Environmental Pollution And Its Control Under International Law

Environmental Laws and Their Enforcement is a component of Encyclopedia of Social Sciences and Humanities in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. The volume on Environmental Laws and Their Enforcement deals, in two volumes , with a myriad of issues of great relevance to our world such as: Sustainable Development and National Governance; History of Environmental Law; International Environmental Law; Constitutional Law; International Binding Mechanisms; Laws Governing Freshwater and Ground Water Pollution; Forestry; Biodiversity Conservation and Endangered Species Protection; International Guidelines and Principles; Compliance Models for Enforcement of Environmental Laws And Regulations; International Environmental Law; Life Support Systems: Law and Policy; The Principle of Sustainable Development in International Development Law; Environmental Pollution Regulations; Social Concerns for Environmental Exposures to Toxic Substances; Regulation of Air and Pollutants. These volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College Students, Educators, Professional Practitioners, Research Personnel and Policy Analysts, Managers, and Decision Makers and NGOs.

Originally published in 1974 this volume brings together contributions from lawyers, a nuclear physicist, a landscape architect, biologist, engineers and a former Inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It covers technical and legal information on air, water, sea, land and noise pollution and provides a comprehensive guide, summary and introduction to the journal literature in separate but relevant disciplines. All of the contributors have specialised in studies in pollution control and contributed to the debate on use and management of the environment.

The topic of the essays in this book, the threat posed to our environment by various sources and types of pollution, is a matter of serious and growing concern. The contributors are leading international experts from a variety of legal systems and backgrounds and include Andronico Adede, Ian Brownlie, Pierre-Marie Dupuy, Johan Lammers, and Paul Szasz. International Law and Pollution provides an overview of international legal principles and institutional efforts relevant to pollution and then focuses on two particularly acute problems: nuclear pollution and acid rain. A variety of substantive issues must be confronted in order to deal with the full range of international pollution, and various institutional approaches must be utilized in the prevention, cleanup, and compensation efforts. For example, pollution from nuclear accidents results from a single event, whereas acid rain is a product of chronic emissions; the legal and policy concerns differ accordingly. In the overview, Daniel Barstow Magraw discusses fundamental concepts of international pollution, analytic distinctions among types of pollution, paradigmatic responses to pollution, and the relationship among environmental protection, economic development, and human rights. Other authors examine the existing and evolving principles of customary international law relevant to pollution, the U.N. International Law Commission's work on international liability and international watercourses, and a practitioner's perspective. The chapters on nuclear pollution analyze the conventional regimes and customary principles applicable to this field (including the Chernobyl disaster) and the determination and measurement of damages. Finally, the chapters on acid precipitation summarize the scientific background of the problem and present the multilayered European efforts to control acid rain as well as the Canada-United States acid rain controversy. International Law and Pollution will be of interest to scholars and students of environmental law and international law.

Liability and Environment analyzes the role of law, in particular civil liability, in controlling environmental pollution and risk. In modern environmental policy, liability has become a popular instrument. In this book, Prof. Bergkamp takes a fresh look at civil liability for environmental harm in an inter- and transnational context. Over the last decade, industry's liability exposure for environmental harm has expanded significantly. At the international, EC, and national level proposals for onerous strict environmental liability regimes are pending. The `polluter pays principle', which is an articulation of the `cost internalization' theory in the environmental area, is believed to justify such liability regimes. Applying an instrumental approach to legal instruments, Prof. Bergkamp aims to redefine the role of liability in the heavily regulated environmental area. He shows that liability for environmental harm is not justified by the polluter pays principle, is an uncertain and unreliable instrument for achieving prevention, results in an inefficient insurance scheme, and plays a dubious role in adjusting activity levels. Based on an analysis of the basic characteristics of alternative legal instruments, Prof. Bergkamp concludes that civil liability should play a more modest, limited role in an environmental law system dominated by public law. Where deterrence is not the objective, first party insurance, compensation funds, or other public law regimes should be preferred over liability rules. In addition to civil liability of private parties, Liability and Environment discusses State liability under international, EC, and national law. Under international law, breach of a primary obligation triggers a State's liability. Prof. Bergkamp argues that this rule should be applied also to liability of private parties. In the environmental area, a business' primary obligations are spelled out in detailed permit conditions, regulations, and statutes. According to Prof. Bergkamp, only if a primary obligation is breached, a private person should be liable for environmental harm. The system that Bergkamp advocates is an objective fault liability regime, in which public environmental law defines the standard of care for both government and industry. "In rebuilding our civil liability system, we should keep in mind that what is good for industry should be good for everyone (or it is not good for anyone), we should keep in mind that what is good for private parties should be good for the state (or it is not good for either). In rebuilding our civil liability system, the international law of State responsibility, which is unpolluted by risk spreading and activity level considerations, will guide us a long way." This book is aimed at advanced law students, academic scholars, and practitioners. In addition, it will be of interest to policy and legislative analysts, legislators, and government officials. Professor Bergkamp's book cannot be described as "solving" the problems of legal and regulatory control of environmental harm, whether within a nation or internationally. As suggested before, however, the very idea of a "solution" is illusory. All legal and regulatory regimes around the world are today and will remain for the future in a state of perpetually continuing development. The virtue of this fine book is that it moves the process of that development forward by a very substantial measure. from the Foreword by George L. Priest.

