Establishing a Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment Framework for the Mekong River Basin

This report assesses how further development of the Draft TbEIA Framework may be informed by recommended best practices in the field of TbEIA. It also analyzes how the Draft TbEIA Framework relates to the national EIA legislation and/or administrative requirements of the MRC member countries. Section II of this report outlines TbEIA recommended best practices, based on a survey of lessons learned from international, regional, and international financial institution practice. This section focuses on the agreements and documents that the MRC drew upon when preparing the Draft TbEIA Framework. Section III summarizes the national EIA requirements of the MRC member countries and the chronological development of the MRC TbEIA requirement and Framework drafts. Section IV discusses recommendations for how to revise the second version of the Draft TbEIA Framework to ensure it is consistent with international best practices and sufficiently harmonizes the national EIA requirements of the member countries, so that it can be effectively implemented and enforced.