Bill Lockhart, a Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, recently published an article in the EIA Resource and Response Centre’s ERC Journal, an English-language publication covering “news, views and developments” in India’s Environmental Impact Analysis process.
The article, “Institutional Civil Disobedience vs. The Rule of Law–Part I,” explores India’s Ministry of Environment and Forest‘s (MOEF) disobedience “in a single case where the penalty will be paid by tribal people’s loss of their livelihoods and culture, and the loss of irreplaceable biodiversity” in that country’s Eastern Ghat Mountains.
Lockhart traces MOEF’s failure to identify or analyze the significant issues raised by plans for ore mining and processing in the State of Andhra Pradesh. He argues that MOEF ignored requirements for Cumulative Impact Analysis, for assessing activities ancillary to the immediate project operations, such as the impact of heavy mining truck traffic in the area; and also disregarded the requirement to consider all “relevant impacts,” including impacts on groundwater, vegetation, wildlife and air quality.
The article was prepared with help from students in Lockhart’s International Environmental Practicum course last spring. A second part of the article will appear in the next issue of the Journal.
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