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This chapter further investigates the convergence among the international environmental standards for corporate accountability identified or proposed by the international organizations previously discussed. It proceeds to clarify further the level of detail and international acceptance of these emerging international standards, also drawing upon recent developments in multilateral environmental agreements, in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity. The following emerging standards are considered as having reached a significant level of detail and acceptance at the international level: the self-assessment of environmental impacts, environmental management system; prevention, precaution, disclosure of environmental information; public consultations, and the sustainable use of natural resources. In all, these standards remain subject to specific application on a case-by-case basis. Nevertheless, a fundamental, minimum normative benchmark, firmly rooted in international environmental law, is emerging. According to these standards, it is now possible to appraise critically corporate conduct, even in the absence of, or in the presence of ineffective, national laws to this effect.

In previous chapters, attention focused upon the nature of complex social-ecological systems, visions for the future, characteristics of an ecosystem or holistic approach, issues related to governance, the nature of adaptive environmental management, attributes of partnerships and stakeholders, and alternative ways to resolving disputes. For all of these matters, alternative approaches exist and choices must be made. This chapter focuses on three methods for identifying and assessing alternatives: benefit-cost analysis; environmental impact assessment, including strategic environmental assessment; and life-cycle assessment, including ISO 14001 and the European Union’s eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS). Case studies are provided from China, the Republic of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, and Italy. Bram Noble, in his guest statement, examines alternative ways to address uncertainty in environmental impact assessments in the context of Canada.

Environmental impact assessment originated in U.S. environmental policy as an “action-forcing mechanism” to compel integration of environmental policy goals into government agencies’ missions and actions. It subsequently was adopted by more than 100 other countries, as well as international lending institutions and many businesses, and inspired additional types of impact assessments. At its best, it has greatly expanded the documentation of environmental impacts, required consideration of less damaging alternatives, increased opportunities for review by independent experts and the public, caused modification or cancellation of some proposals, and increased environmental awareness as well as expert capacity for identifying environmental impacts. However, it has often been applied only to localized projects, rather than to broader and more consequential policies and programs, and sometimes without consideration of alternatives. In many cases it has been used simply as a paperwork requirement rather than a decision document. And it has often been criticized, sometimes unfairly, for causing delays and paperwork burdens. Overall, it has proven to be an important conceptual innovation in increasing both awareness of environmental impacts and the transparency of government (and in some cases, business) actions causing them. To fully achieve its intended purpose it requires commitment to that goal by those using it.

This chapter discusses the environmental and social consideration in the development of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) road network. The authors offer ideas for improving the balance between road development and socioenvironmental priorities

This chapter reviews the development of environmental impact assessment (EIA) to set the context against which lessons can be drawn. It briefly considers the rationale for EIA and indicates the extent of its spread across the globe as a legal procedure. The chapter then explains how EIA works. This will encompass a consideration of the procedural nature of EIA, which is a crucial point when it comes to the possibility for legal action. It also considers the role of stakeholders, the potential for conflicts of interest to arise as well as public consultation. Finally, it considers the funding of an EIA, which is a practical point of great significance when considering the impartiality of the assessment. The chapter concludes by drawing on the experience with respect to health impact assessment (HIA).

This chapter discusses health impact assessment (HIA) in Australia. In Australia, HIA is ‘the process of estimating the potential impact of a chemical, biological, physical, or social agent on a specified human population under a specified set of conditions and for a certain time frame’. Both the state and Commonwealth governments conduct HIA as part of environmental impact assessment (EIA).

HIA is only one of a wide range of impact assessments. In some countries health is integrated into environmental impact assessment but the adequacy of coverage of health in EIA is very variable and often poor. Strategic Environmental Assessment is legally required in many countries and specifies the inclusion of population and health impacts but UK administrations have discouraged full coverage of health in SEA. Combining several impact assessments including health into a single integrated impact assessment has many advantages. It reduces the workload for those doing impact assessment but is opposed by those who feel that their issue will not be adequately covered in an integrated impact assessment.

This chapter begins by describing the main purposes and procedures of environmental impact assessment (EIA). The second section plots the legal staging-posts in the extension of the EIA concept to the transboundary context. The third section examines key aspects of the operation of two significant legal instruments on EIA, both anchored in Europe. The final section considers the place of EIA in the overall conceptual structure of international environment law and its interface with issues of damage, liability, and responsibility to general international law. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the future of EIA.

A large number of the treaties and legal instruments discussed in Chapter 2 attempt to regulate and prevent the occurrence of transboundary air pollution through the imposition of procedural duties. This chapter examines the legal implications of the procedural obligations of environmental impact assessment, exchange of information, notification, and consultation as found in air pollution treaties. It also considers the extent to which these duties can be said to have passed into the corpus of general international law. It suggests that, with the exception of notification in emergency situations, these procedural norms have not attained the status of customary law and are at best emergent principles of general international law.

Canada was one of the first countries in the world to develop a standardized national approach to health impact assessment (HIA). This chapter describes the HIA framework and its evolution over the past decade.

