On The Pubilc Participation In The Assessment System Of Environmental Impact In China

Environmental Impact Assessments ("EIA") are analysis or assessments of the possible positive or negative impact that a proposed project may have on the environment or human health, together consisting of the natural, social and economic aspects, and proposes the suggestions of decreasing such negative impact from the aspects of economy, administration, and society. EIA system depends on public expressions and communications which take an important role in EIM process. Public participation and environment protection are necessity demands and true marks for representative democratic system. The public participation in EIM means the local government, specialists and scholars, and local residents, besides the development units and EIA censor institutions, participate in the process of designation, censor, and supervision of EIA by legal or other ways. In reality, public participation in EIA plays a significant role in supervising government law enforcement. Thus, the legislations of many countries in EIA consider the public participation as the core contents of EIA system, and protect that from the aspects of legal procedure and entity to prohibit administration power abuse using. However, there are only principle regulations in our EIA public participation system and that cannot satisfy the demands of realities. Therefore, it is necessary to improve our EIA public participation system.This paper is consisted of four chapters. Chapterâ… introduces the origin and history of EIA system firstly, and then discusses the fundamental theories and definitions of public participation principles, and finally, this part analyzes the legal foundations and social functions of public participation. Chapterâ…¡analyzes the public participation of EIA in USA, Japan, and Tai Wan. Chapterâ…¢points out the problems in our EIA public participation system based on the analysis of other countries EIA public participation system. Chapterâ…£proposes some suggestions to improve our EIA public participation from the aspects of public subjects, right to know protection, participation procedure improvement, NGO function enhancement, role of government, and protection measures perfection.