Showing papers on "Environmental law published in 1997"

Trading up and governing across: transnational governance and environmental protection

Abstract: This article explores the adequacy of international governance mechanisms to address environmental issues. It examines the impact of increased global economic integration on national and regional environmental standards, the role of market mechanisms in facilitating the dissemination of environmental standards from greener nations to less green ones and the impact of international agreements on trans-border environmental problems. It argues that current regional and international governance mechanisms are adequate to enable nations which have the resources and the commitment to improve environmental quality to do so, either on their own or in cooperation with other nations with similar values and resources. Fears about a 'Delaware effect' regulatory race to the bottom are unwarranted: competition from nations with weaker environmental regulations has not prevented richer, greener nations - where the majority of world production occurs - from strengthening their own regulatory standards. On the contrary, t...

Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties

Abstract: List of boxes, figures and tables Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations List of main symbols used in UN documents Glossary Table of cases 1. Introduction Part I. The Birth and Development of the Principle: The UN General Assembly as Midwife: Introductory remarks to part I 2. The formative years (1945-1962) 3. Promoting economic development by the exercise of permanent sovereignty: the period after 1962 4. Permanent sovereignty, environmental protection and sustainable development 5. Permanent sovereignty over natural resources in territories under occupation or foreign administration Summary and appraisal of part I Part II. Natural-Resource Law in Practice: From Creeping National Jurisdiction Towards International Co-operation: Introductory remarks to part II 6. International investment law: from nationalism to pragmatism 7. The law of the sea: extension of control over marine resources 8. International environmental law: sovereignty versus the environment? Appraisal of part II Part III. Balancing Rights and Duties in an Increasingly Interdependent World: 9. Rights and claims: seeking evidence of recognition in international law 10. Duties: the other side of the coin 11. Sovereignty over natural resources as a basis for sustainable development Appendices Bibliography Index.

Human rights approaches to environmental protection

Abstract: This collection of essays explores links between the environment and human rights, and responds to the growing debate among activists, lawyers, academics and policy-makers on the legal status of environmental rights in both international and domestic law. The essays contribute to the existing literature and offer a sustained analysis which addresses both the conceptual and practical problems of environmental rights.

Thinking ecologically : the next generation of environmental policy

Abstract: Twenty-five years ago, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio was so contaminated that it caught fire, air pollution in some cities was thick enough to taste, and environmental laws focused on the obvious enemy: large American factories with belching smokestacks and pipes gushing wastes. Federal legislation has succeeded in providing cleaner air and water, but we now confront a different set of environmental problems-less visible and more subtle. This important book offers thought-provoking ideas on how America can respond to changing public health and ecological risks and create sound environmental policy for the future. The innovative thinkers of the Next Generation Project of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy-experts from business, government, nongovernmental organizations, and academia-propose reforms that balance environmental efforts with other public needs and issues. They call for new foundations for environmental law and policy, adoption of a more diverse set of policy tools and strategies (economic incentives, ecolabels), and new connections between critical sectors (agriculture, energy, transportation, service providers) and environmental policy. Future progress must involve not only officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental protection departments, say the authors, but also decision-makers as diverse as mayors, farmers, energy company executives, and delivery route planners. To be effective, next-generation policy-making will view environmental challenges comprehensively, connect academic theory with practical policy, and bridge the gaps that have caused recent policy debates to break down in rancor. This book begins the process of accomplishing these challenging goals.

International environmental negotiations : strategic policy issues

Abstract: Heterogenous international environmental agreements, S. Barrett burden-sharing and coalition stablilty in environmental negotiations with asymmetric countries, M.Botteon and C.Carraro international negotiations and dispute resolution mechanisms - the case of environmental negotiations, P.Jehiel and O. Compte R&D co-operation and the stability of international environmental agreements, C. Carraro and D. Siniscalco R&D spillovers, R&D co-operation, innovation and international environmental agreements, Y. Katsoulacos international environmental agreements and asymmetric information, O. Chillemi the interaction between international environmental and trade policies, M. Le Breton measuring benefits and damages from Co2 emmisions and international agreements to slow down greenhouse warming, A. Yiannaka and A. Xepapadeas the stability of international environmental coalitions with farsighted countries - some theoretical observations, G. Ecchia and M. Mariotti.

