A Research On The Public Engagement In Environmental Impact Assessment In China

Since the middle of the 20th century,the accumulated environmental problems erupt centrally after the industrial revolution,a series of environmental public events had set off an alarm bell for mankind.Therefore,the environmental impact assessment(EIA)system,which based on "prevention first" arose at this historic moment,and became the integral part of the western national environmental policy areas.Public engagement had played an important role from the date of birth of EIA system.Environmental justice theory,Environmental right theory,the environment of public property theory and the public trust theory,public engagement laddering theory laid a theoretical foundation for the public involvement in the EIA process.Trace the institutional construction of public engagement of EIA in China,although the EIA system was introduced as early as 1979 "Environmental Protection Act(trial)",public engagement didn't officially entered the national law until the "EIA Act" was issued as late as 2002.There is a deep crisis in the public engagement in the EIA,which had became a serious social problem.This paper aims to investigate the reason through the analysis of public engagement in EIA system and the main relationship analysis under the arrangement of system.In system analysis,this paper argues that the problem exist on the structure and content in the public engagement.Low system and legislative dispersed are two major defects,which reflect the poor and thin of legislation and lawmakers did not pay enough attention to public engagement.From the content of relevant laws and regulations,at first,principle of law is more,less rigid constrain;at second,important content is missing,especially lack of feedback mechanism and legal liability.Ultimately,the current system is a soft constraint.In the analysis of subject relationship,the paper argue that the public is in absolute weak position in the EIA activity.At first,public cannot counter with the enterprise due to the asymmetry of information;at second,the interaction between the public and the EIA units is nonexistent rooted in the particularity of the EIA work;at third,the public almost entirely disadvantage with local government because of constrained by information asymmetry and the lack of supervision mechanism.In the end,the only possible factor which may play a positive role in public engagement in EIA is the supervision by public opinion of news media,but we can also do not rely too much on this due to the lack of rigid legal safeguard.Look forward to the future,this paper argues that we should accelerate the reform of public engagement in EIA.Specifically,we can do a tentative exploration from optimizing top-level design,improving the implementation mechanism of laws and regulations and the sound of environmental information disclosure mechanism.