Skip to main content Skip to page footer

Governing environmental impact assessment law in Turkey and the latest EIA regulation (Statement)

Ömer Aykul

elni Review 2015, pp. 35-39. https://doi.org/10.46850/elni.2015.007

“Environment Law” was adopted in Turkey in 1983 after the concept was included in the Constitution. Environmental affairs were carried out by an “Undersecretariat” until the “Ministry of Environment” was established in 1991. The Ministry was reorganised as the “Ministry of Environment and Forestry”, but following another structural change, it currently functions as “Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation”. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) legislation was drafted in 1997. The regulation, which has been amended 20 times in total in the last 18 years, has deviated gradually from its purpose of preserving the ecosystem. In addition to this, another problem has been the tremendous increase in abstaining from the EIA process by means of specific decisions. The regulations drafted are far from realising the principle of “sustainable life” and lack “watershed based and cumulative” assessment capability in technical terms. The concepts of social, health and cultural impact assessment are not even mentioned. This paper issues a statement on environmental impact assessment law in Turkey. 

Access full article

References

 

  1. Turkish Constitution-1982, Passed on 07.11.1982 (Official Gazette No.17863, Dated 09.11.1982).
  2. Environmental Impact Assessment Regulation, (Official Gazette No. 29186, Dated 25.11.2014).
  3. Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), OJ 2012 C 226/47.
  4. Necmettin Cepel, Environment Protect and Ecologic Term Dictionary (Çevre Koruma ve Ekoloji Terimleri sözlüğüI) Istanbul, TEMA, 1996, pp. 64-73.