A Study On The Public Participation Of The Environmental Impact Assessment In Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction

With the depletion of terrestrial resources,the development and utilization of the oceans by human have reached an unprecedented height,followed by marine pollution,biodiversity reduction and other problems.The severe environmental pollution experienced on land shows that the road of "pollution first,treatment later" is not feasible,and the perception of countries has gradually changed from "controlling the ocean" to "protecting the ocean".Environmental impact assessment(hereinafter referred to as "EIA"),as an important preventive measure,has attracted the attention of countries and relevant international documents.Although public participation is only one part of the EIA system,it plays an important role in improving the quality and transparency of the EIA.The national and cross-border EIA systems have been currently grown considerably and have become relatively regular,while the EIA of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction(hereinafter referred to as "ABNJ")is still a relatively new research field.By 2022,The negotiation work of "agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction(hereinafter referred to as the "BBNJ Agreement")with the ABNJ EIA as one of the important topics,has been going on for 7 years,and the latest text was released in2019.The agreement caters to the needs of a unified ABNJ EIA system.There is no specific analysis of the public participation in the EIA test in the BBNJ agreement,so this dissertation takes this as the research object.The research content of this dissertation is the public participation in the ABNJ EIA system,which is mainly consists of three parts: the necessity analysis of the public participate in the ABNJ EIA,the problems existing in the text of the public participation in the EIA in the BBNJ agreement negotiation,and the improvement suggestions for the existing problems in the agreement.Firstly,on the basis of integrating the ABNJ situation and relevant international principles,analyze the necessity of public participation in the ABNJ EIA system from both theoretical and practical aspects;Secondly,by comparing the differences between other international documents and the BBNJ Agreement in the public participation in the EIA system,summarize the useful reference of public participation and the problems existing in the BBNJ Agreement in three parts: the scope of public subjects and the identification standards,the scope of proposed activities to the EIA,and the specific procedures;Thirdly,put forward three suggestions specifically: clarify the participation status and identification standards of non-governmental entities,improve the specific identification standards for the scope of proposed activities for public participation in EIA,and clarify the specific procedural clauses for public participation.