In international negotiations, the question of the design and the legal form of the negotiated instrument is as complex as it is often controversial. Intended as a read for both practitioners and academics, this book provides a comprehensive treatise of the characteristics, the potential and the limits of nonbinding instruments in international environmental law and governance. An extensive overview and typology of nonbinding instruments as well as several case studies from the areas of fisheries (FAO), hazardous substances (UNEP/FAO) and corporate social responsibility (OECD) provide the material for an in-depth analysis of the role of nonbinding instruments on all levels of governance. The book demonstrates the potential but also highlights the limits of nonbinding instruments in the interplay with customary and treaty law (e.g. UNCLOS, WTO) as bases for interinstitutional linkages and as tools to shape the behaviour of states and private actors. Legitimacy challenges arising from this form of exercise of authority are then discussed in the final chapter, alongside with remedies to address possible concerns.

This book considers the environmental policies that the EU employs outside its borders. Using a systematic and coherent approach to cover a range of EU activities, environmental issues, and geographical areas, it charts the EU's attempts to shape environmental governance beyond its borders. Key questions addressed include: What environmental norms, rules and policies does the EU seek to promote outside its territory? What types of activities does the EU engage in to pursue these objectives? How successful is the EU in achieving its external environmental policy objectives? What factors explain the degree to which the EU attains its goals? The book will be of interest to students and academics as well as practitioners in governments (both inside and outside of the EU), the EU institutions, think tanks, and research institutes.

The World Heritage community is currently adopting policies to mainstream human rights as part of a wider sustainability agenda. This interdisciplinary book combines a state of the art review of World Heritage policy and practice at the global level with ethnographic case studies from the Asia-Pacific region by leading scholars in the field. By joining legal reviews, anthropology and practitioner experience through in-depth case studies, it shows the diversity of human rights issues in both natural and cultural heritage sites. From site-designation to their conservation and management, the book explores the various rights issues and analyses the diverse social, cultural and legal challenges and responses at both regional and global level. Detailed case studies are included from Australia, Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Vietnam. The book will appeal to both natural and cultural heritage professionals and human rights and heritage scholars, and will serve as a useful compendium for courses use allowing students to compare, contrast and contextualize different contexts.

As 300 million Americans squeeze into our country, and as single-person households outnumber parents with children, it's time to rethink our land use laws that favor the single-family house. This provocative book visits sites of recent controversies--from an immigration dispute in a Virginia suburb, to eminent domain in New York City, to illegal apartments in the backyards of California. Boudreaux explores how we could scrap the old housing bias in favor of affluent homeowners, and in its place harness the free market to provide for a greater variety of residences--apartments, townhouses, and mobile homes - for the twenty-first century.

This practical book guides the reader through Superfund Law. Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which established a national program for cleaning up the nation's abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. Superfund changed the way the United States conducts business by imposing substantial liability on present and past owners and operators of contaminated sites and on generators and transporters of hazardous substances to those sites. By examining the Superfund liability scheme, Fogleman provides businesses and individuals with the necessary knowledge to aid in avoiding Superfund liability. She provides a road map through the Superfund program, the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement and settlement procedures, and Superfund litigation.

After reviewing the legislative history of Superfund and its amendments, Valerie M. Fogleman examines the Superfund program from discovery of a contaminated site through its cleanup. She describes the EPA's enforcement and settlement procedures, and Superfund litigation by governmental and nongovernmental entities. Fogleman analyzes Superfund liability and defenses to liability of persons and entities that are potentially responsible for conducting or bearing the cost of cleanups and damages to natural resources. These potentially responsible parties include almost all persons and entities in the American business community including corporations, corporate officers, directors, and employees, lenders, and governmental entities. This book is an important resource for lawyers and businessmen who seek a one-volume comprehensive and practical guide to Superfund law and liability.

Property Rights and Climate Change explores the multifarious relationships between different types of climate-driven environmental changes and property rights. This original contribution to the literature examines such climate changes through the lens of property rights, rather than through the lens of land use planning. The inherent assumption pursued is that the different types of environmental changes, with their particular effects and impact on land use, share common issues regarding the relation between the social construction of land via property rights and the dynamics of a changing environment. Making these common issues explicit and discussing the different approaches to them is the central objective of this book. Through examining a variety of cases from the Arctic to the Australian coast, the contributors take a transdisciplinary look at the winners and losers of climate change, discuss approaches to dealing with changing environmental conditions, and stimulate pathways for further research. This book is essential reading for lawyers, planners, property rights experts and environmentalists.

