Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
limited.
129
International instruments for environmental assessment and
public participation in decision-making have also, whilst making the
assessment of plans and programmes mandatory, either omitted the
assessment of policy
130
or included only a discretionary requirement
for its conduct.
131
This lack of provision re
ects a widely held belief that
it would not be appropriate to impose legal structures on the processes
by which policy decisions are reached. For example, the formal applica-
tion of assessment to policy was opposed during the drafting of the
Kiev Protocol on grounds that the character of policy-making differs
from that of plan or programme development, and that it is therefore
'
inherently unsuited to the application of strategic environmental assess-
ment in legislated or prescriptive form
.
132
The principal argument made against introducing legal requirements
to prioritise or even re
'
ect on environmental matters in policy-making
has been that this would be incompatible with the complex nature of
the process.
133
Politicians must adjudicate between con
icting values
and take into account a wide array of considerations in forming policy.
To try and constrain this dynamic process within a framework that seeks
to give it a particular direction would be to ignore the complexities
involved with attempting to establish what would be the best course of
action for society
s well-being. It has been suggested that this argument
also conceals a general antipathy amongst politicians to measures that
would limit political control over this level of decision-making. Sadler
'
129
Chapter 3,
Section 3.3
.
130
Council Directive 2001/42/EC of 27 June 2001 on the assessment of the effects of
certain plans and programmes on the environment
(
'
Strategic Environmental
) [2001] OJ L 197/30.
131
Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment to the Convention on Environmental
Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (
Assessment Directive
'
), Kiev, 21 May 2003,
in force 11 July 2010, UN Doc. ECE/MP. EIA/2003/2, Article 13; Convention on Access
to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in
Environmental Matters (
'
Kiev Protocol
'
), Aarhus, 25 June 1998, in force 30
October 2001, 2161 UNTS 447, 38 ILM 517 (1999), Article 7.
'
Aarhus Convention
'
132
Sadler,
Between Policy-making
and Planning: SEA and Strategic Decision-making in the Danish Energy Sector
'
Strategic Environmental Assessment
'
,p.5;I.Lyhne,
'
'
(2011)
13 Journal of Environmental Assessment, Policy and Management,322.
133
A. Brown and T. Nitz,
'
Applying Strategic Environmental Assessment to Policy
Making:
in
S. Marsden and S. Dovers (eds) Strategic Environmental Assessment in Australasia
(Sydney: The Federation Press, 2002), pp. 86
the Policy Cycle Model andtheQueenslandPoicyHandbook
'
Integrating the
Environment into Strategic Decision-making: Conceptualizing Policy SEA
-
7; W. R. Sheate et al.,
'
'
(2003) 13
European Environment, 14.