Environmental regulation and impact assessment

Abstract: Partial table of contents: PARTICIPANTS AND CRITERIA IN ENVIRONMENTAL DECISION MAKING. Themes in American Environmentalism. Participants in Environmental Regulation. DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS. Efficient Levels of Pollution Abatement. Implementing Environmental Regulations. Tradable Pollution Permits. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES. Water Quality Management. Air Pollution Control. Hazardous Waste Management. FORECASTING AND EVALUATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING. Forecasting Environmental Effects of Proposed Projects and Regulatory Actions. TECHNIQUES USED IN IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND REGULATION. Elements of Noise Impact Assessment. Index.

Environmental policies of major companies: australian evidence

Abstract: In the world-wide literature on business and the environment, the development of a Corporate Environmental Policy (CEP) is seen as an important step in becoming environmentally aware. Australian companies have been found to be developing CEPs, and this study investigates some of the major influences on them to do so. Environmental law appears to be the most persuasive mechanism in the greening of companies. CEPs also appear to be increasingly structured and many appear to contain a statement of objectives which supports the first element of the general framework developed by Grayet al. (1987) for social (environmental) reporting.

Instituting Environmental Protection: From Red to Green in Poland

Abstract: Lists of Tables, Figures and Boxes - Acknowledgements - Introduction - Poland's Ecological Crisis - A History of Environmental Law in Poland - The 'Enforceability' of Poland's Environmental Laws - Enforcement Problems I: Party Politics - Enforcement Problems II: Socialist Economics - The Ideological Dimension: Marxism and the Environment - Environmental Protection in Transition - Institutional Implications - Bibliography - Index

Scientific uncertainty and environmental problem solving

Abstract: Introduction: Scientific Uncertainty And Environmental Problem-Solving Methodological Rules For Four Classes Of Scientific Uncertainty Uncertainties In The Disposal Of High-Level Nuclear Waste Scientific Uncertainty As A Constraint To Environmental Problem-Solving: Large-Scale Ecosystems Uncertainty In Managing Ecosystems Sustainably Scientific Uncertainty And Environmental Policy: Four Pollution Case Studies Uncertainties Associated With Extrapolating From Toxicological Responses In Laboratory Systems To The Responses Of Natural Systems The Conservation Of Biodiversity: Scientific Uncertainty And The Burden Of Proof Resolving Uncertainty In Marine Fisheries Management: Can We? Scientific Uncertainties And Water Resources Management Scientific Uncertainty And The Environmental Impact Assessment Process In The United States Implications Of Scientific Uncertainty To Environmental Impact Assessment: The International Environment Environmental Problem-Solving In An Age Of Electronic Communications: Towards An Integrated Or Reductionist Model? The Implications Of Scientific Uncertainty To Environmental Law Science Assumptions And Misplaced Certainty In Natural Resources And Environmental Problem-Solving

International Environmental Law, Policy and Ethics

Abstract: I. Anthropocentricism II. The Self Interest Justification for Environmental Protection III. The Use of Economic Rationale As A Justification for Environmental Protection IV. The Problems With Economic Justifications for Environmental Protection V. Religious Justifications for Environmental Protection VI. The Problem of Religiously Inspired Conservation as a Suitable Source of Environmental Protection VII. Aesthetic, Cultural and Recreational Justifications VIII. The Rights of Future Generations as a Justification for Environmental Protection IX. The Problems with the Future Generations Argument X. The Growth of Non-Anthropocentric Ideals Within International Environmental Law XI. The Moral Considerability of Animals XII. Respect for Life XIII. The Land Ethic

Sustainability and Environmental Economics - An Alternative Text

Abstract: Economic Preliminaries 1. Environmental Problems and Environmental Economics 2. The Economist's View of the World 3. Market Failure and the Environment The Choice of Instruments for Environmental Policies 4. The Economic Theory of Pollution 5. A Critique of the Pigovian Model of Pollution 6. Choice of Instruments for Pollution Policy 7. Nitrate Pollution 8. Domestic Waste 9. Atmospheric Emissions from Road Transport Cost-Benefit Analysis 10. Principles of Cost-Benefit Analysis 11. Valuing the Environment 12. Cost-Benefit Analysis in Practice Sustainable Development 13. Exhaustible Resources 14. Renewable Resources 15. Sustainability and Sustainable Development 16. Instruments for Biodiversity Policy 17. Global Atmospheric Pollution 18. Restrospect: Sustainability, Economics and the Environment Further Reading: A Brief Guide References

Measuring environmental quality in Asia.