This book analyses the drivers of specific common pool resource problems, particularly in fisheries and forestry, examining the way in which private and public regulation have intervened to fight the common pool resource problem by contributing to the establishment and maintenance of property rights. It focuses on the various forms of regulation that have been put in place to protect fisheries and forestry over the past decades - both from a theoretical as well as from a policy perspective - comparing the concrete interaction of legal and policy instruments in eight separate jurisdictions.

The precautionary concept has become intrinsic to international environmental policy, especially with the adoption, in 1992, of the Rio Declaration at UNCED. Principle 15 of that Declaration provides that: "In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation." The challenge facing the international community is how to attain truly precautionary environmental policies. This challenge is one of changing perceptions as much as of changing institutions or technical mechanisms. It is a challenge to our way of viewing the world as much as to our views of the role of science, or the burden of proof. It also raises a question as to the role of legal and other regulatory instruments in implementing the precautionary principle. This question, however, lends itself to a multifaceted and multidisciplinary approach. After an introduction to the origins and development of the precautionary principle, 12 chapters explore a selection of themes relevant to the implementation of the principle. Where the relationship between international, national and local policies is concerned, a new concept is introduced: glocalization. The book concludes with a synthesis of the opportunities for, and constraints on, the implementation of the precautionary principle, as identified by the various authors.

This book presents a variety of articles on contemporary issues in environmental law by eminent university professors of environmental law, international public law, European Union law, and comparative law in Europe and Japan. It is the first book in the field of environmental law based on the results of international conferences and research activities supported by the European Union delegation in Japan. Current essential and global topics such as principles of environmental law, climate change, biodiversity, ethics pertaining to animal rights , nuclear safety regime after Fukushima, environmental impact assessments, protecting international waters, genetically-modified organisms, and implementing international instruments, and EU rules at the national level are discussed in light of the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon and other recent international treaties, by comparing the approaches taken by the EU, European countries, and Japan. As environmental law is not just a national issue but also a global one, it is important to understand and analyse various aspects of current environmental issues. This book is a response to such needs, and represents the joint work of five Japanese and four European (two German and two Italian) professors who have succeeded in creating something that is both unique and remarkable.

tells the stories, some for the first time, of eleven individuals who made heroic contributions to protecting our planet through groundbreaking international treaties investigates who was involved, how different personalities impacted the negotiations, what the state of play was and highlights the pivotal make or break moments the range of heroic individuals examined includes Luc Hoffmann, Mostafa Tolba, Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, Raul Oyuela Estrada, Barack Obama and Paula Caballero presents uplifting and gripping narrative an invaluable resource for students, scholars, activists and professionals who are seeking to understand how consensus is reached in these global meetings and how individuals can have a genuine impact on preserving our planet and reinforcing the positive message that global cooperation can actually work

This significant book investigates the political economy of environmental policy in Europe with a careful analysis of how EU directives are realised in the member states. The authors explore this issue through a comparative evaluation of the implementation of three pieces of EU environmental legislation in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. Areas covered by the legislation include air emission standards for waste incinerators, the electricity supply industry, and the certification of environmental management systems. The results vary across cases even though overcompliance is observed in certain cases. The regularity arising from the different case studies is related to the determinants of the environmental outcomes that are observed. When environmental directives are implemented they are likely to interact with parallel policy processes and these interactions can exert a strong positive or negative influence on the success of the policy in question. The central policy problem is the fact that these interactions are very difficult to anticipate at the policy formulation stage. It leads the authors to propose that effective environmental policy should therefore be adaptable in order to cope with these unanticipated effects. This book covers a very important and topical issue by studying the genuine impact of environmental directives and increasing the readers' understanding of the way in which environmental federalism works in Europe. It will be welcomed by scholars of environmental law and political science, environmental economists, and environmental policymakers, advisors and consultants.

