Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Global and transboundary impact assessment
Even though there were few binding agreements reached at Rio in 1992, nor much
funding made available, the Earth Summit made clear that global and transboundary
impact assessment were important. So far, attention has mainly focused on predicting
impacts of global warming, ozone damage, world trade developments and structural
adjustment policies. Less attention has been given to the impacts of soil degradation,
ocean and atmospheric pollution, and loss of biodiversity, though these are very real
threats (Barrow, 1997:172–225).
In 1991 the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) launched the
Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context at
Espoo, Finland (signed by 28 countries, including the USA and the European
Community). This Espoo Convention was the first multilateral treaty on transboundary
rights relating to proposed activities (at the time of writing it had yet to be fully
adopted by the signatories). The Convention provides for the notification of all affected
parties likely to suffer an adverse transboundary impact from a proposed development.
Signatories also undertake to give equal rights concerning impact assessment to all
affected by a development. Even if they are citizens of different countries, they can
therefore be represented in the developer nation’s public inquiries, etc. The EC
Environmental Assessment Directive (85/337EEC of 1985) makes similar but less
wide-ranging provisions, which permit affected parties to participate in the developer’s
impact assessment if they so wish (Jorissen and Coenen, 1992). This directive goes
beyond making provisions for project-level impact assessment to encourage
programme- and policy-level assessments. This is effectively strategic environmental
assessment (SEA) (see later this chapter) and offers a promising route to EIA able to
deal with transboundary impacts (Therivel et al., 1992:131).