Abstract: Pressures of population growth, rapid urbanization, industrialization, and stress on natural resources provide new challenges to the Asian Development Bank as it strives to set forth environmental issues as an important element of sustainable economic development in the Asian and Pacific region. While the Bank can provide policy and technical guidance, the governments themselves must take the lead in providing the resources and policies needed to address effectively the rapidly changing environmental condition. How we measure the effectiveness of governmental performance in meeting the environmental challenge in Asia and the Pacific is the subject of this book. By drawing on experiences in six Asian and Pacific countries, the authors have developed a series of methodological tools to assist others in assessing the environmental quality of air, water, soil, and biological diversity in developing countries. These tools can then be used to determine the financial resources needed to achieve the quality of life characteristic of a sustainable development path.

Thinking of Environmental Law as a Complex Adaptive System: How to Clean Up the Environment by Making a Mess of Environmental Law

Abstract: This article is the fourth in my series of articles exploring the application of complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory to legal systems. It applies the model built in the three prior installments (in the Duke, Vanderbilt, and UC-Davis law reviews) to the specific context of environmental law. The work describes the subject matter of environmental law as a CAS and explains why environmental law thus must "think like a complex adaptive system" in order to accomplish its objectives.

Does environmental regulation matter? Determinants of the location of new manufacturing plants in India in 1994

Abstract: The costs attributable to complying with environmental regulation are not as important as other determinants of where Indian businesses locate new plants. The level of existing business activity overwhelms all other factors affecting location decisions. The cost of complying with environmental regulations has been cited as a major burden on businesses. Is it enough of a burden to influence where businesses locate new plants, which are not restricted in their choice of location? Mani, Pargal, and Huq examine a unique establishment level dataset to find out whether the stringency of environmental regulation affects where firms locate new plants. Using a conditional logit model, they estimate the importance of different variables in plant location choice. After controlling for the impact of factor price differentials, infrastructure, and agglomeration, they find that the number of new plants commissioned in different states of India in 1994 does not appear to be adversely affected by more stringent environmental enforcement at the state level. In other words, an environmental race to the bottom is unlikely. They find that the level of existing business activity overwhelms all other factors affecting location decisions. Reliable infrastructure and factors of production are also critical. This paper - a product of the Environment, Infrastructure, and Agriculture Division, Policy Research Department - is part of a larger effort in the department to study environmental regulation.

Golden Rules for Transboundary Pollution

Abstract: Environmental law is becoming ever more centralized. In the United States, state and local pollution laws have been eclipsed by federal regulation. In the European Community, and to a lesser degree under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), national controls have been supplemented by regional regulation. And the growing importance of treaties regulating particular aspects of the global environment has reinforced calls for more general regimes of international environmental regulation.

"If You Don't Know How to Fix it, Please Stop Breaking it!" The Precautionary Principle and Climate Change

Abstract: Taking precautions to prevent harm. Whether principe de precaution, Vorsorgeprinzip, fore-var prinsippet, or forsiktighetsprincip, etc., the precautionary principle embodies the idea that public and private interests should act to prevent harm. Furthermore, the precautionary principle suggests that action should be taken to limit, regulate, or prevent potentially dangerous undertakings even in the absence of absolute scientific proof. Such measures also naturally entail taking economic costs into account. With the environmental disasters of the 1980s, the precautionary principle established itself as an operational concept. On the eve of the 1997 Climate Summit in Kyoto, precaution, as the precautionary principle is often referred to, has now become a key legal principle in environmental law, in general, and in current international climate negotiations, in particular, attempts to understand why. It examines in turn the natural affinity between the precautionary principle and climate change, reviews a series of issues which the principle raises, and discusses avenues which it opens paper, climate change fulfills the theoretical requirements set for the application of the precautionary principle. It comes as no surprise that the actual application of the precautionary principle in the context of climate change raises high political stakes. As a result, climate change science, in particular, and science, in general, is under the fire of politically-motivated scientific skeptics. Thus, by way of the counter-measures which must be put into effect, the precautionary principle calls for a greater sense of responsibility on the part of scientists and the public at large. Specifically, from scientists, it demands perseverance in rigor, excellence in communication, and committment to education. However, even if special efforts are made to implement the precautionary principle in the context of climate change, the success of climate change mitigation will constitute no test of the validity, the usefulness, or the efficiency of the precautionary principle. Indeed, the degree to which climate change mitigation succeeds only provides a measure of our kind's ability to manage responsibly the global commons which we inherited from our ancestors and which our generation enjoys, the global commons which we will pass on to today's children and to generations to come.

