Public consultation, (Bio) ethics and democracy

Abstract

Public participation is a fundamental democratic mechanism to evaluate the quality of the decision-making process involving environmental licensing. The operation of public participation in environmental licensing may occur through direct or indirect means, indicating greater or less capacity for social accountability in the relationship between communities and enterprises that will produce environmental impacts that will affect these communities to a greater or lesser extent and scope. The institutional and political viability of paralyzing the voice of those affected by entrepreneurship in the environmental licensing process thus becomes much more than a democratic procedure, but a form of bioethical exercise in the relationship between social actors, the State and economic agents. The purpose of this proposal is to evaluate the extent to which public participation in environmental licensing regarding the Environmental Study of Sedimentary Area (EAAS) of the Sergipe-Alagoas/Jacuípe sea basin. The public consultation is a democratic mechanism for conflict environmental resolution, and it should be understood as an applied ethical bet on political action by recognizing that rights incorporated as human rights. For our eminently interdisciplinary aim, Political Science, Environmental Impact Assessment and Bioethics are fields that mediate this reflection and allow us to reflect the necessary procedural adjustments to an imperfect democratic mechanism.