The significant differences between the environmental legal systems throughout the European Union, together with a scarcity of national environmental law literature written in English, have until now made it difficult to achieve a ready understanding of environmental law and policy in Europe. This work opens with a practical overview of environmental policy and legal procedures in the European Union, and goes on to examine the environmental system in each of the member states. The 15 country chapters, uniformly structured for easy reference, are each divided into two parts. The first section, contributed by a leading academic, covers the general environmental legislative and regulatory system of each country. The second is written by a practising environmental lawyer and deals with practical aspects of environmental law relevant to commerce and industry. This section aims to answer questions frequently asked by companies and their advisers, and includes discussion of issues relating to the start-up of new companies, change of company activities, mergers and takeovers, environmental licences, environmental impact assessment reports and enforcement procedures. This book should offer an insight into the main structures and procedures of environmental law in the European Union, and should be a useful reference work for company lawyers, corporate managers, researchers and environmental specialists alike.

The success of Brazil in the large-scale production and use of fuel ethanol has been widely discussed and analyzed by other countries interested in adopting policies designed to encourage the use of biofuels. Within this context, certain questions arise: Could the Brazilian experience be replicated in other countries? What were the conditions that enabled the creation of the Brazilian Proalcool (National Ethanol Program and what lessons can be learned? To examine these issues, it is important to understand the functioning of the key, interconnected markets (those for sugarcane, sugar and ethanol), which, from their inception, were the objects of extensive government intervention until 1999. Two main conditions enabled the creation of Proalcool: robust production of sugarcane and sugar (tightly regulated by the government, which applied the numerous regulations then in place); and the military regime that was in place at the time, whose decision-making and enforcement powers were quite broad, facilitating the carrying out of the necessary actions, as well as making it easier to coordinate the activities of the various stakeholders and sectors involved. This book increases understanding of the functioning of the sugarcane supply chain in Brazil, not only during the phase of government intervention but also in recent years (in the free-market environment). The lessons, positive and negative, gleaned from the Brazilian experience can contribute to reflection on and the development of alternative modalities of biofuel production in other countries, making the book of interest to scholars and policy-makers concerned with biofuel and renewable resources as well as economic development.

Governments have at their disposal a broad range of policy instruments that they may use to influence behaviour and pursue environmental policy goals. This volume of the Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law is a comprehensive guide to these environmental policy instruments, examining their characteristics, applications, strengths and limitations, as well as giving an overview of the most significant issues related to their adoption and effectiveness. With entries written by leading international scholars, this incisive volume provides insight into the cross-cutting issues that are common to discussions of such policy instruments, including the legal bases for their use, how instruments can be compared for costs, distributional questions, and monitoring and enforcement. Contributions also explore hybrids and blends of policy instruments and explain the relationships between them, using case studies and examples from around the world, as well as providing succinct summaries of the substantial literature in the field. Students and scholars in environmental law will find this volume to be an invaluable resource, for both its solid theoretical foundations and its analysis of undertreated issues in the field. Its discussion of how and why each policy tool might be used is particularly relevant for policymakers and practitioners. Contributors include: A.D.K. Abelkop, C. Coglianese, M.A. Cohen, D.H. Cole, C.M. Correa, N. de Sadeleer, R.C. Feiock, P.Z. Grossman, N. Gunningham, S. Hayes Richards, M. Howlett, S.-L. Hsu, B. Huber, O. Karassin, B.C. Karkkainen, S.E. Light, L.M.J. McCann, J.E. Milne, I. Mukherjee, E.W. Orts, O. Perez, K.R. Richards, T.M. Roberts, A. Rowell, S. Roy, J.P. Shimshack, H. Sigman, D. Sinclair, S. Starobin, S.E. Weishaar, E. Woerdman, H. Yi, J. van Zeben

Every person on our home planet is affected by a worldwide deluge of man-made chemicals and pollutants - most of which have never been tested for safety. Our chemical emissions are six times larger than our total greenhouse gas emissions. They are in our food, our water, the air we breathe, our homes and workplaces, the things we use each day. This universal poisoning affects our minds, our bodies, our genes, our grandkids, and all life on Earth. Julian Cribb describes the full scale of the chemical catastrophe we have unleashed. He proposes a new Human Right - not to be poisoned. He maps an empowering and hopeful way forward: to rid our planet of these toxins and return Earth to the clean, healthy condition which our forebears enjoyed, and our grandchildren should too.