Harm to the environment : the right to compensation and the assessment of damages

Abstract: This collection of essays by a group of international environmental law experts focuses on the growing and controversial international debate about environmental damage. Rules concerning liability and compensation come into play when administrative regulations have failed to prevent the occurrence of environmental damage. After such occurrence interest focuses upon the question of compensation either in the form of reinstatement of the environment or, if that is not possible or economically feasible, by making financial compensations. The essays in this volume address the current state of the law in the US and Europe and pose questions about its future development.

International environmental law in a nutshell

Abstract: Adopting an interdisciplinary framework, the book succinctly, yet accurately, traverses the full gamut of issues challenging the world today. This new edition deals more fully than the third edition with climate change, energy, and sustainable development. It also traverses a host of new challenges, such as drafting a new Kyoto Protocol, the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan. It then clearly analyzes the legal responses, whether in the form of treaties, customary law, or soft law instruments.

Deregulation in the European Union : Environmental Perspectives

Abstract: List of Tables, List of Figures, Notes on Contributors, Part I - Deregulation and liberalisation: new challenges for environmental policy, 1. The environmental dimensions of deregulation: an introduction, 2. Competitiveness, deregulation and environmental protection, 3. Deregulation of environmental law in a perspective of stimulating knowledge generation, 4. Access to information in a deregulated environment, 5. Deregulation as an environmental policy instrument in Hungary, Part II - Sectoral Perspectives, 6. Liberalisation in the energy sector: environmental threat or opportunity?, 7. Liberalisation or deregulation? The EU's transport policy and the environment, 8. Market and regulatory failure in the water sector, Part III - Industry in a deregulatory climate, 9. Large firms, SMEs and European environmental deregulation, 10. Industry and environmental policy instruments in a deregulatory climate: the business perspective, 11. Voluntary agreements as a form of deregulation? The Dutch experience, 12. Environemntal management systems in the Netherlands: towards the third generation of environemental licensing?, 13. Epilogue

Biodiversity and the law

Abstract: Biodiversity and the Law is a timely and provocative volume that combines historical perspective and cutting-edge legal analysis in an authoritative and broad discussion. Leading legal and policy experts consider a variety of options for the worldwide protection of biodiversity and present a succinct but comprehensive overview of the legal mechanisms available. They examine how conservation advocates can better utilize existing law, and consider what new law is needed. Among the topics covered are scientific and policy foundations of biodiversity protection; domestic efforts to establish an effective endangered species protection regime; international biodiversity protection; biodiversity as a genuinely public entity; and the future of biodiversity law. In stimulating and wide-ranging essays, contributors explain the importance of biodiversity law as it relates to all aspects of everyday life, and explore its major scientific and legal angles. Throughout, they argue that the preservation of biodiversity, which by definition includes all species of life on Earth, should be recognized as the main objective of environmental law and policy. Biodiversity and the Law is an important source of information for conservation advocates, agency personnel and other professionals who must understand and comply with existing law, students of law or wildlife management, and national and international policymakers and their staffs.

India's Environmental Policies, Programmes and Stewardship

Abstract: List of Tables - List of Acronyms - Preface - PART 1: MANAGING THE ENVIRONMENT: INSTITUTIONS, POLICIES, PROGRAMMES AND IMPEDIMENTS - Status of the Environment: An Introduction - A Framework for Environmental Management - The First Two Decades of Environmental Protection Policies and Programmes in India: 1974-1995 - Green Justice: An Overview of Environmental Laws and Regulations - Institutional Impediments for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement - PART 2: INDIA AND INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES - Issues in Environmental Protection: A Third World Perspective - Towards a Global Environmental Policy - PART 3: ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP - Environmental Stewardship - PART 4: ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES - Improving Organizational Effectiveness and Accountability for Environmental Management - Environmental Policy, Programmes and Stewardship: An Overview - Index

Environmental reporting in Europe: an analysis of UK and Spanish developments

Abstract: The interdependence of ecology and the economy has become a highly significant feature in contemporary European business society. This degree of interdependency emphasizes the need for compatibility of the goals of economic growth, environmental protection and the rational management of natural resources. The issues are not predominantly centred on economic growth versus environmental sustainability, but rather on the pragmatic acknowledgement that there needs to be recognition and compromise between competing aims. Seeks to examine European Union regulations relating to business environmental issues and to analyse the legal, political and professional adaptation processes of environmental regulation in Spain and the UK.

