The Basic Environment Law and Basic Environment Plan

The Basic Environment Plan was drawn up in December 1994 based on the Basic Environment Law, which outlines the general direction of Japan's environmental policies. The Basic Environment Plan is designed to engage all sectors of the society in a concerted effort to protect the environment. The Plan maps out the basic approach of environmental policies with the mid-21st century in view and identifies four long-term objectives. It also sets the direction of measures to be implemented by the early 21st century for achieving these objectives.

Enactment of the Basic Environment Law

Before the enactment of this law, Japanese environmental policies were based on two fundamental laws: the Basic Law for Environmental Pollution Control, enacted in 1967, and the Nature Conservation Law, enacted in 1972. These laws, which were drafted to combat serious industrial pollution and to preserve the natural environment, had worked quite successfully.
However, as our socioeconomic system and lifestyle had increasingly taken on the nature of mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal, the then existing legal framework, which worked mainly by imposing restrictions, could no longer deal adequately with the newly emerged complex and diverse environmental problems, such as urban and domestic-type pollution, and global environmental problems.
Thus, in November 1993, the Basic Environment Law was enacted to chart a new direction for Japan's basic environmental policies. The primary objective of the law is to protect the environment, by recognizing it as our essential life-support system to be passed on to future generations. This objective shall be achieved by building a society that is economically sustainable without stressing the environment, and contributing positively to the conservation of the global environment.

A Summary of the Basic Environment Law

In its first chapter, the Basic Environment Law sets out three basic principles for environmental conservation and the responsibilities of each sector of the society -- including the national and local governments, corporations, and citizens -- in living up to these principles.
The second chapter gives a list of basic policies for environmental conservation, including the formulation of the Basic Environment Plan, promotion of environmental impact assessment, new policy measures such as economic measures to clear obstacles from environmental conservation practices, and measures to deal with global environmental problems. The third chapter stipulates councils needed to develop the policies listed in chapter two.

Structure of the Basic Environment Law

Articles in red are new principles and policies characteristic of the Basic Environment Law

Formulation of the Basic Environment Plan

The Cabinet formulated the Basic Environment Plan in December 1994 based on the Basic Environment Law.
With the mid-21st century in view, the Cabinet laid out the Basic Environment Plan's concepts and long-term objectives for environmental policies and specified the direction of the policies to be implemented in the period toward the early 21st century for achieving these objectives.

The Performance Review of the Basic Environment Plan

The Central Environment Council monitors the progress of the Basic Environment Plan annually to ensure that the plan is implemented steadily. It holds public hearings at various locations in Japan in order to reflect the views and opinions of citizens in its reports to the national government.
The Central Environment Council presented its report on the third performance review of the Basic Environment Plan in August 1998. In the report, three key tasks were identified: conservation of the atmospheric environment, conservation of the water environment, and voluntary and active initiatives by each sector of the society. Other main recommendations of the report included: (1) the Basic Environment Plan should play a leading role in showing a clear picture of a sustainable socioeconomic system and the way to realize it; and (2) measures for promoting environmental conservation should be implemented in a comprehensive and systematic manner.

Review of the Basic Environment Plan

The Basic Environment Plan specified that the plan should be reviewed in about five years after the Cabinet decision on the plan. Since the current Basic Environment Plan was supposed to be reviewed in 1998, the Prime Minister requested the Central Environment Council to start deliberation on the review of the plan in June 1998. Work on the review began immediately.