Rethinking Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment

Abstract

Human beings have struggled with transboundary environmental harm from the dawn of civilization. This is no hyperbole-the earliest recorded treaty resolved a dispute over diversions from a river that ran between two Mesopotamian city-states. Over five thousand years later, countries are still coping with environmental effects that spill across borders. One recent response to this problem is transboundary environmental impact assessment (EIA).