Showing papers on "Environmental law published in 2002"

Environmental Harm and the Political Economy of Consumption

Abstract: Introduction THIS ARTICLE ARGUES THAT ADEQUATE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL HARM MUST proceed from sustained analysis of the basic institutions and structures of contemporary capitalism. The central question at the core of environmental degradation and destruction is the organization of human subsistence and the relationship of this to nature. The article thus demonstrates the centrality of capitalist political economy to the construction of the substantive problem (environmental harm) and to the limitations of existing regulatory regimes in relation to this problem. To illustrate the theoretical issues and complexities in this area, the specific focus will be on "consumption" relations. I will discuss the relationship between production and consumption, the developments underpinning the extension of "consumerism" in capitalist society (e.g., privatization and commodification), and the symbolic place of consumption and its association with the realization of surplus value by capital (e.g., production of meaning, identity, and desire). Each of these areas has implications for the conceptualization of environmental problems and for how to regulate or respond to environmental harm. Criminology and the Study of Environmental Harm By its very nature, the study of environmental harm raises issues pertaining to the proper domains of criminology as a field of inquiry. For example, from the point of view of conceptions of "harm" and the regulation of environmental activity, there is rarely a specific, or adequate, criminal justice response to the issues. There is enormous variation in how we conceptualize the problem and devise appropriate and effective measures to limit, reduce, or abolish certain types of environmental harm depending upon the philosophical framework within which analysis and intervention take place (see, for example, Halsey and White, 1998). The actual interplay between civil and criminal remedies also warrants close attention, as it represents attempts to deal with substantive issues through measures across a range of regulatory areas (Gunningham et al., 1995). Major issues relating to environmental harm include its definition in criminological terms and the nature of responses to such harm. The politics of definition are complicated by the politics of "denial," in which particular concrete manifestations of social injury and environmental damage are obfuscated, ignored, or redefined in ways that re-present them as being of little relevance to academic criminological study or state criminal justice intervention. Similar to the denial of human rights violations, environmental issues call forth a range of neutralization techniques on the part of nation-states and corporations that ultimately legitimate and justify certain types of environmentally unfriendly activities. For instance, "green washing" media campaigns misconstrue the nature of collective corporate business regarding the environment (Beder, 1997). The arguments of critics of particular kinds of biotechnological development are attacked and delegitimated (see Hager and Burton, 1999; Hannigan, 1995), as in t he case of those who question the nature of genetically modified food (Hindmarsh, 1996). For governments, denial of harm is usually associated with economic objectives and the appeal to forms of "sustainable development" that fundamentally involve further environmental degradation (see Harvey, 1996). At the heart of these processes of denial is a culture that takes for granted, but rarely sees as problematic, the proposition that continued expansion of material consumption is both possible and will not harm the biosphere in any fundamental way. Some aspects of denial are consciously and directly linked to instrumental purposes (as in firm's or industry campaigns to delegitimate environmental action surrounding events or developments that are manifestly harmful to local environments). …

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach

Abstract: I Introduction: The Economy and the Environment 1 Changing Perspectives on the Environment 2 Resources, Environment, and Economic Development II Economic Analysis of Environmental Issues 3 The Theory of Environmental Externalities 4 Common-Property Resources and Public Goods 5 Resource Allocation Over Time 6 Valuing the Environment III Ecological Economics and Environmental Accounting 7 Ecological Economics: Basic Concepts 8 National Income and Environmental Accounting 9 Modeling Economic and Ecological Systems IV Population, Agriculture, and the Environment 10 Population and the Environment 11 Agriculture, Food, and Environment V Energy and Resources 12 Nonrenewable Resources: Scarcity and Abundance 13 Energy: The Great Transition 14 Renewable Resource Use: Fisheries 15 Ecosystem Management: Forest and Water Systems VI Pollution: Impacts and Policy Responses 16 Pollution: Analysis and Policy 17 Industrial Ecology 18 Global Climate Change VII Environment, Trade, and Development 19 World Trade and the Environment 20 Institutions for Sustainable Development

