A system of certified environmental impact assessment experts in the Czech Republic

New environmental regulations in the Czech Republic issued after the political changes in the fall of 1989 also include environmental impact assessment (EIA) and environmental liability acts. Such laws, however, are in some cases misused, or even abused. The EIA law recognizes a “certified person” who is the only subject to take part in the EIA process either as an author of the EIA report or as a reviewer of it. Even if the assessment procedure is an interdisciplinary team task, professional firms, consulting companies, university departments, scientific and research institutions, or teams are not eligible to apply for the certificate. Only a single person is allowed by the act to be certified. This does not allow full competition between teams and firms involved in EIA, promotes corruption, and may exclude from the process some genuinely independent experts whose interest is not focused on EIA but rather on individual environmental issues. The status of a certified person also disqualifies foreign experts (peer reviewers) for whom the language barrier may be a serious obstacle.