Introduction

International EIA commitments are included in particular regimes in order to further the substantive goals of that regime. Even those EIA commitments that are not directly related to a specified environmental problem still identify substantive environmental objectives, such as the prevention of transboundary environmental harm, as the substantive basis for the EIA commitments. If the purposive nature of EIA commitments is a matter of common sense, answering the question of how EIAs actually achieve environmental ends is not. In the domestic context, competing theoretical approaches to explaining how EIAs affect the policy process have centered on different aspects of the EIA process, and, as a result, have also understood the role of EIA in different terms.

Models of EIA that adopt a comprehensive rationality approach tend to view EIAs, and the policy process more generally, as a technical exercise with a consequent emphasis on the role of science and experts in determining correct courses of action. In rejecting this technical understanding of the policy process, pluralist models emphasize the political dimension of EIA processes. The role of EIA processes is not simply to gather and apply scientific knowledge to a particular problem, but rather EIA provides an opportunity for competing interest groups to press for outcomes that reflect their particular interests. A third model, which may be described as a transformational model, accepts that policy decisions are never neutral and, therefore, EIA processes are inherently political.