Transboundary Impact Assessment, and Espoo

In one line

Pulp Mills said an assessment is required and left its content to national law, and the Espoo Convention is what that content looks like when somebody writes it out.

In exam wording: the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context was done at Espoo, Finland, on 25 February 1991 under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and entered into force on 10 September 1997; article 2 requires Parties to take all appropriate and effective measures to prevent, reduce and control significant adverse transboundary environmental impact from proposed activities and to establish an environmental impact assessment procedure permitting public participation; article 3 governs notification of the affected Party; article 4 the documentation; article 5 consultations; article 6 the final decision; and article 7 post-project analysis.

Article 1: the definitions

Impact means any effect caused by a proposed activity on the environment including human health and safety, flora, fauna, soil, air, water, climate, landscape and historical monuments or other physical structures or the interaction among these factors; it also includes effects on cultural heritage or socio-economic conditions resulting from alterations to those factors.

Transboundary impact means any impact, not exclusively of a global nature, within an area under the jurisdiction of a Party caused by a proposed activity the physical origin of which is situated wholly or in part within the area under the jurisdiction of another Party.

Party of origin means the Contracting Party under whose jurisdiction a proposed activity is envisaged to take place. Affected Party means the Contracting Party likely to be affected by the transboundary impact of a proposed activity. Concerned Parties means the Party of origin and the affected Party.

Environmental impact assessment means a national procedure for evaluating the likely impact of a proposed activity on the environment.

The public means one or more natural or legal persons.

Two features of the definition of impact are worth noticing. It expressly includes human health and safety, and it expressly includes effects on cultural heritage or socio-economic conditions where those result from environmental alteration. Many national assessment regimes do neither.

And the definition of transboundary impact excludes impacts that are "exclusively of a global nature", which keeps climate change out of the Convention's scope as such.

Article 2: general provisions

Paragraph 1. The Parties shall, either individually or jointly, take all appropriate and effective measures to prevent, reduce and control significant adverse transboundary environmental impact from proposed activities.

Paragraph 2. Each Party shall take the necessary legal, administrative or other measures to implement the provisions of the Convention, including, with respect to proposed activities listed in Appendix I that are likely to cause significant adverse transboundary impact, the establishment of an environmental impact assessment procedure that permits public participation and preparation of the environmental impact assessment documentation described in Appendix II.