Hazardous Waste Compliance concentrates on government regulations as they relate to hazardous waste and other hazardous materials. The main focus of this book is on how to comply with these requirements as well as on other best management practices (BMP), which will ensure worker safety and business protection from the risk of the commercial penalties associated with regulations breaches.
The authors provide the reader with useful techniques to enhance worker protection and promote efficiency, productivity and cost effectiveness, along with achieving the necessary quality standards for the work being performed. The authors further outline and define methods to help reduce worker injury and illness, the scope and application of HAZWOPER, and ways to implement hazardous material related requirements through enhancements of existing programs.
In addition, detailed discussion helps to provide methods to help promote consistency in health and safety program development for handling hazardous materials, encourage a high standard for health and safety, and share lessons learned to help provide approaches that have been implemented on hazardous waste and other sites.

Provides a comprehensive overview of regulatory requirements in the industry
Real-life experiences are presented in the form of case histories
A training aid for both new and experienced site workers

China is the world's second largest consumer of commercial energy and is therefore a significant contributor to atmospheric pollution. It is becoming a major player in global and regional markets for energy products, services and investment. This book provides an overview of the formulation and implementation of energy policy in China. Part One provides background information on China's energy sector. Part Two examines the nature of China's energy policy and of the policy-making process, with examples drawn from the coal and natural gas sectors, as well as from the government's drive to promote energy conservation and energy efficiency. Part Three focuses on recent efforts to reform the energy sector in China and to regulate it more effectively, paying particular attention to the electrical power sector and to small-scale coal mines. Part Four evaluates, from the perspective of the citizen, policy relating to the electrical power sector and to the closure of small-scale coal mines. Part Five addresses the international dimensions of China's energy policy, with accounts of both inward and outward investment, and of the international political implications.

In this book the author examines the illegal wildlife trade from multiple perspectives: the historical context, the impact on the environment, the scope of the problem internationally, the sociocultural demand for illegal products, the legal efforts to combat it, and several case studies from inside the trade. The illegal wildlife trade has become a global criminal enterprise, following in the footsteps of drugs and weapons. Beyond the environmental impact, financial profits from the illegal wildlife trade often fund organized crime groups and violent gangs that threaten public safety and security in myriad ways. This innovative volume covers several key questions surrounding the wildlife trade: why is there a demand for illegal wildlife products, which actors are involved in the trade, how is the business organized, and what are the harmful consequences. The author performed ethnographic fieldwork in three key markets: Russia, Morocco, and China, and has constructed a detailed picture of how the wildlife trade operates in these areas. Conversations with informants directly involved in the illegal business ensure unique insights into this lively black market. In the course of his journey the author follows the route of the illegal wildlife trade from poor poaching areas to rich business districts where corrupt officials, legally registered companies, wildlife farms and sophisticated criminal organizations all have a share. A fascinating look inside the world of poachers, smugglers and traders.

Environmental Regulation through Financial Organisations examines in the industrialised nations the emerging role of banks, insurers and institutional investors as organisations for articulating and strengthening environmental law and policy. Taking a comparative perspective of practice in the European Union, North America, Japan and Australia, the book argues that existing legal reforms to promote sustainable development are unlikely to be successful unless environmental policy can be diffused and embedded in the financial services sector. This sector plays a crucial role in creating the financial conditions that allow much economic development to proceed. Financial markets are already highly regulated in pursuance of various public policy objectives, and there is scope to adapt existing regulation to incorporate environmental aspects into the financial services sector. In terms of specific reforms, the book focuses on the role of corporate environmental reporting, economic instruments and liability rules to provide a proper context for engaging financial organisations with the environment, as well as reforms to the system of prudential regulation that currently governs this sector. Beyond the focus on the financial services sector, the book raises complex questions regarding the relationship between the state and market institutions in environmental policy, and will appeal to scholars from a wide range of disciplines interested in problems of environmental governance.

Controlling Pollution in Transition Economies examines and evaluates the recent experience of implementing pollution charges and the use of environmental permits in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.The book focuses on controlling point-source air and water pollution. It describes and analyses the experience of implementing pollution charges and fines, and the interactions of these fiscal instruments with systems of pollution permits. The ten country case studies have been written by specialists who have been or are actively involved with the development or revision of pollution charges. Based on the experience of these countries, general conclusions are drawn for implementing pollution charge systems in other contexts. This book will encourage new theoretical and empirical work on the problem of implementing economic instruments (pollution charges), in combination with 'command-and-control' instruments (pollution permits). Practitioners and policy analysts as well as graduate students, academics, researchers and environmental consultants will find this book an important contribution to the existing literature.

