effective compliance with its ambitious environmental laws. This approach is strengthened by the EU's implementation of the Aarhus Convention, which aims to democratize environmental enforcement by conferring citizens and environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) with legal rights of access to environmental information, rights of public participation, and rights of access to justice (the so-called ‘Aarhus mechanisms’). This article empirically assesses the extent to which the Aarhus mechanisms empower ENGOs to take an active role in the private enforcement of the EU Habitats and Birds Directives. Based on 75 surveys and 30 interviews with ENGOs from three Member States (France, Ireland, the Netherlands), we apply regulatory intermediary theory to show how European ENGOs play a vital role in intermediating between (i) EU Member States and their citizens, (ii) the EU and individual citizens, and even (iii) the EU and its Member States. We bring new empirical insights into the role of law as an enabler of regulatory intermediaries, and its potential as a tool for orchestrating regulatory intermediaries.

私人“自下而上”的执法一直是欧盟（EU）促进有效遵守其雄心勃勃的环境法的努力的核心。欧盟实施《奥尔胡斯公约》强化了这一方法，该公约旨在通过赋予公民和环境非政府组织（ENGO）合法的环境信息获取权、公众参与权和获取环境信息的权利，实现环境执法民主化。正义（所谓的“奥尔胡斯机制”）。本文根据经验评估了奥尔胡斯机制在多大程度上赋予环境非政府组织在欧盟栖息地和鸟类指令的私人执行中发挥积极作用的程度。基于 75 项调查和对来自三个成员国（法国、爱尔兰、荷兰）的 ENGO 的 30 次采访，我们应用监管中介理论来展示欧洲 ENGO 如何在 (i) 欧盟成员国与其公民之间发挥重要作用，( ii) 欧盟和公民个人，甚至 (iii) 欧盟及其成员国。我们对法律作为监管中介机构推动者的作用及其作为协调监管中介机构的工具的潜力提出了新的实证见解。