Showing papers on "Environmental law published in 1988"

The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, and the Environment

Abstract: Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. At the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima or why political questions are not all economic 3. The allocation and distribution of resources 4. Frigile prices and shadow values 5. Values and preferences 6. Nature and the national idea 7. Can environmentalists be liberals? 8. Property and the value of land 9. Where Ickes went right or, Reason and rationality in environmental law Notes Index.

Ecology and development in the Third World

Abstract: Development and natural vegetation environmental impact of land development development of water resources development and changing air quality urban development and environmental modification the global concern concepts and mechanisms for global environmental management environmental problems and Third World development.

State Responsibility and the Marine Environment: The Rules of Decision

Abstract: This work examines the international laws governing the marine environment on two levels. First, the author examines the rules of state responsibility applicable to breaches of international norm, the specific rules of state environmental obligation and the pattern of state legal authority over the seas. Second, the author analyzes the intersection of these three bodies of law to deduce the rules governing marine environmental responsibility. The conclusion of this book is a set of rules - present in proceeding from customary international law, responsive to such complexities - a working framework for analyzing the international legal consequences of any environmental injury.

The impact of federal court decisions on the policies and administration of the United States Environmental Protection Agency

Abstract: work presents the findings of a recently completed three-year study of the impact of federal court decisions on the policies and administration of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in all seven of its major statutory areas.1 The topic is important for several reasons. First, the EPA is a large public agency with a staff of over 15,000 and a budget of more than $4.9 billion. It is responsible for implementing the federal laws designed to protect the environment. The EPA has jurisdiction over the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Its far-reaching regulations penetrate every level of our society. Next, environmental policy and administration are growing daily as

The eclipse of NEPA as Environmental Policy

Abstract: Previous evaluations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) have focused on the effectiveness of its procedural requirements in improving the quality of decision making with respect to environmental matters. Subsequent growth of other environmental regulation and the changing role of Environmental Impact Statements in the decision-making process should also be considered. The many federal and state environmental laws passed in the 1970s have, by defining the nature and acceptability of environmental impact and prohibiting unacceptable impacts, superseded the substantive role of NEPA in environmental protection. Although the EIS continues to serve as a focus for public debate regarding proposed government actions, such debates usually center around social or economic rather than environmental issues. NEPA has thus been superseded by other environmental laws, and its role in the decision-making process today has little relation to its earlier environmental significance.

Environmental planning, administration and management in Nigerian Cities: The example of Benin City, Bendel State

Abstract: Third World cities are characterized by weak administrative and managerial capacity for environmental planning. Benin City, Nigeria, is no exception. Benin's environmental problems result largely from its unplanned land use and weak development control. These problems include lack of open space, substandard housing and an increasing volume of refuse. The administrative arrangements to handle environmental problems include the Town Planning Division, which enforces building and housing codes and land use regulations; and the Task Force on Environmental Sanitation, responsible for solid waste management. However, these arrangements have not produced satisfactory results. Failure has been due partly to the ad hoc organization of environmental administration; the overlapping perception of environmental problems; the alienation of the public; dispersal of authority; and the scale of jurisdictional units. Effective environmental planning administration must adopt a holistic approach, which recognizes the need for a comprehensive environmental planning and a concentration of environmental authority. This is based on the premise that environmental issues are the responsibility of one agency but an obligation for all. Structurally, the concentration of environmental authority hinges on the principle of cooperative leadership by the Federal Government. This calls urgently for the establishment of a Federal Environmental Protection Agency at the centre, and Environmental Management Boards at state levels. The Boards would provide an administrative umbrella under which the management of various aspects of the environment are coordinated. In order to maximize the cooperation of the public, the traditional power structure of the Oba (paramount chiefs and community leaders) must be involved in the conception and implementation of environmental planning. Citizen participation would in turn be maximized if the neighbourhood is adopted as the jurisdictional unit, upon which environmental administration and management are systematically built.

