Resource Manual to Support Application of the Protocol on SEA
Draft Final
THIS IS NOT THE OFFICIAL TEXT
UNECE Protocol
on Strategic Environmental Assessment to the Convention
on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary
Context (Kiev, 2003)
| |
Contents |
1. Objective |
The Parties to this Protocol,
Recognizing the importance of integrating
environmental, including health, considerations
into the preparation and adoption of plans and programmes
and, to the extent appropriate, policies and legislation,
Committing themselves to promoting sustainable
development and therefore basing themselves on the
conclusions of the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
1992), in particular principles 4 and 10 of the
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and
Agenda 21, as well as the outcome of the third Ministerial
Conference on Environment and Health (London, 1999)
and the World Summit on Sustainable Development
(Johannesburg, South Africa, 2002),
Bearing in mind the Convention on Environmental
Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context, done
at Espoo, Finland, on 25 February 1991, and decision
II/9 of its Parties at Sofia on 26 and 27 February
2001, in which it was decided to prepare a legally
binding protocol on
strategic environmental assessment,
Recognizing that strategic environmental
assessment should have an important role in the
preparation and adoption of plans, programmes, and,
to the extent appropriate, policies and legislation,
and that the wider application of the principles
of environmental impact assessment to plans, programmes,
policies and legislation will further strengthen
the systematic analysis of their
significant environmental effects,
Acknowledging the Convention on Access
to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making
and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters,
done at Aarhus, Denmark, on 25 June 1998, and taking
note of the relevant paragraphs of the Lucca Declaration,
adopted at the first meeting of its Parties,
Conscious, therefore, of the importance
of providing for public participation in strategic
environmental assessment,
Acknowledging the benefits to the health
and wellbeing of present and future generations
that will follow if the need to protect and improve
people's health is taken into account as an integral
part of strategic environmental assessment, and
recognizing the work led by the World
Health Organization in this respect,
Mindful of the need for and importance
of enhancing international cooperation in assessing
the transboundary environmental, including health,
effects of proposed plans and programmes, and, to
the extent appropriate, policies and legislation,
Have agreed as follows: