Legal Problems and Obstacles Concerning to Environmental Impract Assessment

Abstract

This research has objectives to study about problems and obstacles of the legal provisions in the determining of criteria of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and the authority of the department in approving the EIA report and the problem of finding new facts, after the approval of the EIA report. From the study, analyzed according to the scope of the study Including Thai law and foreign law, it was found that the regulation of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment specifies the type of the business that is required to make an EIA report, considering the size of the business that has impact on the environment. Therefore, such business produces EIA report without considering the type of the business that has environmental impact. So the business ceates a project by applying for approval on project-by-project basis and in a project that looks like adjacent project. Therefore, there is no need to make environmental impact assessment report. In addition, the authority of the department approving or permitting environmental impact report is the authority of the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (ONEP), which considers the whole country project, causing problems of delay and considered the report not in time for the project. Even with a committee of experts, the committee cannot consider quickly. In addition, if an EIA report has been approved, it appears that new facts have been found. In the above cases, there is no law to specify the criteria, therefore, project developer the method to prepare additional EIA report and submit a request for approval for a new report. This case will allow the project to be done further, without considering the suitability of finding of new facts, although such fact is important to ecological system, or environment.