Initially marketed as a life-saving advancement, flame retardants are now mired in controversy. Some argue that data show the chemicals are unsafe while others continue to support their use. The tactics of each side have far-reaching consequences for how we interpret new scientific discoveries. An experienced environmental sociologist, Alissa Cordner conducts more than a hundred interviews with activists, scientists, regulators, and industry professionals to isolate the social, scientific, economic, and political forces influencing environmental health policy today. Introducing "strategic science translation," she describes how stakeholders use scientific evidence to support nonscientific goals and construct "conceptual risk formulas" to shape risk assessment and the interpretation of empirical evidence. A revelatory text for public-health advocates, Toxic Safety demonstrates that while all parties interested in health issues use science to support their claims, they do not compete on a level playing field and even good intentions can have deleterious effects.

This book responds to the call for more research on transnational environmental crime and its governance by investigating the illegal trade in electronic waste (e-waste) and tropical timber, major forms of transnational environmental crime. The book is based on a qualitative multi-method research combining document analysis, interviews with key informants and field visits. Bisschop focuses on the flows that pass through the research setting of the Port of Antwerp (Belgium) and those between Europe and West and Central Africa. The study examines the emergence and social organization of these transnational environmental flows, illustrating that although profit or lure play a very important role, a range of factors on individual, organizational and societal levels together provide the motivations and opportunities. Building on these insights, the book addresses the governance of these two cases. The responsive regulatory pyramid and networked governance are used as theoretical frameworks for this analysis. This book is essential reading for scholars and academics interested in transnational environmental crime and corporate crime, as well as governance studies.

E-procurement has become accepted as a public procurement tool in Germany, as it offers proven potential for optimization and cost-savings. As of 1 July 2016, e-procurement will become mandatory. This book offers a detailed presentation of the legal framework and practical uses of e-procurement. It explains the advantages of internet-based procurement, describing common miscalculations and sources of error as well as ways to prevent them.

Die Autoren formulieren hier eine optimistische Gegenthese zu der weitverbreiteten Meinung, dass die Globalisierung die Handlungsspielraume fur eine nachhaltige Entwicklung vermindere. Sie zeigen konkrete Handlungsspielraume auf regionaler, nationaler und internationaler Ebene auf."

Since 2013, an organization called the Nonhuman Rights Project has brought before the New York State courts an unusual request-asking for habeas corpus hearings to determine whether Kiko and Tommy, two captive chimpanzees, should be considered legal persons with the fundamental right to bodily liberty. While the courts have agreed that chimpanzees share emotional, behavioural, and cognitive similarities with humans, they have denied that chimpanzees are persons on superficial and sometimes conflicting grounds. Consequently, Kiko and Tommy remain confined as legal "things" with no rights. The major moral and legal question remains unanswered: are chimpanzees mere "things", as the law currently sees them, or can they be "persons" possessing fundamental rights? In Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers' Brief, a group of renowned philosophers considers these questions. Carefully and clearly, they examine the four lines of reasoning the courts have used to deny chimpanzee personhood: species, contract, community, and capacities. None of these, they argue, merits disqualifying chimpanzees from personhood. The authors conclude that when judges face the choice between seeing Kiko and Tommy as things and seeing them as persons-the only options under current law-they should conclude that Kiko and Tommy are persons who should therefore be protected from unlawful confinement "in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice." Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers' Brief-an extended version of the amicus brief submitted to the New York Court of Appeals in Kiko's and Tommy's cases-goes to the heart of fundamental issues concerning animal rights, personhood, and the question of human and nonhuman nature. It is essential reading for anyone interested in these issues.

Die Autorin untersucht am Beispiel umweltvolkerrechtlicher Vertrage, inwiefern inhaltliche Uberschneidungen und Konflikte zwischen Ansatzen, Zielen und konkreten Regelungen der betroffenen Vertrage bestehen und welche Konsequenzen dies fur ein koharentes Regelungsgefuge im Volkerrecht hat.

Mit dem Ziel, Wege zur Koordinierung volkerrechtlicher Vertrage und zur Herstellung eines moglichst koharenten Geflechts volkerrechtlicher Regelungen aufzuzeigen, werden das gesamte Volkervertragsrecht sowie institutionelle "Global Governance"-Mechanismen analysiert. Auf diese Weise verbindet das Buch eine detaillierte und umfassende Erorterung volkervertragsrechtlicher Ansatze mit neuen Losungswegen zur Bewaltigung eines Problems, das in seiner Bedeutung nicht auf das Umweltvolkerrecht beschrankt ist."

Current estimates of the numbers of people who will be forced from their homes as a result of climate change by the middle of the century range from 50 to 200 million. Therefore, even the most optimistic projections envisage a crisis of migration that will dwarf any we have seen so far. And yet attempts to develop legal mechanisms to deal with this impending crisis have reached an impasse that shows little sign of being overcome. This is in spite of the rapidly growing academic study and policy development in the area of climate change generally. 'Climate Refugees': Beyond the Legal Impasse? addresses a fundamental gap in academic literature and policy making - namely the legal 'no-man's land' in which the issue of climate refugees currently resides. Past proposals for the regulation of climate-induced migration are evaluated, inter alia by their original authors, and the volume also looks at current attempts to regulate climate-induced migration, including by officials from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Platform on Displacement Disaster (PDD). Bringing together experts from a variety of academic fields, as well as officials from leading international organisations, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of Environmental Law, Refugee Law, Human Rights Law, Environmental Studies and International Relations.

The recent tendency toward increasingly ample international environmental regulation has led to effects of overlapping and inconsistency among treaties, particularly as regards common spaces. The purspose of this study is to examine to what extent contemporary international treaty law provides for environmental protection within the context of the unique legal status of the Antarctic. The book analyzes relevant conventions focusing on different sources of pollution, liability, regulation of environmental conservation and resource exploitation. The treaty survey demonstrates the complexity existing in relation to the Antarctic Treaty System and the difficulties of applying global regimes in a legally and environmentally distinctive region.

Roberts' dictionary is a comprehensive yet concise guide to the various legal, regulatory, technical, commercial, and financial abbreviations, acronyms, terms and phrases which define the oil and gas industry today. The dictionary is divided into three sections: commonly-used acronyms, an A to Z definition of terms and phrases and a series of technical appendices which summarise certain essential aspects of the industry. Written by a leading practitioner and containing over 7,000 definitions plus a series of technical and narrative appendices, this is an essential guide to interpreting the industry's extensive and complex jargon.

It is no surprise that the subject "The Future of the Law of the Sea" meets with special interest in the Netherlands. "The sea is our element, the roaring sea our glory," as the old folksong says. For a nation whose and prosperity are so closely connected with the sea, it is of the fate utmost importance to which regime the nations that border upon, sail and exploit the sea are subjected. Until recently nobody worried about the legal regime of the sea. The principle of the freedom of the sea, since Hugo Grotius one of the strongest, hardly assailable, principles of inter national law, was it not of paramount importance for the Netherlands? Since the Second World War this security does not exist any more. International Law is shaken in its foundations. This law, once anchored in the sense of justice of the then leading nations, which certainly did not think similarly, but to a certain extent along the same lines, has been shaken by the development of groups which no longer accept these rules as the guiding principle of their actions. The alarmingly scant willingness among the younger nations to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court, and the scarce assignments conferred to that Court, bear witness to this crisis. More and more International Law is traversed by economical, sociological, political and power factors which are pushing aside the conceptions of law once considered stable.