Environmental policy integration : greening sectoral policies in Europe

Abstract: Part I: Introduction - Greening the European Union: An Introduction * Three Conceptions of the Integration Principle in International Environmental Law * Part II: Country Studies - Efficient Hardware and Light Green Software: Environmental Policy Integration in the UK * Efficient Policy Integration as a Political Principle: The German Case and the Implications of European Policy * Environmental Policy Integration in Italy: Is a Green Government Enough? Some Evidence from the Italian Case * Part III: European Union Policy Studies - Integrating European Environmental and Agricultural Policy * Why Does Environmental Policy Integration Fail? The Case of Environmental Taxation for Heavy Goods Vehicles * The Sustainability of Freight Transport Across the Alps: European Union Policy in Controversies on Transit Traffic * European Union Energy Policy in a Changing Climate * Dynamics in a Multilevel Policy: Greening the European Union Regional and Cohesion Funds * Part IV: Conclusion - Conclusion: What Are the Bottlenecks and Where Are The Opportunities for Greening the European Union? * Index

Leaders and Laggards: Next-Generation Environmental Regulation

Abstract: As consensus grows internationally that traditional command and control approaches to environmental regulation have borne much of their low hanging fruit, how do national environmental agencies decide which types of regulatory reinvention work and which don't? In a period of decreasing budgets for many agencies, the need to maximise the effectiveness of the regulatory dollar is critical if environmental well-being is to be improved. The authors of this book have discovered that there is a deep-seated international crisis in the evaluation of tools for next-generation environmental regulation such as economic instruments and voluntary agreements as agencies struggle with a lack of information about regulatory reform, of what works and what doesn't, and of how best to harness the resources of both government and non-government stakeholders. Progress is being impeded unnecessarily by a lack of shared knowledge of how similar agencies elsewhere are meeting similar challenges and by a lack of data on the success or otherwise of existing initiatives. Despite recent and valuable attempts to deal with such problems in the European Union and North America, these remain islands of wisdom in a sea of ignorance. For example, when it comes to dealing with small and medium-sized enterprises very little is known, and what is known is not effectively distilled and disseminated. Much the same could be said about the roles of third parties, commercial and non-commercial, as surrogate regulators, and more broadly of many current initiatives to reconfigure the regulatory state. Based on the authors work for the OECD, Victorian Environmental Protection Authority and the Western Australian Department of Environment Protection Leaders and Laggards addresses these problems by identifying innovative regulatory best practice internationally in a number of specific contexts, evaluating empirically the effectiveness of regulatory reform and providing policy prescriptions which would better enable agencies to fulfil their regulatory missions. Focusing primarily on the differing requirements for both corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises in North America and Europe, the book aims to complement existing initiatives and to expand knowledge of regulatory reform by showing: how existing experience can best be put to practical use "on the ground"; by drawing lessons from experiments in innovative regulation internationally; by reporting and extrapolating on original case studies; and by advancing understanding on which instruments and strategies are likely to be of most value and why. The authors argue that the development of theory has outstripped its application. In essence, Leaders and Laggards aims to ground a myriad of theory on the reinvention of environmental regulation into practice. The book will be essential reading for environmental policy makers, regulatory and other government officials responsible for policy design and implementation, academics and postgraduate students in environmental management, environmental law and environmental policy, and a more general readership within environmental policy and management studies. It will also be of interest to those in industry, such as environmental managers and corporate strategists, who are considering the use of more innovative environmental and regulatory strategies, and to environmental NGOs.

