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Environmental Impact Assessment Act (EIAA) has been implementing in Taiwan more than 25 years. The leading position of the environmental protection authorities (EPAs) during the EIA review and their veto power on projects are the main features of Taiwan’s EIAA. The legislative intent of such design is to give EPAs greater power to safeguard the value of environmental protection.
After calculating all types of the Environmental Litigations in Taiwan, we can find that the people, that may file litigations in the name of an individual resident or a group, are more likely to be dissatisfied with the EIA results than the developers. And the residents wins large scale (48%) of the cases which they filed against the EIA conclusions; while only one case filed by groups won, indicating that class action suits or citizen suits are hard to access.
This thesis then further observes the annual data of EIA conclusions and some important judicial adjucation. It argues that under the strict scrutiny of the courts, though lots of EIA conclusions were revoked, showing the courts’ preference towards environmental protection, but in reality the operations of the EIA reviews were hardly changed due to the structural problems of the law. On the contrary, when facing cases filed by groups, the courts conservatively examine the plaintiff’s capacity of fileing litigations.
Therefore, this thesis suggests that the courts should review the EIA conclusions more substantially and detailedly, and be more positive on the issue of the groups’ capacity of fileing class action suits or citizen suits, before any legislative reforms or administrative improvments have been taken place.
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