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10 - Environmental Regulation

from Part IV - Beyond Human Rights Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2021

Stefan Theil
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

The chapter focuses on domestic and international efforts to regulate environmental harm and suggests that three pathologies have historically hampered their success: political lag, which describes the gap between the best available scientific evidence and regulatory efforts to address environmental harm; Industry resistance, which arises from the fruitful ground of political lag, permitting vested interests to entrench harmful, but profitable business models and practices; and finally, regulatory inertia, which means that regulators are less likely to burden vested economic interests with effective regulations or enforce them consistently. Historic atmospheric ozone and asbestos regulation provide contrasting examples of regulatory success, and the pervasive contemporary failures in addressing air pollution demonstrates that the pathologies remain salient concerns. The chapter demonstrates that conventional regulatory approaches can be an effective tool to address environmental harm, provided that there is a close relationship between scientific evidence and regulatory action, and explores the improvements the environmental minimum can achieve.

Type
Chapter
Information
Towards the Environmental Minimum
Environmental Protection through Human Rights
, pp. 247 - 262
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Environmental Regulation
  • Stefan Theil, University of Oxford
  • Book: Towards the Environmental Minimum
  • Online publication: 27 August 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108891769.014
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  • Environmental Regulation
  • Stefan Theil, University of Oxford
  • Book: Towards the Environmental Minimum
  • Online publication: 27 August 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108891769.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Environmental Regulation
  • Stefan Theil, University of Oxford
  • Book: Towards the Environmental Minimum
  • Online publication: 27 August 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108891769.014
Available formats
×