Environmental Justice in the European Union's Strategic Environmental Assessment Procedure – Lessons from Sweden's Implementation

Abstract

While the European Union's Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive strongly emphasises the importance of procedural justice in environmental matters, it has not yet explicitly called for the inclusion of Environmental Justice concerns. Thereby, the Directive seems to neglect inequities in environmental decision-making, which are often faced by marginalised groups. This potential lack of recognition requires closer examination of the SEA Directive and the underlying procedure through a lens, which acknowledges such inequities. In order to bring Environmental Justice to the SEA Directive and procedure, this thesis elaborates on the concept of Environmental Justice, as well as its development from a grassroot movement to a globally recognised concept. It further attempts to illustrate to what extent Environmental Justice concerns have been considered in the SEA Directive and procedure, as well as its implementation in Sweden. To that end, the incorporation of interests of Roma and Saami in Sweden will be assessed, by reviewing the SEA procedure under the Swedish Comprehensive Plan. In addition, it proposes which principles need to be adopted, adapted, and applied to dismantle discriminatory environmental decision-making within the European Union and its Member States.