Environmental Justice: Bridging the Gap between Environmental Laws and 'Justice'

Abstract: In this article, Professor Kaswan considers the sometimes-tense intersection between environmentalism and the environmental justice movement. Professor Kaswan first establishes a framework for evaluating the newly-emerging environmental justice movement, identifying its primary distributive and political justice strands. Professor Kaswan then notes the skeptical views of environmentalism presented in the environmental justice literature. She explains the underlying tension by analyzing the roots of the environmental movement and its early distance from the civil rights movement (from which the environmental justice movement arose), as well as the ways in which environmental law may inadvertently have exacerbated environmental problems for poor and minority communities. Seeking to bridge the gap between environmental law and the struggle for justice, Professor Kaswan then explores the mechanisms by which environmental laws could serve environmental justice. Environmental laws can not only stop unwanted projects, they add transparency to facility siting processes and thereby reveal decisionmaking irrationalities that could be traceable to discrimination. For example, where an entity sites a facility in violation of substantive environmental criteria, it suggests that socio-political factors may be influencing the decision. In addition, many environmental laws provide a tool for generating information about the selected site and alternative sites that an affected community would not otherwise be able to obtain. The information can provide the community a basis for questioning the rationality, and hence the motives, of the siting decision. Environmental laws can thereby play a critical rule in a community's pursuit of political justice.

The Earth Summit at Rio : politics, economics, and the environment

Abstract: The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro was the largest environmental conference in history. From it emerged a body of environmental legal principles designed to address the conflict between sustaining economic development and the need for global solutions to pressing environmental problems such as climate change, acid rain, ozone depletion, and nuclear accidents. In this well-researched study, Ranee K. L. Panjabi argues that the real challenge facing the self-interested nation-states that participated will be to look beyond their own boundaries to the welfare of the planet as a whole and actually implement the Rio environmental principles.

Inspections and emissions in India : puzzling survey evidence about industrial pollution

Abstract: In a sample of industrial plants in India, direct community pressure on plants does not appear to play a major role in reducing emissions. Nor do formal inspections, possibly because of the low probability of enforcement and the low penalties for noncompliance. Industrial plants face pressure to abate water pollution from many sources, national and local, through formal government regulation and through more informal pressure from consumer groups and concern for the firm's reputation. Formal regulation tends to reflect the bargaining power of local communities and is not as uniform or blind as the law would imply. Regulators are not immune to the pulls and pushes of powerful community interests. Studies of enforcement in the U.S. steel industry, for example, find that it is weaker at plants that are major employers in the local labor market. Using survey data from India, Pargal, Mani, and Huq examine whether the monitoring and enforcement efforts of provincial pollution control authorities are affected by local community characteristics (which serve as proxies for political power). They also test for evidence that informal pressure on plants results in negotiated reductions in emissions. They find that high levels of pollution in India elicit a formal regulatory response: Inspections. But inspections are ineffective in bringing about changes in behavior, probably because of bureaucratic or other problems in follow-through. Moreover, poorly paid inspectors with low morale may be susceptible to rent-seeking. They find little evidence to support the hypothesis that better-educated and higher-income communities are better able to pressure plants to reduce emissions than are poorer communities, although there are significantly more inspections in more developed districts. In India, whatever community pressure exists is probably channeled through formal regulatory mechanisms. Larger plants in India, as in the rest of the world, tend to be cleaner than smaller plants. Indian policymakers and regulators may want to explicitly recognize the tradeoff in environmental quality of the existing regulatory bias toward the small- and medium-scale sector. This paper - a product of the Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study environmental regulation in developing countries. The study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project The Economics of Industrial Pollution Control in Developing Countries (RPO 680-20) and by a trust fund under the research project Social and Environmental Consequences of Growth-Oriented Policies.