Yu-Yin Chang. President, Environmental Jurists Association; Partner, Lin & Shih Attorneys-At-Law
The draft of the Technical Regulation for Social Impact Assessment has been prepared by the Risk Society and Policy Research Centre,National Taiwan University. There may be several challenges in the future. For example, it is constrained by the conservative mind-set of developers and government, lack of talents for social impact assessment, its inferior status to law. We should establish a model case via cases by professional civil groups, and train talents systematically for social impact assessment, build the talent pool and develop the social impact assessor certificate system. The long-term goal is to enact social impact assessment law, inclusive with case assessment as well as policy assessment. The social impact assessment would be carried out, before the formation of business plans, to reduce the impacts to local residents’ life.