Human health is closely linked to the natural environment, behavioural patterns, and policy context. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines environment, as it relates to health, as all the physical, chemical, and biological factors external to a person, and all the related behaviours. Environmental health is the branch of public health that focuses on the interrelationships between people and their environment, as well as how to foster healthy and safe communities. It addresses the societal and environmental factors that increase the likelihood of exposure and disease. Poor environmental quality has its greatest impact on people whose health status is already at risk. Environmental threats to health frequently require rapid and urgent action to protect the environment for both present and future generations. This chapter describes key concepts in environmental health and related risks.

This chapter describes recent work to integrate health aspects into environmental impact assessments (EIAs), and notably into strategic environment assessments (SEAs) as required by the new international legislation in Europe. It outlines a rationale for this activity, describes its aims and what has been achieved, and points out the benefits and limitations. It discusses the potential role of health impact assessment (HIA) as part of SEA in helping to ensure that policies and projects in different sectors contribute to health and environment protection, and serve as tools for healthy public policy (HPP). It concludes by identifying the challenges that the health sector will need to address in order to realize that potential.

This chapter considers health impact assessment (HIA) from the perspective of disease, experts, and quantification. Impacts of disease (including accidents and mental illness) are clearer than notions of ‘health’; perceptions by an expert can be based on scientific evidence rather than the subjective judgements of the general public; and a statement that one death may occur is clearer than a statement simply that there is an ‘appreciable’ risk, or some other non-quantified statement. This approach is utilitarian: that is, it proposes information for the good of the public as a whole rather than taking a rights-based approach for an individual in a group.

The impact of climate change in Australia has already been severe. Australia also has the dubious distinction of being one of the highest per capita energy users in the world. This results in a schism, with mounting pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to ameliorate environmental impacts on the one hand, and on the other a strong economic and political dependency on fossil fuels and agriculture. Moving beyond the carbon economy in Australia therefore cannot be a straightforward transition to a cleaner greener future ushered in by strong ‘command and control’ legislation and regulation. This chapter discusses the role of law in Australia's transition beyond the carbon economy, environmental impact assessments, law reform, wind farms, emergent technologies, and business and community partnerships.

This chapter identifies land claim agreements in Alaska in 1971 and the western Canadian Arctic in 1984 as the culmination of a century of environmental transformation and colonial intervention. These agreements are placed in the overlapping contexts of the elaboration of the petroleum economy, the emergence of ecosystem ecology, and implementation of environmental impact assessment policies. It is argued that notions of a disturbed Arctic linked activist environmental scientists and Inuit political organizers as both parties grew concerned over the impacts of oil and gas exploration on the tundra. The analysis traces relations among these parties in Alaska from Project Chariot to the inaugural Inupiat Paitot meeting to the near simultaneous discussions of the Trans Alaska Pipeline Inquiry and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. It links these episodes with their counterparts in the western Canadian Arctic, including the Coppermine Conference, the formation of the Committee for Original People’s Entitlement, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, and the Inuvialuit Final Agreement in 1984. The chapter ends by discussing the differences and connections between the North Slope of Alaska and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region as regards the role of science in environmental decision making structures enshrined by land claim agreements.

This chapter discusses the development of health impact assessment (HIA) in The Netherlands. HIA in The Netherlands began in the early 1990s and developed along two different lines: one shaped by the public health approach and the other stemming from the environmental field. Public health-based HIA evolved according to the paradigm presented by the Lalonde model of health. The HIAs mainly concerned national policies and addressed a variety of policy fields, ranging from tobacco discouragement and health insurance policy to national housing policy and the high-speed rail link. The environmental-based HIA focused on preventing environmentally related health risks and did not consider health in a broader sense. There is no legal obligation for environmental impact assessments to consider health impacts outside an environmental scope. If a first screening of the planned activity points to large health impacts or many concerns about potential health effects, a more detailed quantitative health impact assessment should be carried out.

This chapter examines public participation in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in India and Indonesia. It argues that despite the top-down approach of adoption of EIA, it has undergone a process of intense indigenization in most jurisdictions, influenced significantly by public mobilization and judicial intervention in those jurisdictions. Again, India and Indonesia being densely populated developing countries remarkable similarities are found in them with respect to the manner in which the EIA process has emerged in these legal regimes. It puts forth the claim that the contestation and mediation in regard to fundamental ideas about the nature and process of economic development and public involvement in environmental governance in the two jurisdictions have stark resemblance.

This chapter begins by explaining that the preventive principle is complementary to the polluter-pays principle by requiring the adoption of measures intended to prevent damage from arising. It then briefly reviews the evolution of the prevention principle in international law, EU law, and several national legal systems. Having determined the scope of the preventive principle in relation to other principles of environmental law (no harm principle, precautionary), the chapter systematizes its various facets (environmental standards, best available technologies, etc.). It goes on to consider the role of proportionality in determining the degree of prevention sought. It examines the sometimes ambivalent nature of the instruments typical of the preventive principle, using several case studies.