Environmental Protection and Transitions from Conflict to Peace

Environmental Protection and Transitions from Conflict to Peace
Author: Carsten Stahn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2017-10-13
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191087580

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Environmental protection is fundamental for the establishment of sustainable peace. Applying traditional legal approaches to protection raises particular challenges during the transition from conflict to peace. In the jus post bellum context, protection of the environment and natural resources needs to be considered in tandem with a broad range of simultaneously applicable normative frameworks, such as human rights, transitional justice, arms control/disarmament, UN law and practice, development, and domestic law. While certain multilateral environment agreements, such as the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage protect the environment; international humanitarian law and international criminal law continue to treat environmental protection largely from an anthropocentric perspective. This book is the first targeted work in the legal literature that investigates environmental challenges in the aftermath of conflict. Addressing these challenges, it brings together academics, policy-makers, and practitioners from different disciplines to clarify policies and practices of environmental protection and key normative frameworks. It draws on experiences and practices in post-conflict settings to specify substantive principles and techniques to remedy and prevent harm.

Environmental Policy Analysis and Practice

Environmental Policy Analysis and Practice
Author: Michael R Greenberg
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2008-03-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0813544734

Pressing environmental challenges are frequently surrounded with stakeholders on all sides of the issues. Opinions expressed by government agencies, the private sector, special interests, nonprofit communities, and the media, among others can quickly cloud the dialogue, leaving one to wonder how policy decisions actually come about. In Environmental Policy Analysis and Practice, Michael R. Greenberg cuts through the complicated layers of bureaucracy, science, and the public interest to show how all policy considerations can be broken down according to six specific factors: 1) the reaction of elected government officials, 2) the reactions of the public and special interests, 3) knowledge developed by scientists and engineers, 4) economics, 5) ethical imperatives, and 6) time pressure to make a decision. The book is organized into two parts, with the first part defining and illustrating each one of these criteria. Greenberg draws on examples such as nuclear power, pesticides, brownfield redevelopment, gasoline additives, and environmental cancer, but focuses on how these subjects can be analyzed rather than exclusively on the issues themselves. Part two goes on to describe a set of over twenty tools that are used widely in policy analysis, including risk assessment, environmental impact analysis, public opinion surveys, cost-benefit analysis, and others. These tools are described and then illustrated with examples from part one. Weaving together an impressive combination of practical advice and engaging first person accounts from government officials, administrators, and leaders in the fields of public health and medicine, this clearly written volume is poised to become a leading text in environmental policy.

The Politics of Precaution

The Politics of Precaution
Author: David Vogel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2012-04-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400842565

The Politics of Precaution examines the politics of consumer and environmental risk regulation in the United States and Europe over the last five decades, explaining why America and Europe have often regulated a wide range of similar risks differently. It finds that between 1960 and 1990, American health, safety, and environmental regulations were more stringent, risk averse, comprehensive, and innovative than those adopted in Europe. But since around 1990, the book shows, global regulatory leadership has shifted to Europe. What explains this striking reversal? David Vogel takes an in-depth, comparative look at European and American policies toward a range of consumer and environmental risks, including vehicle air pollution, ozone depletion, climate change, beef and milk hormones, genetically modified agriculture, antibiotics in animal feed, pesticides, cosmetic safety, and hazardous substances in electronic products. He traces how concerns over such risks--and pressure on political leaders to do something about them--have risen among the European public but declined among Americans. Vogel explores how policymakers in Europe have grown supportive of more stringent regulations while those in the United States have become sharply polarized along partisan lines. And as European policymakers have grown more willing to regulate risks on precautionary grounds, increasingly skeptical American policymakers have called for higher levels of scientific certainty before imposing additional regulatory controls on business.

Biodiversity and the Precautionary Principle

Biodiversity and the Precautionary Principle
Author: Rosie Cooney
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2012-05-16
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1136570993

Great uncertainty typically surrounds decisions and management actions in the conservation of biodiversity and natural resource management, and yet there are risks of serious and irreversible harm for both biodiversity and the humans that rely on it. The precautionary principle arguably underlies all international conservation efforts and promotes acting to avoid serious or irreversible environmental harm, despite lack of scientific certainty as to the likelihood, magnitude or cause of harm. This book is the first to examine the application of the precautionary principle to biodiversity conservation and natural resource management, incorporating perspectives from scientists, economists, lawyers and practitioners from both developing and developed countries. It analyses the application and impacts of the principle in many areas including forestry, invasive alien species, wildlife trade, protected areas and fisheries, in a range of national and international contexts. Particular attention is drawn to issues of equity, livelihoods, science and politics, and the book provides guidelines for applying the precautionary principle to biodiversity conservation and natural resource management.