Justice and adaptation to climate change

Abstract: Adaptation to climate change presents dilemmas of justice to the international community, including those around the responsibility of developed countries to assist developing countries in adapting to changing climate. We propose a framework for analysing justice issues in these contexts and examine justice implications of international environmental law on adaptation. We argue that adaptation involves both distributive and procedural justice; the former focusing on the incidence of consequences of adaptive responses and the latter on how decisions on adaptation are made. Moreover, both consequentialist and deontological concerns must be recognised in the two areas of justice. Adaptation is comprised of inaction and proactive and reactive responses at the international, national, local and individual levels. Inaction at higher levels delegates the responsibility for adaptation to lower levels, and higher-level responses influence alternatives that are available at lower levels. Justice is thus always implicit in the choice of adaptive responses. We discuss how international law on adaptation expresses a commitment to assist developing countries but does not provide a clear foundation for it and does not resolve how the burden of funding ought to be shared and how the adaptation funds ought to be distributed. The Marrakech Accords of the Framework Convention on Climate Change have increased the emphasis on procedural justice, such as the role of developing countries in decisions on adaptation. While creating ways to acknowledge and hear developing country and local voices, the recent legal changes do not create full rights to participation in decision-making on adaptive responses.

International environmental law and policy

Abstract: The most widely adopted text in the field, this comprehensive, multidisciplinary casebook analyzes the major treaty regimes (with an expanded climate chapter), as well as customary law principles. It emphasizes the dynamic nature of the law-making process, including global environmental diplomacy and the expanding role of non-state actors, including scientists, NGOs, and business. It presents the binding norms of international environmental law, and explains how international cooperation facilitates and strengthens global environmental governance through setting national priorities, coordinating bilateral and multilateral science, financing, technology sharing, and capacity building.

Environmental Law and Policy

Abstract: Environmental Law and Policy is a user-friendly, concise, inexpensive treatment of environmental law. Written to be read rather than used as a reference source, the authors provide a broad conceptual overview of environmental law while also explaining the major statutes and cases. The book is intended for four audiences - students (both graduate and undergraduate) seeking a readable study guide for their environmental law and policy courses; professors who do not use casebooks (relying on their own materials or case studies) but want an integrating text for their courses or want to include conceptual materials on the major legal issues; and practicing lawyers and environmental professionals who want a concise, readable overview of the field. For the Third Edition, new chapters have been written on climate change and energy, exploring the important developments in these rapidly changing areas.

The Global Fifth Amendment? Nafta's Investment Protections and the Misguided Quest for an International 'Regulatory Takings' Doctrine

Abstract: NAFTA's investment chapter provides foreign investors from Mexico, Canada and the United States with a number of protections against the actions of the governments that are parties to NAFTA. One such provision - requiring host governments to compensate foreign investors for acts of "direct or indirect expropriation" or "measures tantamount to expropriation" - is the basis for several major "regulatory takings" claims filed against NAFTA governments. To date, four such claims have been decided on the merits by NAFTA arbitral tribunals, and while it is too early to tell how broadly the tribunals will interpret the expropriation provision, these claims have generated considerable concern among environmentalists that the investor protections will stifle environmental and land-use regulation. The article addresses two issues central to the increasingly heated debate over NAFTA's expropriation provision. First, it examines the relationship between the NAFTA tribunals' decisions on expropriation claims and U.S. domestic law on regulatory takings. Although many have argued that NAFTA "exports" the U.S. regulatory takings standard into international law, the article demonstrates that, in fact, the tribunals' decisions significantly exceed U.S. Fifth Amendment takings protections in several respects. The tribunal decisions broaden the definition of compensable property interests, extend the compensation requirement to "judicial" takings, and bypass the ripeness and exhaustion requirements of U.S. takings doctrine. Second, the article asks whether this expansion of compensation for regulatory takings under international investment agreements such as NAFTA is justified under the leading rationales for a compensation requirement: the internalization of the costs of government regulation; the extension of fair treatment to regulated investors; the provision of ex post insurance to regulated investors; and the need to attract foreign investment to developing countries. Our analysis shows that none of these arguments supports the expansion compensation requirements to embrace "regulatory takings" in the international investment context. While there is no viable case to be made for expanding international compensation requirements, such expansion involves a number of significant costs: It gives foreign investors a competitive advantage over domestic firms, redistributes wealth between domestic taxpayers and foreign firms, and may deter efficient regulation. In light of the tenuous benefits and potentially serious costs of an international "regulatory takings" doctrine, we conclude that the United States and other sponsors of international investment agreements should eschew the expansion of compensation requirements, instead limiting expropriation provisions to the traditional concerns of investor protections: physical invasions and seizures, direct nationalization, and governmental assumption or transfer of control of foreign property.

