The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

The main goal of my thesis is to provide an in-depth analysis of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which is currently one of the significant legal tools of environmental quality protection. In case any public or private project is likely to have a significant effect on the environment, it needs to pass through the EIA proceedings. This process precedes the development consent to the project. The original EU legal regulation (Council directive 85/337/EEC amended by Directives 97/11/EC, 2003/35/EC and 2009/31/EC) is described in the first part of the thesis. The main sources of this chapter are the judicial decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Communities that reflect the incorrect transpositions of the directive into the legal order of the individual member states. The second chapter is focused on specific attributes of the Czech legal regulation that is included in the legal act no. 100/2001 Sb. modified by further amendments. The regulation is divided into two parts: The first part, the assessment, is concluded by a non-binding opinion, while the second part is concluded by development consent or refusal, as based on particular legal regulations. The most severe issue of the Czech regulation is the insufficient ensurance of participation opportunities of members of the public..