ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the historical background, legal basis and effect, objectives, procedures, transposition, implications and experience to date of the SEA Directive. As the most detailed widely applicable and legally binding of the SEA laws considered, it has inevitably been subject to extensive commentary and detailed guidance, and, as such, Chapter 10 is undoubtedly the most significant of all the chapters in this book. It builds on the previous chapter as the SEA Directive has very close procedural links with the EIA Directive and other horizontal directives. 1 It also relates very closely to the next chapter, which examines related EC laws. Both Chapter 9 and Chapter 11 must therefore be closely considered when reading Chapter 10.
