The Diffusion Of Public And Private Sustainability Regulations

This book focuses on the spread of public and private environmental and food safety regulations from Europe and North America to Asia and Africa. It explores the growth of policy diffusion and standard alignment on sustainability observed in non-Western follower countries in a globalizing world.

Examining one of the fastest growing industries in the world, Ronit Justo-Hanani compares the distinctly different approaches between both sides of the Atlantic when regulating the health, safety and environmental risks of nanotechnology and its novel properties.

In 2015, the United Nations established seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that aimed 'to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all' by 2030. The chapters within this collection address each of these SDGs, considering how they relate to one another and international law, and what institutions could aid their implementation. Development has been a contentious topic since the decolonization period after World War II, and issues surrounding sustainable development are necessarily impacted by the multifaceted relationship between the Global South and Global North. Confronting the context and challenge of sustainable development, this collection outlines how the international economic system problematizes the attainment of the SDGs. Introducing a novel, cosmopolitan approach, this book offers new ways of understanding sustainable development and suggests potential solutions so that we might finally achieve it.

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) and other private governance instruments (e.g., Fair Trade, Forest Stewardship Council, Fair Wear Foundation, GLOBALGAP) are increasingly regulating global production processes and economic activities. VSS verify the compliance of products or production processes with sustainability standards. The importance of voluntary sustainability standards is now widely recognized. After being operational for more than two decades, they have established themselves as private governance instruments. This recognition is also exemplified by their integration in public regulatory approaches. Governments and international organizations are partnering with voluntary sustainability standards to pursue sustainable development policies. We witness the integration of VSS in the regulatory approaches of local and national governments in countries around the world, the integration of VSS in trade policies, the emergence of public–private initiatives to govern global supply chains, and the inclusion of private initiatives in experimentalist governance regimes. This Special Issue seeks to bring together research on the interface between private and public governance. We welcome contributions which analyze specific case studies on the emergence and development of these private–public interactions, the design of public–private governance, the effectiveness of these governance arrangements, and critical perspectives on the possibilities and limitations of such public–private forms of governance. We welcome multi-disciplinary perspectives including contributions from economics, political science, law, sociology, geography, and anthropology. Papers selected for this Special Issue are subject to a peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications.

This comprehensive overview of US environmental regulation?from the inception of the EPA through the current Bush administration?goes beyond traditional texts to consider alternatives to the existing regulatory regime, as well as the challenges posed by the global nature of environmental issues.Thoughtful and even-handed, Governing the Environment covers the full range of topics relevant to our understanding of current environmental policy. Clear, concise chapters move from the context of environmental policy to regulatory design, reform efforts, and notable private-sector innovations.In the process, the author argues that we?ve taken conventional environmental regulation as far as we can go?that we need to look for alternative ways of governing the environment, involving corporations that have expertise in the areas of technology, products, and markets. But, he cautions, there must be a careful integration of private-sector initiatives and public regulation.A notable feature of the text is an examination of the difficulties inherent in managing global environmental problems. Exploring recent efforts toward global environmental governance in the face of competing economic demands, the final section considers the ways in which a system of governance might compensate for the lack of effective international regulatory institutions.Marc Allen Eisner is Henry Merritt Wriston Chair of Public Policy in the Government Department at Wesleyan University. His publications include Antitrust and the Triumph of Economics and Contemporary Regulatory Policy, 2nd Edition.Contents: Environmental Protection and Governance: An Introduction. Environmental Policy and Politics. A Primer on Environmental Protection. The Environmental Policy Subsystem. The Evolution of Regulatory Design and Reform. Regulatory Design and Performance. Regulatory Reform or Reversal. Reinventing Regulation: Flexibility in an Iron Cage. Voluntarism and the End of Reform. The Emerging System of Green Governance. From Greed to Green: Corporate Environmentalism and Management. Green by Association: Code- and Standards-Based Self-Regulation. Public-Private Hybrids and Environmental Governance. Regulating the Global Commons from the Bottom Up. Beyond the Tragedy of the Global Commons. From Montreal to Kyoto. Sustainable Development: Managing the Unmanageable. Conclusion. Green Governance and the Future of Environmental Protection.

This book demonstrates the need to coordinate private and corporate actors with national and global sustainable climate policies, with conventions in the spheres of green energy laws, as well as from the spheres of commercial, trade, and other private law. While many states have joined together in the Paris Agreements in support of green energy policies, it remains a stark reality that most of the efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions remain with private actors who operate the various industries, vehicles, and vessels that emit the gases in target. The risks of anthropogenic climate change cannot be solved by environmental law alone and will need complementary support from commercial, corporate, and private law. However, aspects of commercial law, securities law, and trade law can be shown to frustrate certain aspects of green energy policies, resulting in damaging "green paradoxes". It raises issues associated with corporate social responsibility and green paradoxes, with international trade laws, and with liability risks for misrepresenting the state of feasible green energy technologies. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of energy law, environmental law, and corporate law.

This important new book provides an excellent critical evaluation of new modes of governance in environmental and sustainability policy. The multidisciplinary team of contributors combine fresh insights from all levels of governance all around a carefully crafted conceptual framework to advance our understanding of the effectiveness and legitimacy of new types of steering, including networks, public private partnerships, and multi-stakeholder dialogues. This is a crucial contribution to the field. Frank Biermann, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands Can new modes of governance, such as public private partnerships, stakeholder consultations and networks, promote effective environmental policy performance as well as increased deliberative and participatory quality? This book argues that in academic inquiry and policy practice there has been a deliberative turn, manifested in a revitalized interest in deliberative democracy coupled with calls for novel forms of public private governance. By linking theory and practice, the contributors critically examine the legitimacy and effectiveness of new modes of governance, using a range of case studies on climate, forestry, water and food safety policies from local to global levels. Environmental Politics and Deliberative Democracy will appeal to scholars, both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate, as well as researchers of environmental politics, international relations, environmental studies and political science. It will also interest practitioners involved in the actual design and implementation of new governance modes in areas of sustainable development, food safety, forestry and climate change.

This open access book focuses on the issue of sustainability standards from the perspective of both global governance frameworks and emerging economies. It stems from the recognition that the accelerated pace of economic globalization has generated production and consumption patterns that are generating sustainability concerns. Sustainability standards (and regulations) are increasingly being used in a bid to make global consumption and production more sustainable. Given the dense inter-connectedness of economic affairs globally, the use of sustainability standards has become a concern of global governance, who face the challenge of achieving a balance between the use of standards for genuine sustainability objectives, and not allowing them to turn into instruments of protectionism or coercion.The emerging economies, given their increasing engagement with the global economy, are most impacted by the use of sustainability standards. The emphasis of ‘emerging economies’ in this book is retained both by using case studies from these economies and by collating perceptions and assessments of those located in these economies. The case studies included span sectors such as palm oil, forestry, food quality, vehicular emissions and water standards, and address the problems unique to the emerging economies, including capacity building for compliance with standards, adapting international standards in domestic contexts and addressing the exclusion of small and medium enterprises etc. Complex interfaces and dynamics of a global nature are not limited to the thematic of this book but also extend to the process through which it was written. This book brings together insights from developed as well as emerging economies (Germany, India, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico and China). It also brings together scholars and practitioners to jointly ponder upon the conceptual aspects of the global frameworks for sustainability standards. This book is a very useful resource for researchers and practitioners alike, and provides valuable insights for policy makers as well.