Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

After several years of consultation and negotiation, the European Community adopted its final directive [EC Directive] on environmental assessment in 1985.1 Member States were given until July 3, 1988, to adapt their own legislation or procedures to the requirements of the EC Directive. The introduction of formalized environmental assessment into British law promises to be a significant event. Successive British Governments have resisted attempts to introduce legislation modelled on the United States National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 [NEPA]2 for years. The governments have argued that the sophisticated system for scrutinizing planning applications and the comprehensive system of planning control already existing in Britain made it unnecessary to adopt any further procedures. They also viewed with suspicion the practical impact of the NEPA and the legislation modelled on it which many of the individual states subsequently adopted. In the first nine years following the adoption of the NEPA, more than a thousand lawsuits relating to it were filed. This resulted in expense, complexity and, above all, delay in the approval process for major new developments.

The EC Directive conflicts with the initial suspicious stance toward new environmental procedures taken by the British Government; it is the first European Community measure impacting directly on theBritish town and country planning system. However, many observers take a somewhat skeptical view of the likely impact of the EC Directive. They believe that its requirements, which have been amended substantially in the course of negotiations between the Member States, so resemble existing practice under British law that the implementation of the EC Directive will be an unremarkable event. This paper argues that this skepticism is unjustified, and that the EC Directive is likely to introduce a far-reaching, new element of environmental awareness into the British planning system. To substantiate this argument, the present paper examines the requirements of the EC Directive, the extent to which they avoid the problems of the NEPA system of the United States and the changes that will be necessary to give them effect in Britain.

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