Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

The thesis discusses the interconnection between the right to environment and environmental impact assessment (EIA), elaborating their depth and collective potential to effectively address most – if not all – of the complex and interconnected environmental challenges.

Firstly, the thesis explores the evolution of the environmental laws from the year 1900 and provides a unifying synthesis of the diverse environmental components, obligations, rights, and principles within international, regional, and national environmental laws. Secondly, it identifies the right to environment as a unifying and holistic right that integrates these environmental concepts and encapsulates comprehensive environmental protection. Thirdly, it provides a comparison of substantive and procedural components of EIA in the European Union, the United States, and Pakistan, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of the EIA legal frameworks within each jurisdiction. Furthermore, it signifies EIA as a unique and comprehensive environmental tool that incorporates all the environmental concepts. Lastly, it presents EIA as the most significant – and perhaps the only – administrative and systematic remedy for protecting, enforcing, and attaining the right to environment.

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