The Globalization of Environmental Protection: The Case of Environmental Impact Assessment

Abstract: Much of the literature on environmental protection focuses on domestic actors and domestic political activity. However, the degree to which environmental policies are influenced by international or...

Sanctions for Pollution: Do We Have The Right Regime?

Abstract: The nature of regulatory penalties and appropriate enforcement policies have been well served in the literature on environmental law, but developments are occurring which suggest good reasons for looking at these matters afresh. While governments and environmental lawyers have reiterated traditional concerns that the enforcement of command-and-control regulatory systems is insufficiently effective, they have also explored and encouraged regimes which, because they focus on management structures, incentive devices and forms of self-regulation, seem no longer to rely on conventional sanctions and therefore orthodox deterrence theory. In this paper we focus on a third area of debate. In the United Kingdom, the imposition of sanctions has historically been reserved for the ordinary courts and always subject to the normal processes of criminal justice. Elsewhere in the common law world, particularly in the USA and Australia, there has been a growing tendency to grant powers to the public enforcement agencies to impose ‘civil’ or ‘administrative’ penalties, and without the procedures and protection of the criminal law. There does not seem to have been much by way of attempts to rationalise the use by agencies of these powers, nor to relate them to traditional deterrence theory associated with penal sanctions. This is the goal of our paper. We explore the deterrence dimension to the use of administrative penalties within the context of UK environ-

Managing the Chinese environment.

Abstract: Introduction The Environmental Legacy of Imperial China The Organization of Environmental Protection in China Environmental Regulation in the People's Republic of China: The Face of Domestic Law China: Environmental Protection, Domestic Policy Trends, Patterns of Participation in Regimes and Compliance with International Norms China's Land Resources, Environment, and Agricultural Production Is China Living on the Water Margin? Environmental Issues and the SouthNorth Water Transfer Scheme Recent Trends in Forestry and Conservation of Biodiversity in China China's Energy and Resource Uses: Continuity and Change Industrial Pollution in China and Remedial Policies Population, Public Health, and the Environment in China Business Opportunities for Foreign Firms related to China's Environment

Regional cooperation, and the role of international organizations and regional integration

Abstract: The authors examine regional cooperation among neighboring countries in the area of regional public goods. These public goods include water basins (such as lakes, rivers, and underground water), infrastructure (such as roads, railways, and dams), energy, and the environment. Their analysis focuses on developing countries and the potentially beneficial role that international organizations and regional integration may play in bringing the relevant countries to a cooperative equilibrium. A major problem in reaching a cooperative solution is likely to be the lack of trust. If neighboring countries do not trust each other because of past problems, they may fail to reach a cooperative solution as each tries to maximize its gain from the regional public good. These strategies typically do not account for spillover effects and ultimately leads to losses for all parties. Other constraints on reaching a cooperative solution are its complexity and the financial requirements. Two types of institutions may help resolve some or all of these problems. International organizations can help with trust, expertise, and financing. The United Nations and the World Bank have been involved in a number of such projects in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere, and have been successful in helping parties reach cooperative solutions. Regional integration agreements, though not necessary for regional cooperation, may also be helpful by embedding the negotiations on regional cooperation in a broader institutional framework. The authors examine these issues with the support of both analysis and a number of case studies.

