Environmental laws are laws that protect the environment. Environmental law is the collection of laws, regulations, agreements and common law that governs how humans interact with their environment. This includes environmental regulations; laws governing management of natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries; and related topics such as environmental impact assessments. Environmental law is seen as the body of laws concerned with the protection of living things from the harm that human activity may immediately or eventually cause to them or their species, either directly or to the media and the habits on which they depend.
Environmental economics is a sub-field of economics concerned with environmental issues. It has become a widely studied subject due to growing environmental concerns in the twenty-first century. Environmental economics "undertakes theoretical or empirical studies of the economic effects of national or local environmental policies around the world. ... Particular issues include the costs and benefits of alternative environmental policies to deal with air pollution, water quality, toxic substances, solid waste, and global warming."
ISO 14000 is a family of standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) related to environmental management that exists to help organizations (a) minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment ; (b) comply with applicable laws, regulations, and other environmentally oriented requirements; and (c) continually improve in the above.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is a regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. The United States Congress established the agency under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which President Richard M. Nixon signed into law on December 29, 1970. OSHA's mission is to "assure safe and healthy working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education, and assistance." The agency is also charged with enforcing a variety of whistleblower statutes and regulations. OSHA's workplace safety inspections have been shown to reduce injury rates and injury costs without adverse effects on employment, sales, credit ratings, or firm survival.
The International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973 as modified by the Protocol of 1978, or "MARPOL 73/78" is one of the most important international marine environmental conventions. It was developed by the International Maritime Organization with an objective to minimize pollution of the oceans and seas, including dumping, oil and air pollution.
In general, compliance means conforming to a rule, such as a specification, policy, standard or law. Compliance has traditionally been explained by reference to the deterrence theory, according to which punishing a behavior will decrease the violations both by the wrongdoer and by others. This view has been supported by economic theory, which has framed punishment in terms of costs and has explained compliance in terms of a cost-benefit equilibrium. However, psychological research on motivation provides an alternative view: granting rewards or imposing fines for a certain behavior is a form of extrinsic motivation that weakens intrinsic motivation and ultimately undermines compliance.
A regulatory agency or independent agency is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous dominion over some area of human activity in a licensing and regulating capacity.
Environmental policy is the commitment of an organization or government to the laws, regulations, and other policy mechanisms concerning environmental issues. These issues generally include air and water pollution, waste management, ecosystem management, maintenance of biodiversity, the management of natural resources, wildlife and endangered species. For example, concerning environmental policy, the implementation of an eco-energy-oriented policy at a global level to address the issues of global warming and climate changes could be addressed. Policies concerning energy or regulation of toxic substances including pesticides and many types of industrial waste are part of the topic of environmental policy. This policy can be deliberately taken to influence human activities and thereby prevent undesirable effects on the biophysical environment and natural resources, as well as to make sure that changes in the environment do not have unacceptable effects on humans.
Law enforcement in Malaysia is performed by numerous law enforcement agencies and primarily the responsibility of the Royal Malaysia Police. Like many federal nations, the nature of the Constitution of Malaysia mandates law and order as a subject of a state, which means that local government bodies also have a role to play in law enforcement, therefore the bulk of the policing lies with the respective states and territories of Malaysia. Below are some of the law enforcement bodies and agencies of Malaysia.
Environmental Protection Department (EPD) is a department of Hong Kong Government concerning the issues of environmental protection in Hong Kong.The EPD is responsible for developing policies covering environmental protection, nature conservation; enforcing environmental legislation; monitoring environmental quality; providing collection, transfer, treatment and disposal facilities for many types of waste; advising on the environmental implications of town planning and new policies; handling pollution complaints and incidents; and raising awareness and support in the community for environmental initiatives.
Environmental crime is an illegal act which directly harms the environment. These illegal activities involve the environment, wildlife, biodiversity and natural resources. International bodies such as, G7, Interpol, European Union, United Nations Environment Programme, United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, have recognised the following environmental crimes:
The flag state of a merchant vessel is the jurisdiction under whose laws the vessel is registered or licensed, and is deemed the nationality of the vessel. A merchant vessel must be registered and can only be registered in one jurisdiction, but may change the jurisdiction in which it is registered. The flag state has the authority and responsibility to enforce regulations over vessels registered under its flag, including those relating to inspection, certification, and issuance of safety and pollution prevention documents. As a ship operates under the laws of its flag state, these laws are applicable if the ship is involved in an admiralty case.
The environmental effects of shipping include air pollution, water pollution, acoustic, and oil pollution. Ships are responsible for more than 18% of nitrogen oxides pollution, and 3% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Municipal solid waste (MSW) – more commonly known as trash or garbage – consists of everyday items people use and then throw away, such as product packaging, grass clippings, furniture, clothing, bottles, food scraps and papers. In 2018, Americans generated about 265.3 million tonnes of waste. In the United States, landfills are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states' environmental agencies. Municipal solid waste landfills (MSWLF) are required to be designed to protect the environment from contaminants that may be present in the solid waste stream.
The Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) is the law enforcement arm of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is made up of attorneys, special agents, scientists and other employees.
Point source water pollution comes from discrete conveyances and alters the chemical, biological, and physical characteristics of water. In the United States, it is largely regulated by the Clean Water Act (CWA). Among other things, the Act requires dischargers to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to legally discharge pollutants into a water body. However, point source pollution remains an issue in some water bodies, due to some limitations of the Act. Consequently, other regulatory approaches have emerged, such as water quality trading and voluntary community-level efforts.
Command and Control (CAC) regulation finds common usage in academic literature and beyond. The relationship between CAC and environmental policy is considered in this article, an area that demonstrates the application of this type of regulation. However, CAC is not limited to the environmental sector and encompasses a variety of different fields.
The pollution haven hypothesis posits that, when large industrialized nations seek to set up factories or offices abroad, they will often look for the cheapest option in terms of resources and labor that offers the land and material access they require. However, this often comes at the cost of environmentally unsound practices. Developing nations with cheap resources and labor tend to have less stringent environmental regulations, and conversely, nations with stricter environmental regulations become more expensive for companies as a result of the costs associated with meeting these standards. Thus, companies that choose to physically invest in foreign countries tend to (re)locate to the countries with the lowest environmental standards or weakest enforcement.
Environmental cleanup laws govern the removal of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, sediment, surface water, or ground water. Unlike pollution control laws, cleanup laws are designed to respond after-the-fact to environmental contamination, and consequently must often define not only the necessary response actions, but also the parties who may be responsible for undertaking such actions. Regulatory requirements may include rules for emergency response, liability allocation, site assessment, remedial investigation, feasibility studies, remedial action, post-remedial monitoring, and site reuse.
The Frasure Creek lawsuit was a legal action by environmental organizations Waterkeeper Alliance and Appalachian Voices against Frasure Creek Mining and International Coal Group (ICG) on grounds of falsifying pollution discharge in their reports. This violated many key components of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which controls and regulates many types of pollution entering into waterway. Individual citizens joined the environmental organizations to sue the coal mining companies under the CWA. The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet attempted to settle in Franklin Circuit Court in December, 2010 but was denied. The case moved forward to the Kentucky Supreme Court in April, 2012 who agreed with lower court rulings that Appalachian Voices and others were legally supported by the CWA to intervene in the lawsuit against Frasure Creek Mining and ICG.