Clarification: Health Impact Assessment in Thailand

A number of Thai colleagues contacted me following my earlier post about the apparent relaxing of Thailand's HIA regulations. They reminded me that whilst it's correct that the range of industries that are required to do HIAs under Thailand's health and environmental legislation have been reduced it's only part of the picture.

Local communities still retain the right, guaranteed under the Thai constitution, to request that a court and an expert committee examine whether an HIA is required, irrespective of other regulations. This has already occurred in the Mab Ta Phut case, with a court already ruling that 76 projects in the region have to undertake HIAs.