Sharing Transboundary Resources: International Law and Optimal Resource Use

Abstract: Introduction 1. The need for collective action in the management of transboundary resources 2. States as collective actors 3. The transnational conflict paradigm: structural failures and responses 4. Transnational institutions for transboundary ecosystem management: defining the tasks and the constraints 5. The structure and procedure of institutions for transboundary ecosystem management 6. The development of positive international law on transboundary ecosystems: a critical analysis 7. Efficiency, custom, and the evolution of the law 8. Conclusion.

Justice and Natural Resources: Concepts, Strategies, and Applications

Abstract: Just over two decades ago, research findings that environmentally hazardous facilities were more likely to be sited near poor and minority communities gave rise to the environmental justice movement. Yet inequitable distribution of the burdens of industrial facilities and pollution is only half of the problem; poor and minority communities are often denied the benefits of natural resources and can suffer disproportionate harm from decisions about their management and use. "Justice and Natural Resources" is devoted to exploring the concept of environmental justice in the realm of natural resources. Contributors consider how decisions about the management and use of natural resources can exacerbate social injustice and the problems of disadvantaged communities. Looking at issues that are predominantly rural and in the American West - many of them involving Indian reservations, public lands and resource development activities - it offers a new and more expansive view of environmental justice. The book begins by delineating the key conceptual dimensions of environmental justice in the natural resource arena. Following the conceptual chapters are contributions that examine the application of environmental justice in natural resource decision-making. Chapters examine: how natural resource management can affect a range of stakeholders quite differently, distributing benefits to some and burdens to others; the potential for using civil rights laws to address damage to natural and cultural resources; the unique status of Native American environmental justice claims; parallels between domestic and international environmental justice; and how authority under existing environmental law can be used by Federal regulators and communities to address a broad spectrum of environmental justice concerns. "Justice and Natural Resources" offers a concise overview of the field of environmental justice and a set of frameworks for understanding it. It expands the previously urban and industrial scope of the movement to include distribution of the burdens and access to the benefits of natural resources, broadening environmental justice to a truly nationwide concern.

Dirty Exports and Environmental Regulation: Do Standards Matter to Trade?

Abstract: How to address the link between environmental regulation and trade was an important part of discussions at the World Trade Organization Ministerial in Doha, Qatar in November 2001. Trade ministers agreed to launch negotiations on trade and the environment, specifically clarification of WTO rules. The authors address an important part of the background context for deciding whether or how to link trade agreements to the environment from a developing country perspective. The authors ask whether environmental regulations affect exports of pollution-intensive or"dirty"goods in 24 countries between 1994 and 1998. Based on a Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) model, net exports in five pollution-intensive industries are regressed on factor endowments and measures of environmental standards (legislation in force). The results suggest that, if country heterogeneity such as enforcement of environmental regulations is controlled for, more stringent environmental standards imply lower net exports of metal mining, nonferrous metals, iron, and steel and chemicals. The authors find find that a trade agreement on a common environmental standard will cost a non-OECD country substantially more than an OECD country. Developing countries will, on average, reduce exports of the five pollution-intensive products by 0.37 percent of GNP. This represents 11 percent of annual exports of these products from the 24 studied countries.

Fables of the Cuyahoga: Reconstructing a History of Environmental Protection

Abstract: On June 22, 1969, just before noon, an oil slick and assorted debris under a railroad trestle on the Cuyahoga River caught fire. The fire attracted national media attention, and helped prompt the passage of federal environmental laws. A river on fire was a symbol of earth in need of repair, and federal regulation was the reparative tool of choice. Much of the Cuyahoga story is mythology, however, a fable with powerful symbolic force. The river did burn in 1969 - as it and other rivers had burned many times before - and today the Cuyahoga and many U.S. rivers are far less polluted. But so much else of what we "know" about the 1969 fire is simply not so. The conventional narratives, of a river abandoned by its local community, of water pollution at its zenith, of conventional legal doctrines impotent in the face of environmental harms, and of a beneficent federal government rushing in to save the day, is misleading in many respects. This paper revisits the context and history of the legendary Cuyahoga River fire to reveal a more complex story about the causes and consequences of various institutional choices in environmental law. The aim is to provide additional perspective to the questions of institutional choice which underlie environmental policy, and to suggest that the decision to reallocate primary authority over water quality to the federal government was neither inevitable nor an unmitigated blessing.