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy
Author: Sheldon Kamieniecki
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 783
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 019974467X

Prior to the Nixon administration, environmental policy in the United States was rudimentary at best. Since then, it has evolved into one of the primary concerns of governmental policy from the federal to the local level. As scientific expertise on the environment rapidly developed, Americans became more aware of the growing environmental crisis that surrounded them. Practical solutions for mitigating various aspects of the crisis - air pollution, water pollution, chemical waste dumping, strip mining, and later global warming - became politically popular, and the government responded by gradually erecting a vast regulatory apparatus to address the issue. Today, politicians regard environmental policy as one of the most pressing issues they face. The Obama administration has identified the renewable energy sector as a key driver of economic growth, and Congress is in the process of passing a bill to reduce global warming that will be one of the most important environmental policy acts in decades. The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy will be a state-of-the-art work on all aspects of environmental policy in America. Over the past half century, America has been the world's leading emitter of global warming gases. However, environmental policy is not simply a national issue. It is a global issue, and the explosive growth of Asian countries like China and India mean that policy will have to be coordinated at the international level. The book will therefore focus not only on the U.S., but on the increasing importance of global policies and issues on American regulatory efforts. This is a topic that will only grow in importance in the coming years, and this will serve as an authoritative guide to any scholar interested in the issue.

Environmental Politics and Policy

Environmental Politics and Policy
Author: Walter A. Rosenbaum
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2016-08-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1506345360

Walter A. Rosenbaum’s classic Environmental Politics and Policy, Tenth Edition once again provides definitive coverage of environmental politics and policy, lively case material, and a balanced assessment of current environmental issues. The first half of the book sets needed context and describes the policy process while the second half covers specific environmental issues such as air and water; toxic and hazardous substances; energy; and a global policymaking chapter focused on climate change and transboundary politics. Covering major environmental policy initiatives and controversies during President Obama's two terms and capturing the sudden and radical changes occurring in the American energy economy, this Tenth Edition offers the needed currency and relevancy for any environmental politics course.

The Making of Grand Paris

The Making of Grand Paris
Author: Theresa Enright
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2023-09-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0262549220

A critical examination of metropolitan planning in Paris—the “Grand Paris” initiative—and the building of today's networked global city. In 2007 the French government announced the “Grand Paris” initiative. This ambitious project reimagined the Paris region as integrated, balanced, global, sustainable, and prosperous. Metropolitan solidarity would unite divided populations; a new transportation system, the Grand Paris Express, would connect the affluent city proper with the low-income suburbs; streamlined institutions would replace fragmented governance structures. Grand Paris is more than a redevelopment plan; it is a new paradigm for urbanism. In this first English-language examination of Grand Paris, Theresa Enright offers a critical analysis of the early stages of the project, considering whether it can achieve its twin goals of economic competitiveness and equality. Enright argues that by orienting the city around growth and marketization, Grand Paris reproduces the social and spatial hierarchies it sets out to address. For example, large expenditures for the Grand Paris Express are made not for the public good but to increase the attractiveness of the region to private investors, setting off a real estate boom, encouraging gentrification, and leaving many residents still unable to get from here to there. Enright describes Grand Paris as an example of what she calls “grand urbanism,” large-scale planning that relies on infrastructural megaprojects to reconfigure urban regions in pursuit of speculative redevelopment. Democracy and equality suffer under processes of grand urbanism. Given the logic of commodification on which Grand Paris is based, these are likely to suffer as the project moves forward.

Transit Life

Transit Life
Author: David Bissell
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2018-03-23
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 0262345153

An exploration of the ways that everyday life in the city is defined by commuting. We spend much of our lives in transit to and from work. Although we might dismiss our daily commute as a wearying slog, we rarely stop to think about the significance of these daily journeys. In Transit Life, David Bissell explores how everyday life in cities is increasingly defined by commuting. Examining the overlooked events and encounters of the commute, Bissell shows that the material experiences of our daily journeys are transforming life in our cities. The commute is a time where some of the most pressing tensions of contemporary life play out, striking at the heart of such issues as our work-life balance; our relationships with others; our sense of place; and our understanding of who we are. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork with commuters, journalists, transit advocates, policymakers, and others in Sydney, Australia, Transit Life takes a holistic perspective to change how we think about commuting. Rather than arguing that transport infrastructure investment alone can solve our commuting problems, Bissell explores the more subtle but powerful forms of social change that commuting creates. He examines the complex politics of urban mobility through multiple dimensions, including the competencies that commuters develop over time; commuting dispositions and the social life of the commute; the multiple temporalities of commuting; the experience of commuting spaces, from footpath to on-ramp, both physical and digital; the voices of commuting, from private rants to drive-time radio; and the interplay of materialities, ideas, advocates, and organizations in commuting infrastructures.