ABSTRACT
Prior chapters have examined how understandings of the Mekong River Basin have been crafted over time, and how the challenge of trying to govern the basin, largely by technical means, has been handled by the Mekong River Commission (MRC) since 1995. In Chapter 4, governance of the river by the MRC under the 1995 Agreement was subjected to critical analysis. This chapter elaborates on these governance issues by examining how Mekong River Basin development activities and conditions have been evaluated and measured through environmental assessment (EA) processes. It explores some examples of these EA processes and comments on the politics of measurement and assessment in this field. As the Mekong region becomes ‘the scene for one of the most intensive hydropower developments globally’ (Keskinen et al., 2012, p. 320), the legally required use of EA processes gains in importance as part of development decision-making. EA as experienced in the Mekong has come to reflect a complex and at times confusing network of international, regional and national legal norms, practices and institutions. In the Mekong River Basin, EA processes, now more than ever, have become part of the interconnected stories of law. That is, they are embedded in practices of legal claim and counterclaim and involve a litany of instruments and institutions, proponents and opponents, allegiances and disaffections. Collectively, these enliven a sense of law – including law regarding EA – as unwieldy and yet still filled with potential, as we noted in Chapter 2.
