Suchergebnisse

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a legal, procedural tool that allows to identify, predict, evaluate and prevent or mitigate the impacts of a planned project on the environment. An inherent element of this process is public participation that shall be assured at all times.
EIA is regulated by domestic environmental laws of a given county, but an imminent influence on these regulations is exerted by EU EIA Directive (Directive 2011/92/EU text codified) and international conventions, especially the ESPOO Convention.
EU legislation and international EIA-focused treaties do not determine if armed conflicts affect the EIA procedures and, if the answer is positive, in which way, especially whether the EIA procedure remains required under these exceptional circumstances or it may be postponed until cease of conflict or even omitted.
For this reason, it was of high importance to determine whether EIA-related obligations set by EU and international laws are suspended or remain valid and in force during armed conflicts.
The research revealed that the above-mentioned acts do not have provisions that explicitly regulate the effect of armed conflicts on the obligations relating to the EIA procedures. Furthermore, current jurisprudence and doctrine do not provide clear answer on the scope of application of international environmental law during armed conflict. It is often explained by the fact that environmental law is not yet fully formed in that respect and it is still not commonly agreed how it relates to international humanitarian law.
Based on findings of the research, some conclusions are proposed that aim at providing advise on the application of EIA during armed conflicts and suggestions to supplement discussed bodies of law.
This article will discuss the main results of the study conducted on this important and very up-to-date subject.

This article reviews the conference of the Environmental Law Network International (ELNI) dedicated to "EU Environmental Impact Assessment Directive - challenges and perspectives in the light of the past experiences and the recent proposal for amendment", which took place at the University of Wrocław in Poland on 23 and 24 May 2013. The conference was addressed to both experts from the practice and academics dealing with different aspects of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and brought together almost 250 participants from 24 countries worldwide. The aim of the conference was to review and discuss the recent proposal of the European Commission to amend the EIA Directive and bring it face to face with practical experiences with EIA at international and national level, in particular in the light of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the EU and national courts.