The quality of water, air and soil continues to decline. Poverty, population growth and unregulated industry combine to create pollution on an unprecedented scale. Yet despite overwhelming support for the Rio Declaration in 1992, international response to the crisis in the environment has been piecemeal and uneven. The developing canon of international environmental law is of vital importance to lawyers, decision-makers and environmental advocates. Practical lessons can be drawn from the range of approaches being taken to such universal issues as pollution control, liability and waste management. Familiarity with international case law and judicial decision-making can support and develop legal argument. International Environmental Law and Regulations draws together expert practitioners from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, England & Wales, France, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Scotland and Singapore to provide a statement of the progress of environmental regulation in their jurisdictions. The practical analysis includes coverage of: the application of international and Community law national, regional and local regulation leading case law trends in judicial decision-making civil and criminal liability As a source of instructive information and ideas, the book will be of value to specialists in environmental law, in-house lawyers in industry, environmental advocates and academic lawyers.

This work is written for those who seek effective ways of controlling environmental pollution. Indeed, many developing and East European states look to the experience of the United States and Western Europe. This book does not, however, concentrate on any one system of control or control laws, but succeeds in introducing the exact nature of pollution problems and the variety of ways in which effective control and management have been achieved. Rather than advocate a ready-made system, lessons are drawn for example from the U.K., U.S.A., Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany and New Zealand, and instructive legislative samples are reproduced, the place of international obligations being clearly marked out. The skilful and wide-ranging comparative approach adopted renders this handbook yet more valuable, based as it is on the premise that a control system is better if it is built on existing institutional and legal structures. The book will interest all who advise on environmental matters on a daily basis, particularly senior administrators, policy makers, institutions, legal advisers and researchers.

Chapter 1 SOURCES AND PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW -- chapter THE SOURCES OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW Environmental law: the international perspective -- chapter The sources of international environmental law -- chapter Customary international law General principles of international law -- chapter Judicial decisions and the writings of eminent publicists United Nations General Assembly Resolutions -- chapter Environmental law: European Community perspective -- chapter The institutions of the EC -- chapter Law-making by Community institutions -- chapter Voluntary agreements -- chapter Application of direct effect -- chapter Environmental directives with direct effect -- chapter The duty to interpret national law in the light of a directive: 'indirect effect' -- chapter The subsidiarity principle -- chapter The EC's Environmental Action Programmes -- chapter Statutes Delegated legislation Codes of Practice -- chapter Ministerial guidance Government White Papers Reports of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution -- chapter Select Committee reports The Environment Agency -- chapter PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW The relationship between principles Sustainable development -- chapter Preventive and precautionary principles -- chapter The principle of citizen participation and the right to a healthy environment -- chapter The principle of integration -- chapter Integrated pollution control -- chapter ENVIRONMENTAL PRINCIPLES: THE KEY INSTRUMENTS Defining the 'environment' and 'pollution of the environment' Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment 1972 -- chapter Rio Declaration on Environment and Development 1992 -- chapter LIABILITY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE International liability for environmental damage -- chapter European Community law -- chapter REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING -- chapter USEFUL WEBSITES -- chapter AIR AND ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION -- chapter Structure of the chapter AIR AND ATMOSPHERIC POLLUTION: THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT Customary international law -- chapter Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992 -- chapter Kyoto Protocol 1997 -- chapter Monitoring and Evaluation Protocol 1984 Sulphur Protocols 1985 and 1994 Nitrogen Oxides Protocol 1988 -- chapter Volatile Organic Compounds Protocol 1991 -- chapter Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer 1985 and its Montreal Protocol 1987 EUROPEAN COMMUNITY LAW -- chapter Sulphur in air -- chapter Lead in air -- chapter Vehicle emissions -- chapter Emissions from industrial plants -- chapter Towards a unified framework for EC air quality law and policy Air Quality Framework Directive 96/62 -- chapter CAFE -- chapter Local air quality management areas (AQMAs) -- chapter Road traffic pollution -- chapter Restricting the use of roads and traffic management -- chapter REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING -- chapter USEFUL WEBSITES -- chapter WATER AND MARINE POLLUTION -- chapter INTERNATIONAL LAW UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 -- chapter International legal regime for vessel-source marine oil pollution -- chapter MARPOL Convention 1973/78 -- chapter Measures controlling the release of substances into water -- chapter Titanium dioxide Measures protecting designated types of water -- chapter Bathing water -- chapter Urban waste water -- chapter The Water Framework Directive 00/60 -- chapter Cambridge Water Co v Eastern Counties Leather plc [1994] 1 All ER 53 -- chapter Water pollution legislation -- chapter Licences to abstract water Droughts -- chapter Ministerial Regulations - water quality classification and objectives -- chapter Anti-pollution works Prevention of pollution -- chapter Public registers Quality of water supplies -- chapter REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING -- chapter USEFUL WEBSITES -- chapter WASTE -- INTRODUCTION TO THE LAW RELATING TO WASTE -- chapter Dumping at sea -- chapter International trade in hazardous wastes and substances -- chapter Basel Convention 1989 -- chapter Bamako Convention 1991 -- chapter Basel Protocol on Liability and Compensation 1999 -- chapter Directive on Waste 75/442 (WFD) (see p 389, below) -- chapter Directive on the Disposal of Waste Oils 75/439 -- chapter Council Regulation on the Shipment of Waste 259/93 -- chapter Directive on Sewage Sludge Directive 86/278 Directive on Packaging Waste Directive 94/62 -- chapter Directive on the Landfill of Waste 99/31 -- chapter Further developments -- chapter The statutory definition of 'waste' -- chapter Is the material capable of being waste? Has the material been discarded? -- chapter Not all discarded material will be waste -- chapter National Waste Strategy -- chapter Waste Strategy 2000 -- chapter The key messages of the strategy (Chapter 1) -- chapter The waste strategy summarised.