Environmental Justice: Law, Policy, and Regulation

Abstract: Environmental justice is a significant and dynamic contemporary development in environmental law. Professors Rechtschaffen, Gauna, and O'Neill provide an accessible compilation of interdisciplinary materials for studying environmental justice, interspersed with extensive notes, comments and questions designed to facilitate classroom discussion. Environmental Justice integrates excerpts from empirical studies, cases, agency decisions, informal agency guidance, law reviews and other academic literature, as well as community-generated documents. The materials include writings from the fields of environmental law and civil rights law, as well as sociology, political science, and risk assessment.After examining various conceptions of justice, studies about disparities in environmental harms and benefits, and the theories concerning the causes of such inequities, the book looks at environmental justice in a variety of regulatory contexts. Environmental Justice also explores various tools used in the effort to achieve environmental justice, including citizen suit enforcement of environmental laws, claims brought under the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and various non-litigation strategies, including land use and planning tools, disclosure laws and collaborative projects.This second edition includes a new chapter addressing climate change. It also adds expanded coverage of international environmental justice issues, risk and the public health, empirical environmental justice research, and environmental justice for American Indian peoples.

The Determinants of Government Environmental Performance : An Empirical Analysis of Chinese Townships

Abstract: This paper explores the determinants of government environmental performance at the local level. Chinese township governments, the lowest level in the hierarchical government structure, were selected for this exercise. The performance indicators used in the analyses include the efforts of enforcing government environmental regulations and of providing environmental services to polluting enterprises. The performance determinants identified include environmental performance of upper-level governments, local development status, industrial employment, income of workers in polluting enterprises, local environmental quality, and public pressure for environmental quality improvement. A survey of 85 townships and interviews of 151 township government leaders were conducted in three provinces of China. The statistical results show that: a) The environmental performance of upper-level governments in China strongly and positively influences the environmental efforts of the township governments. b) Public pressure has created incentives for the township governments to improve their efforts in both enforcing environmental regulations and providing environmental services, while the environmental quality did not show significant impacts. c) Higher employment in industries tends to have a negative influence on the regulatory enforcement, but a positive influence on environmental service provision. d) A higher enforcement effort and a lower service provision are associated with higher wages the workers received from industries. This implies that the industries offering higher wages to the workers are subject to more stringent environmental enforcement but receive less environmental services. 5) Richer townships tend to have less regulatory enforcement but better environmental services.

Strategic Environmental Assessment in Australasia

Abstract: Preface - Gerry Bates - Environmental Law Consultant Part 1 - SEA and Sustainability Strategic environmental assessment: an international overview Simon Marsden, Environment Agency, UK Too deep a SEA? Strategic environmental assessment in the era of sustainability Stephen Dovers, Australian National University, Canberra ACT Part 2 - Legal Frameworks Strategic environmental assessment and fisheries management in Australia: how effective is the Commonwealth legal framework? Simon Marsden, Environment Agency, UK Strategic environmental assessment: legislative developments in Western Australia Jim Malcolm, Department of Environment, Water and Catchment Protection, Western Australia Part 3 - SEA of Policies and Plans Applying SEA to policy-making: the policy cycle model and the Queensland Policy Handbook Lex Brown and Tracey Nitz, Griffith University, Queensland Requirements of European tiered planning systems: SEA approaches and tools of general application Thomas Fischer, Department of Civic Design, University of Liverpool Part 4 - Links with Other Environmental Management Instruments Linkages between project-based EIA and the use of 'ad hoc' SEA for Australian coastal development Nick Harvey, University of Adelaide, South Australia The Oceanport integrated assessment experience: what role for SEA in Tasmania? John Hayes, Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment, Tasmania Part 5 - Applications and Perspectives The Australian Regional Forest Agreement process: a case study in strategic natural resource assessment John Ashe, Environmental Consultant, Canberra ACT Strategic environmental assessment: a business perspective Steven Munchenberg, Business Council of Australia, Victoria All at SEA? Strateguc environmental assessment in New Zealand Jennifer Dixon, University of Auckland Conclusions: prospects for SEA Simon Marsden and Stephen Dovers

