Arend Kolhoff
Technical sectretary
The NCEA commented on Georgia's draft laws on environmental permits and on state ecological expertise (EIA review).
Significant details
The Georgian Minister of Environment requested the NCEA to review two draft environmental laws:
- The Law of Georgia on Environmental Permit;
- The Law of Georgia on State Ecological Expertise.
The NCEA reviewed completeness and consistency of both laws, using the EU EIA directive and international good practice as a review framework. It issued an advice of the secretariat in which some of the main comments are:
- The laws do not fully comply with the EU EIA directive on a number of issues, including the list of activities requiring EIA and the obligation to study reasonable alternatives;
- The laws do not prescribe scoping, which is considered goog practice in EIA;
- Aims of the laws seem rather ambitious;
- No provisions are included on SEA;
- No provisions are included for transboundary impacts.
In addition to these general comments, a number of detailed comments for specific articles were provided.