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A solid foundation
Hershowitz, Ari
Hershowitz, Ari
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Abstract
"Originally introduced in the United States through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, environmental assessment requirements are now incorporated in the environmental laws of countries worldwide. These requirements are viewed with ambivalence by some developing country governments, which see them at best as a nuisance, and at worst as a barrier to progress. For citizens in these countries, however, environmental assessments and their rigorous judicial enforcement may provide the only mechanism available to hold governments accountable for their decisions on major infrastructure projects. This Article describes the legal battle over one such project, the Chalillo dam in Belize. Plans by a Canadian-owned utility to build the hydroelectric facility on Belize's Macal River sparked a national and international debate and culminated in the first environmental lawsuit to reach the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, the highest court of appeal for Belize. Belizean environmental groups argued, inter alia, that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the dam was fundamentally flawed, containing errors in the geological description of the dam's foundation. In an unusually divided 3-2 ruling, the Privy Council upheld Belize's decision to allow construction of the dam. The majority judgment discounted the geological flaws in the EIA, ruling that the decision to build the dam was essentially a sovereign one for Belize to make. The dissent, meanwhile, maintained that the geological flaws could not be ignored, and that Belizean authorities should be held to the same standards as those in the developed world. To do any less, the dissent reasoned, would undermine good governance and the rule of law. This Article argues that the trajectory of the case itself as well as its aftermath, demonstrate the wisdom of the minority view." (p. 1-2)
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2008
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With permission of the license/copyright holder