The status of sea turtles under International environmental law and International environmental agreements

Abstract: (2002). The status of sea turtles under International environmental law and International environmental agreements. Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy: Vol. 5, International Instruments and Marine Turtle Conservation, pp. 11-48.

Law Making by Global Civil Society: The Forest Certification Prototype

Abstract: Forest certification is a process through which transnational networks of diverse actors define and enforce standards for the management of forests around the world. Important forest certification programs currently include the Forest Stewardship Council, the Pan-European Forest Certification Scheme, and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. Products from certified forests usually carry a logo intended to signify that they were produced in an environmentally and sometimes socially acceptable manner. In seeking to verify for society that the activities of certified forest enterprises are acceptable, certification programs take on the important public roles of (1) setting standards for proper behavior and (2) ensuring conformance with the standards. They do not rely on the policy formulation or enforcement mechanisms of nation states. Rather, they develop standards through their own organizations and enforce them with their own institutional mechanisms. Because the environmental policy-making and enforcement functions assumed by certification programs have long been the purview of governments, the initial challenge is how to conceptualize certification programs. Given that they are not governmental initiatives, much existing literature describes certification programs as 'market mechanisms.' But this is true only in the loosest sense, in that certification programs seek to us market signals to restructure producers' access to consumers. At base, however, the promoters of forest certification have not been driven by market incentives, but rather have attempted to restructure them to achieve environmental and social ideals. One theoretical construct commonly applied to non-governmental and non-market organizations seeking to shape social behavior is that of 'civil society.' This paper aims to understand forest certification in terms of civil society theory. Moreover, since certification programs seek to achieve long-term regulation of forest management, often using law-like institutions, the paper explores the degree to which certification programs can be seen as making law. The paper uses a mutual illumination methodology. Starting from the hypothesis that forest certification is part of a larger process by which institutions of global civil society are being constructed, it draws upon global civil society scholarship to illuminate important social dimensions of forest certification. At the same time, research on forest certification is used to suggest some of the prospects and challenges facing global civil society. Next, the premise that forest certification is an emergent form of environmental law is subjected to a similar mutual-illumination strategy, using legal scholarship to examine forest certification, and also using forest certification scholarship to reflect back on law. The paper critiques forest certification in terms of efficacy, adaptability, coherence, and legitimacy. It concludes that while forest certification has some important lessons to learn from environmental law, it may also end up teaching, reshaping and ultimately expanding the reach of environmental law.

International Law and the Environment:Variations on a Theme

Abstract: Preface by the Series Editor. Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Introduction. I. Applying Classical Methods and Techniques of International Law to International Environmental Problems: The Traditional Era. Introduction. A. the Oracle of Absolute Sovereignty J. Harmon. B. Separating Jurisdiction from Substance: the North Atlantic Coast Fisheries Case. C. Separating Jurisdiction from Substance in Relation to Areas beyond National Jurisdiction: The Bering Sea Fur Seals Arbitrations. D. The Doctrine of Abuse of Rights. E. Recourse to State Responsibility: the Corfu Channel Case. F. Recognition of a State's Right to Use Its Natural Resources: the Lake Lanoux Case. G. Settling International Environmental Disputes through Arbitration: the Trail Smelter Case. Conclusion. II. The Development of International Environmental Law and the Law of Natural Resources: the Modern Era. Introduction. A. The Evolution of International Environmental Law: the Process of the Internationalization of Environmental Issues. B. The Nationalization of the Law of Natural Resources. Conclusion. III. International Law of Environmental Integration and Sustainable Development: the Postmodern Era. Introduction. A. Bridging the Gap between Man and Nature. B. Bridging the Gap between the Environment and the Economy. Conclusion. Conclusions. Bibliography. Index.