Protecting Waste Assimilation Streamflows by the Law of Water Allocation, Nuisance, and Public Trust, and by Environmental Statutes

Abstract: Both federal and state water pollution control statutes require dramatic reductions in waste discharges, but not their total elimination. Those statutes require establishing water quality standards for receiving waters and presume that they will be adequate to assimilate the residual post-treatment wastes. But nothing in those statutes assures that minimum flows for waste assimilation in fact will remain in existence. Neither the common law nor eastern and western diversion permit statutes expressly provide direct means for establishing such minimum flows. Indirect means do exist, however, for establishing minimum protected flows for residual waste assimilation. Those means include establishing minimum flowsforfish and wildlife habitat and recreation purposes in some eastern diversion permit states, authorizing appropriations for the same purposes in some western states, and requiring protection of environmental values in those states that recognize the public trust or have enacted environmental protection statutes. Because of the haphazard and inadequate characteristics of those indirect means, states should establish direct regulatory authority for establishing minimum protected streamflows for waste assimilation.

Environmental management in water resources projects

Abstract: Irrigation and water works have been undertaken in India since ancient times in line with the central importance of agriculture in the country's economy. Early planners were well aware of the environmental consequences of their work, as this paper shows before summarizing recent experience in the management of the major environmental issues, identified as the resettlement of displaced populations, waterlogging, deforestation, pisciculture, reservoir sedimentation, water quality and impact on climate. In recent years the Government of India has established a comprehensive mechanism for the integration of environmental aspects into the planning process. The paper concludes by stressing that degradation of the environment may occur not only as a result of inappropriate development but also due to the lack of development.

Independent Agencies Under Attack: A Skeptical View of the Importance of the Debate

Abstract: The 1980s have witnessed two related but distinct attacks on independent agencies.1 One attack is grounded in constitutional theory. Some have argued that independent agencies, those \"strange amalgam[s]\" that blend the functions of all three branches but are the creatures of none, violate the separation of powers doctrine in the Constitution.2 This approach has been labeled \"neoclassical\" 3 or the \"new formalism.\"4 These terms suggest a rediscovery of fundamental constitutional principles. Another attack proceeds from an organizational perspective. Without clear lines of authority from one branch of government, independent agencies are politically unaccountable, and therefore vulnerable to regulatory inefficiency and external manipulation. 5 In essence, the independent agency form is organizationally dysfunctional. This functional critique is almost as old as independent agencies, yet the criticism continues unabated. These two lines of attack are distinct in several ways. One questions the constitutionality of a form, the other criticizes its function. The latter has a long history; the former reflects a reawakening and expansion of

La protection de l'environnement au Canada et aux États-Unis

Abstract: This paper explains some of the main differences between the development and the structure of environmental legislation, regulations and programs in Canada and the United States. In Canada, the division of powers under the Federal Constitution between Parliament and Provincial Legislatures explains the structure and scope of Canadian environmental law. Federal laws and regulations have been mostly sectoral while Provincial laws have been broader and have been successful in integrating environmental planning instruments. U.S. environmental laws, regulations and programs are developed under the leadership of Congress. The Environmental Protection Agency and State Governments are called upon to play an important role in the implementation of Federal environmental statutes. Contrary to the Canadian situation, citizen suits and the Judiciary are instrumental in the development of U.S. environmental law.

Changing Policy Roles of Environmental Epidemiology

Abstract: This paper discusses the evolving interdependent relationship between environmental sciences (such as epidemiology) and environmental law and regulation. Societal needs for expert evaluations of the potential hazards of toxic chemicals have tremendously influenced the development of toxicology and epidemiology. In this regard, much recent environmental law reflects its "shotgun wedding" with environmental science; these science-forcing laws require that regulatory agencies take action based on findings that may be at or, very often beyond, the frontiers of environmental science. Recent developments in environmental law and the growth of the animal protection movement have independently contributed to renewed interest in and heightened expectations for the role of epidemiology in developing environmental standards and actions. Those who oppose animal experimentation often argue that data on humans are required to estimate human effects; some recent laws, such as Superfund, mandate consideration of human health assessments as one of the bases for deciding whether and how best to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites. Requiring epidemiologic confirmation of hazards would make evidence of human harm a prerequisite for regulatory action. Because the animal models and statistical tests on which much environmental regulation now rests are models designed to anticipate human and environmental effects, their statistical validation and development remain crucial to the development and application of environmental law. For the most part, epidemiology is best suited for confirming past risks and not for predicting and preventing future risks.

