3.
Developments in the world

At present, we can distinguish between two levels of environmental and public health impact assessment - project (EIA) and strategic (SEA). On the timeline, the process of assessment of the impact of projects on the environment or EIA is the first to emerge; later, the development of conceptual planning adds the need to assess the overarching strategic level. The origins of the EIA procedure can be set in the context of the historical events of the late 1960s and early 1970s - until the founding and development of the thought movement - the so-called Club of Rome, which, among other things, highlighted the environmental consequences of anthropogenic activities and the natural limits to economic growth. For the first time, the term environmental impact assessment is used in US legislation in the wording of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act. Until then, the assessment of the projects was addressed in the form of a technical engineering and economic analysis, the implications for the environment were only minimally considered. The purpose of the Act was to prevent and eliminate negative impacts on the environment. In the 1970s, similar legislation was adopted by some other countries (e.g. Australia in 1973, France in 1976, the Philippines in 1977, and the European Community in 1985).

In the early 1990s, two key events took place in the EIA context. At the United Nations Conference in Espoo, Finland, the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context was signed on 25 February 1991. Here the requirement was formulated for assessing the remote transmission of pollutants, and the bases for cross-border environmental impact assessment were laid. The second key event was the Rio de Janeiro Conference on Environment and Development in June 1992 (the so-called Earth Summit), where the requirement for EIA also emerged from the Convention on Biological Diversity.

For the Czech Republic, as part of the European Union, following directives are currently binding, with which our national law is harmonized:

After social changes in 1989, environmental legislation experienced an unprecedented boom - in 1992, the law of the Federal Assembly of the CSFR No. 17/1992 Sb., on the Environment (which is still in force), which laid down the basis for other specialized laws – such as for the EIA process. This Act and other component laws (e.g. on the protection of agricultural land fund, air, waste, nature and landscape, and on the human health care) have created the starting conditions for the establishment of the Czech National Council Act No. 244/92 Sb., on the Environmental Impact Assessment. This legislation came into being without any previous experience with assessment, and therefore included several shortcomings (e.g. underdeveloped phase of initial assessment of potential impacts, late involvement of the public). In 2001 (with effect from 2002), a new Act No. 100/2001 Sb., on Environmental Impact Assessment was adopted which regulates environmental and public health impacts of buildings, activities and technologies. In parallel with this legislation, Act No. 244/1992 Sb., on the Environmental Impact Assessment was still in force and the subject of the assessment was the strategy – which means the strategic level. It ceased to apply as of the date of accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union, and the assessment of the strategy became part of the amended Act No. 100/2001 Sb., which after many other amendments is valid until today.

Next chapter 4. Current legislative adaptation of the environmental impact assessment process, including the European basis