The National Environmental Policy Act: Judicial Misconstruction, Legislative Indifference, and Executive Neglect

Abstract: Environmental degradation and the compromised integrity of the earth's ecological system were growing public concerns in the mid- to late 1960s. These issues spurred Congress to pass the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), the first law to focus such environmental concerns into a comprehensive national policy. The new legislation encompassed an array of environmental values and ethics, as well as administrative tools to achieve the ecological goals of the nation while taking into account other important societal needs. Though NEPA has had a positive effect on U.S. environmental policy and the national quality of life, this new book shows how federal courts and agencies have failed to implement many of the values and goals fundamental to the success of NEPA. To explain this divergence, Matthew J. Lindstrom and Zachary A. Smith examine NEPA's origins, address how it has been implemented and enforced, and highlight its shortcomings. Lindstrom and Smith argue compellingly that if NEPA were fully and properly implemented, it would prove to be a valuable tool for balancing the needs of the world population and the protection of the earth's environment. This book is well suited for audiences interested in public policy formation and implementation; environmental historians; and those involved in environmental law, its policy, and its politics.

Strategic environmental assessment in World Bank operations - experience to date - future potential

Abstract: The paper reviews the international state-of-the-art in using strategic environmental assessment (SEA) as a tool for development planning, policymaking, and decision-making The Bank's experience to date, is analyzed, and discussed against this international backdrop, and in relation to the Bank's own policies, and operational realities Based on the Bank's recent decision to gradually broaden the use of SEA across a variety of sectors and operations, the paper identifies, and discusses available options for mainstreaming SEAs It recommends that the Bank work with external partners in piloting promising SEA approaches with interested clients, with the ultimate goals of managing environmental, and social risks more effectively, and improving development effectiveness of Bank operations

International Law-Making in the Field of Sustainable Development:The Unequal Competition Between Development and the Environment

Abstract: Since 1992, the tension between environmental and developmental concerns has been a central element in the international law-making process which has resulted in the adoption of various treaties and international instruments in the field of sustainable development. These instruments show that reconciliation between environment and development has not been easy to achieve. The balance seems to tip in favour of the protection of the environment. This paper explores how some of the "well-established" principles and concepts of international environmental law, as well as some new developments in this field, may have contributed to the tendency of excluding conditionality and equitable considerations from the elaboration and application of an increasing number of obligations taken by States in the field of environmental protection. It is contended here that environmental protection has developed to a certain extent at the expense of international economic law relating to development. This has been an incidental consequence of, at least, three elements: the movement toward more participation of transnational civil society in the international environmental law-making process; the use of a rights and duties language which helps to mask the developmental aspects sometimes involved in the prevention of environmental damage; and, the attractiveness of the establishment of a right to a healthy environmental.

The Environmental Implications of Privatization: Lessons for Developing Countries

Abstract: Governments worldwide have increasingly recognized the economic potential and fiscal advantages of privatization. What is less well recognized is that, under the right conditions, privatization can also yield environmental benefits and contribute to sustainable development. This report reviews a number of case studies to draw lessons about the environmental implications of privatization. It emphasizes that privatization offers an opportunity for making strategic decisions with longer-term impacts; streses that integrating environmental and social considerations into the privatization process leads to better, more sustainable outcomes; and recommends approaches to building on the positive linkages between privatization and environmental protection.