COUNTRY REPORTS * LATVIA
Until 1988, environmental problems in Latvia were solved separately on a sector by sector basis, if they were solved at all. Thus, the solutions were subordinated to the interests of industry, agriculture, transportation and the centralized socialistic planning system in general. The only organization dealing with the environment was the Latvian Nature and Monument Protection Association - an NGO with extended rights.
Environmental legislation in Latvia had been closely connected with regulations on the utilization of natural resources. Thus, many of the requirements related to environmental protection were included in acts on the utilization of natural resources, including the:
It should also be noted that some legislative acts approved before 1990 are still in force.
The Satversme (Constitution) has supreme legal force among laws, but due to the fact that this document was adopted in 1922, it does not imply any of the norms in the field of environmental protection.
According to the constitutional act entitled 'Human and Citizen Rights and Responsibilities' (1991), environmental protection is the responsibility of each individual, the entire society and the state. Laws on environmental protection in Latvia usually determine only the general guidelines and requirements in this field, which are later worked out in a more detailed way in Resolutions by the Cabinet, in Regulations, Rulings, and Rulings of the Prime Minister, and by institutions of state administration, including ministries and local authorities.
As mentioned before, initially legislation in the field of environmental protection tended to regulate the use of natural resources, and only in the early 1990s was work begun to develop the necessary laws to find solutions to environmental problems. In this period the following laws were adopted:
In order to make the solutions to environmental protection problems effective, requirements in the field of environmental protection have also been introduced in other laws, for instance in the:
A group of laws that determine the liability for violation of environmental protection laws are of great importance, as follows:
The Civil Code is indirectly applicable to environmental protection, through the general rules of liability. In the Criminal Code, special articles are incorporated applicable to environmental crimes. In the Administrative Code, specific environmental offenses are provided for.
The former Council of Ministers, presently the Cabinet, is trying in its normative acts to find solutions to numerous environmental protection problems, such as nature protection, hunting, fishing, pollution, forest protection, and risk objects.
Also former USSR, Latvian SSR standards and normative acts are still in effect, because working out new ones is a very expensive and time-consuming process.
Due to the Latvia's political orientation to the European Union, it is foreseen that legislative acts (including standards and norms) shall be coordinated with European Union directives. By the year 2005, the Republic of Latvia should implement the European Union system of standards and norms, and should modify the existing standards and norms and work out those now lacking. In some cases, the existing standards and norms are stricter than those applied in the European Union. In these cases, they will not be changed.
The signing of international agreements also has a considerable influence on Latvia's environmental protection legislation. Latvia has joined several conventions, the requirements of which are also included in normative acts.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development has a well-developed system of subordinate institutions Ñ the Environmental Data Center, State Environmental Inspection, Environmental Impact Assessment Board, Center for Environmental Consultation and Monitoring, and so forth. There is a also a network of nine regional environmental administrative bodies which create the institutional basis for implementation of environmental protection policy, as well as its inclusion in all fields of the national economy.
The signing of the European Association Agreement (1995),was an important step that finished one phase of Latvia's integration into the European structures, and introduced a qualitatively new strategic period in the direction of full membership in the European Union.
Priority issues have also been set, one of them being environmental protection. Work groups in different fields were formed and coordinators named, including one to oversee the field of environmental protection. In 1994, the European Integration Bureau was formed under the authority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The main task of the European Integration Bureau is to promote harmonization of state legislative acts with those of the European Union, as well as observation of this process.