With a considerable influence on national and international legislators, courts, public administrators and private companies, environmental principles ? such as the polluter-pays principle, sustainable development or the precautionary principle ? play an important role in the making, application and the interpretation of environmental law. As a key part of the Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law, this comprehensive volume provides detailed coverage of all of the important environmental principles and offers unique insights as well as wider reflection on the role played by principles. With 50 structured entries written by leading scholars from around the world the volume discusses the various environmental principles in turn, covering their impact on international cooperation, their varying importance globally, their relevance in the jurisprudence of international and European courts and their growing importance in international business practice. As well as forming an authoritative reference source, Principles of Environmental Law offers new insights into this topic, which has developed strongly over the last 50 years and has become increasingly fundamental for the future of the planet. As well as forming an indispensable guide, this important volume offers both a reflection on the evolution of the legal principles and insight into their practical application. It will prove an essential resource for students, academics, judges, company lawyers, and administrators. Contributors include: A. Aaragao, M. Alberton, S. Atapattu, V. Barral, B. Boer, N. Craik, C. Dalhammar, J. Darpoe, N. de Sadeleer, O. Dubovik, L.-A. Duvic-Paoli, T. Fajardo del Castillo, R. Fowler, M. Fuhr, M. Gestri, G. Handl, M. Hedemann-Robinson, S. Khan, R. Kibugi, S. Kingston, V. Koester, L. Kramer, K. Kulovesi, R. Lefeber, R. Macrory, C.W. Malcomb, G.J. Martin, E. Meidinger, I. Michallet, B. Milligan, M. Montini, E. Morgera, D.M. Ong, E. Orlando, A. Panovic, O. Pedersen, M. Peeters, M. Prieur, A. Proelss, L. Rajamani, C. Redgwell, M. Reese, A. Roehricht, G. Roller, J. Schenten, P. Schwartz, D. Spitzer, T. Stephens, H. Strydom, P. Taylor, E. Tsioumani, J.B. Wiener, G. Winter, Y. Zhao

Critically assessing recent developments in environmental and tax legislation, and in particular low-carbon strategies, this timely book analyses the implementation of market-based instruments for achieving climate stabilisation objectives around the world. Through case studies and broader analysis, international experts examine taxes and subsidies in energy intensive sectors including stationary energy and transport in Europe and South America, and low-carbon strategies in Australia and East Asia. They also address cross-cutting policy issues involving water pollution and biodiversity protection. This work illustrates how economic instruments for a low-carbon transition need to align with other governmental policies and together influence behaviour in multiple domains such as energy, mobility, trade, land use and innovation. Providing a rich economic modelling of environmental fiscal policies, this topical book will be an engaging read for environmental tax scholars and professionals, as well as academics across energy and environmental economics, law and policy. Policy makers and practitioners in energy and climate policy will also benefit from its problem-solving approach. Contributors include: M.S. Andersen, E. Aydos, E. Belletti, M. Bisogno, C. Camara Barroso, Q. Changbo, G. Chazhong, J. Dellatte, B. Fenfen, L. Feng, S. Geringer, E. Guglyuvatyy, T. Iliopoulos, T. Kawakatsu, D. Kortschak, K. Kratena, V. Kulmer, A. Lerch, I. Meyer, M. Molinos-Senante, M. Pizzol, S. Rudolph, K. Schlegelmilch, S. Seebauer, M. Sommer, C. Sotiriou, N.P. Stoianoff, H. Thodsen, A. Tomo, J. Tumpel, M. Villar Ezcurra, Z. Zachariadis, J.M.M. Zanocchi

This book presents an interdisciplinary collection of expert analyses and views of existing verification systems. It provides guidelines and advice for the improvement of those systems as well as for new challenges in the field.

This book calls for the conditions of transition to sustainability: How to take into consideration new global phenomena such as and of the dimension of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, financial crises, demographic dynamics, global urbanization, migrations and mobility, while bearing in mind short-term or local place-based issues, such as social justice or quality of life? Meeting this challenge requires an inclusive approach of sustainability. It is a matter of designing a new social contract: Sustainability requires more than developing the right markets, institutions and metrics, it requires social momentum. To do so, many issues need a clear and complete answer: How to link social justice with sustainability policies? What governance tools to do so? What linkage between one decision-making level and the other? These are major issues to design sound transitions to sustainability.