Suchergebnisse

As the Chinese economy grows, Chinese people&rsquo ; s environmental behavior enormously affects the environment of neighboring countries as well as China. Many studies have related environmental behavior to personal characteristics such as environmental knowledge and attitude or to national policies such as environmental taxes and regulations. Few studies have looked at how regional factors affect residents&rsquo ; environmental behaviors, particularly for China. This is a substantive gap in the literature regarding the effects of regional governments on resident behavior at a closer distance via different mechanisms than the national government. This paper examines determinants of individual pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in terms of regional attributes as well as personal characteristics in China. For this purpose, we applied a multi-level regression model that regresses the degree of PEB on both individual and regional level factors, using Chinese General Social Survey data and the China Environment Yearbook data for the year 2010. The analysis shows that environmental attitude, willingness to pay for the environment, objective and subjective environmental knowledge, and environmental risk perception all promote PEB at the individual level. These results are in line with the existing literature on environmental behavior. In addition, at the regional level, environmental budgets, administrative enforcement, and economic development have positive impacts on resident PEB, while environmental pollution has a negative effect. Specifically, the levels of regional economic development and administrative enforcement not only directly affect behavior, but also indirectly affect behavior by controlling the influence of individual level variables. This means that the relationships between individual level variables and environmental behavior can be changed by regional contextual factors. These results suggest that regional government efforts for the environment can effectively promote PEB.

The Law of the Sea is a vast and multi-faceted area of international law. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Agreement relating to the implementation of Part XI of the Convention constitute essential instruments of the law of the sea governing a new maritime order for the international community. With its entry into force on November 16, 1994, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has virtually become the Magna Carta of the Oceans, or the Constitution for the Oceans. Testifying to its success is the number of Parties adhering to it, now totaling 132 States, including one international organization, the European Community. The world is entering the era of a New Maritime Order based on near-universal adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In the wake of the Convention's entry into force and its ratification by many States in Northeast Asia, a new maritime order is emerging in the region. The littoral States have enacted and promulgated new national legislation to incorporate the provisions of the UN Convention into their domestic legal order. The three littoral States China, Japan and South Korea concluded or initialed bilateral fisheries agreements based on the new concept of extended jurisdiction set forth by the UN Convention. The UN Convention will, however, present even more challenges than opportunities for the littoral States of Northeast Asia in their quest for a new maritime order. The maritime security situation in the region has been and will continue to be extremely volatile due to conflicting claims, disputed boundaries, unregulated pollution of the marine environment and widespread illegal activities at sea. The author has set the both pragmatic and ambitious aim of outlining the emerging maritime order in Northeast Asia. As a practitioner of the law of the sea who has participated in bilateral and multilateral negotiations on maritime affairs, the author sheds light on the new maritime order in the making at the international and regional levels. The author also delineates the main issues and disputes hindering the establishment of a new maritime order in the region and present policy options that could contribute to erecting a solid maritime order in the region by peaceful and cooperative means. Finally, the author presents a compilation of relevant legal texts, most of which were produced after the entry into force of the UN Convention, in the hope that this collection will prove useful for desk officers in charge of ocean affairs in promoting peaceful and constructive solutions for maritime issues in Northeast Asia. This work serves as a realistic analysis of the current law and State practice, as well as of the progressive development of the law of the sea and its codification in the wake of the entry into force of the 1982 UN Convention

The recent emergence of the "urban commons" is associated with the "exclusion" problems of modern cities, which are enmeshed in the mechanism that spatially excludes those who are incapable of paying the market prices. Cities are also tightly regulated by various government regulations that control people's actions, and creative practices are often stifled. The excluded not only resist commercialization, privatization, and state laws but also crave and pursue their own space and lifestyle. This study argues that the urban commons is a "haven" where the excluded are protected, existing as an alternative that outreaches the state and market ambits. We examine a Korean case to see how urban commons are created to embrace the excluded, focusing on the settings and process. The results show that (1) social exclusion and a power rift between the market and state during the urban process constitute the settings in which communities of the excluded create urban commons as a haven; (2) the creation and maintenance process should not only meet Ostrom's design principles but also requires urban commoners to practice commoning as an alternative lifestyle; and (3) the urban settings pose threats to meeting the process requirements, so appropriate strategies should be employed to bridge the gaps.