Pollution Law Handbook: A Guide to Federal Environmental Laws

Abstract: Preface Federal Clean Water Act Clear Air Act Toxic Substances Control Act Safe Drinking Water Act Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (Solid Waste Disposal Act) Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act Emergency Planning Community Right-to-Know Act Index

Negotiating a state environmental quality act: The arizona groundwater case

Abstract: Not all mediators have a neutral, power-free base. In Arizona, consensus on a new environmental law was mediated by legislators and the governor.

Environmental Crisis and Environmental Policies in Asian Countries

Abstract: After the 1972 UN conference on "The Human Environment" an increasing number of countries in the developing world initiated environmental policies. This process, however, gained momentum only slowly, as the view was still widely prevailing (and particularly supported by India and Brazil) that environmental protection was a privilege of the industrial countries which developing countries cannot afford. The 1972 conference also brought about a change in the concept of human environment which adapted to the actual conditions and priorities in developing countries by widening the definition and encompassing deforestation, desertification, inadequate water supply, lack of sanitation, poor housing facilities, etc. It was also made clear that in addition to "industrialization-induced" environmental pollution, developing countries suffer particularly from "poverty-induced" environmental hazards. This paper reviews the development of environmental management in Asian developing countries during the Seventies and Eighties and analyses shortcomings of environmental policies in these countries. It also gives an overview of environmental pollution and damages in order to judge the success or failure of environmental policies, and analyses some of the main causative factors of environmental pollution. The paper cannot deal with national characteristics, but has to confine itself to features which are more or less common to most countries and thus focuses on general trends and developments.

L'intérêt à poursuivre du citoyen québécois en droit de l'environnement

Abstract: Problems related to pollution and other ecological imbalances caused by man frequently exercise indirect influence on entire populations. Traditionally, any Quebec citizen who was concerned about an environmental problem, had no way for presenting his views before a court of law since his interest in the matter was deemed to be insufficient. Presently rules governing interest to act have been made more flexible such that a citizen may in some cases take action in the public interest. This text determines what interest a Quebec citizen may invoke in environmental law through the analysis of rules of interest applicable to three procedures that may be exercised in cases of environmental damage. These are : judicial review over administrative decisions, the injunction provided within the Environment Quality Act and measures based on the Canada and Quebec charters of rights and freedoms.

Prevention of Significant Deterioration: 'Control-Compelling' Versus 'Site-Shifting'

Abstract: In the 1970s, Congress, in response to a judicial decision, codified what is known as the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) program. This program attempts to protect areas with clean air from increases in air pollution from new plants. My article takes up the various rationales that have been put forward for PSD, and concludes that only one -- protection of American's national parks and wilderness areas -- is justifiable. Thus arguably the program should be confined to safeguarding such areas rather than all clean air areas.

Human rights and environmental law: the case for a conservation bill of rights

Abstract: The environment has been descriptionbed as the house created on earth for living things, ecology as the science of planetary housekeeping, and, building on these definitions, environmental law as the law of planetary housekeeping - as such environmental law is concerned with protecting the earth and its inhabitants from activities that upset its life-sustaining capacities. It is in this context of planetary housekeeping that it is submitted that the right to environmental integrity is a basic human right deserving of legal protection at the highest possible level, and that is by constitutional entrenchment. This submission is postulated on the following premises, namely that there is an urgent need to halt and, if possible, reverse environmental degradation; and the law has a primary function to play in controlling environmental debasement, albeit a complementary role to the roles played by education, economics and administrative policy. The roles of the executive branch of government andof the courts in the protection of the environment are briefly reviewed in this article. It is submitted that there is a clear need for adoption of the constitutional option of entrenching a conservation ethic in a bill of rights, as opposed to mere declarations of policy as envisaged in the Draft Bill on Environment Conservation.