Suchergebnisse

environments for public health. Certain member states of the European Union (EU) have already achieved successes in improving indoor environmental quality, such as controlling certain contaminants (e.g., environmental tobacco smoke) or developing nationwide policies that address indoor air generally. However, a common European approach to achieving healthy indoor environments is desirable for several reasons including providing a broader recognition of the problem of unhealthy indoor air, setting a policy example for all 27 EU member states, and achieving greater public health equity across the different European nations. In this article we address the question "Why is it so difficult in the EU to develop a coherent approach on indoor environment?" We identify and describe four main barriers: a) the subsidiarity principle in EU policymaking, introducing decentralization of decision making to the member states ; b) fragmentation of the topic of the indoor environment ; c) the differences in climate and governance among different member states that make a common policy difficult ; and d) economic issues. We discuss potential lessons and recommendations from EU and U.S. successes in achieving healthier indoor environments through various policy mechanisms

Book ; Setting out from a background of scholarship evolved over a period of decades, I joined the High Court Bench in October 2003, with the enthusiasm to match the law as learnt, to the reality of dispute settlement. First assigned duty in the Civil Division at the principal station, and thereafter continually adjudicating civil disputes, I formed the impression, especially after serving for more than three years in the Criminal Division and after experiencing the entire range of justiciable causes, that civil cases, offered the widest scope for the development of the typical legal concept, and for the formulation of novel concepts of jurisprudence. The reason is that, unlike in criminal or cognate matters, which on constitutional or historical grounds were bounded by formal law, the civil domain rested on private grievance, and accorded the judge considerable liberty in the application of principle an d in law-making. At the same time I gained the perception , with in the framework of civil litigation, that the law relating to property was by far the most tested sphere of dispute settlement. By no means surprising, in view of the constrained pace of growth of the national economy, attending upon a rapid pace of population growth, such as obtains in most African countries. The basic endowment of nature, in the form of land, and land-based resources and activities, lies at the core of social tensions, and the resultant urgency of dispute settlement; and these, thus, constitute the larger part of the incidence of civil litigation. Such disputes do not, in most cases, find anything akin to solution-templates in the form of enacted law. And the common law tradition has come in handy - with its considerable scope for judicial law-making. This scenario conforms to reality in East Africa, which had the legacy of the common law, coming both formally through legislative prescription, and informally through the agency of judicial officers of Commonwealth origin, as well as through a system of legal education and training greatly influenced by the Commonwealth experience.The classic depict ion of the place of judicial creativity, even when the subject-matter is govern ed by enacted law, is that by Lord Denning: "It would certainly save the judges trouble if Acts of Parliament were drafted with Divine prescience and perfect clarity. In the absence of it.a judge.must set to work on the constructive task of finding the intention of Parliament, and he must do this not only from the language of the statute but also from a consideration of the social conditions which have given rise to it , and of the mischief which it was passed to remedy, and then he must implement the written word so as to give 'forces of life' to the intention of the legislature.» t In the same way, there was an unlimited scope for the Kenyan judge to interpret the law, breathe life into it and, for all practical purposes, make law. It is the clear significance of landed property in the incidence of litigation , that led to the choice of this sphere as the forum for examining evolving judicial practice. This work is a depiction of the judge's law-creative role, in the common law tradition. The judge's context of work is, however, not exactly the same in East Africa as in England - the cradle of the common law tradition. In most countries of Africa, the fundamental principles of law are laid out in a written Constitution, that is binding on the courts and all public agencies. It is, thus, a matter of professional interest, how the superior courts have performed the common-law role, in the context of the Constitution as the basic norm. In this work, it is the sphere of property law that has been adopted as the medium for examining the mode of discharge of the common law function, in the context of the principles elaborated in the Constitution.

In June 1992 the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) took place in Rio de Janeiro; 1993 was the year of the World Conference on Human Rights, 1994 the year of the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, and in March 1995 it was the turn of the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen.

There is a tendency today to look to the legislatures to provide the cure for all environmental maladies,' and to overlook or underrate the potential of common-law remedies to assist in the proper solution of these problems. Although it is undoubtedly true that in some jurisdictions the common-law remedies have been interpreted so restrictively as to make them practically useless as tools for environmental protection, a number of forward-looking courts are developing and applying the law in a way much more favorable to the environment. Other courts that have remained uncommitted may be in a position to follow current trends in the use of common-law remedies for environmental protection. Hopefully, this survey will suggest additional possibilities for relief in jurisdictions where the statutory remedies are failing, often because of insufficient funds for adequate enforcement. Furthermore, even in those jurisdictions with effective statutory remedies for the protection of the public interest, common-law remedies still may provide the best, or indeed the only, means by which an injured individual can be personally compensated.

environments for public health. Certain member states of the European Union (EU) have already achieved successes in improving indoor environmental quality, such as controlling certain contaminants (e.g., environmental tobacco smoke) or developing nationwide policies that address indoor air generally. However, a common European approach to achieving healthy indoor environments is desirable for several reasons including providing a broader recognition of the problem of unhealthy indoor air, setting a policy example for all 27 EU member states, and achieving greater public health equity across the different European nations. In this article we address the question "Why is it so difficult in the EU to develop a coherent approach on indoor environment?" We identify and describe four main barriers: a) the subsidiarity principle in EU policymaking, introducing decentralization of decision making to the member states ; b) fragmentation of the topic of the indoor environment ; c) the differences in climate and governance among different member states that make a common policy difficult ; and d) economic issues. We discuss potential lessons and recommendations from EU and U.S. successes in achieving healthier indoor environments through various policy mechanisms

Increasingly, policymakers in Europe and around the world are realizing the importance of healthy indoor environments for public health. Certain member states of the European Union (EU) have already achieved successes in improving indoor environmental quality, such as controlling certain contaminants (e.g., environmental tobacco smoke) or developing nationwide policies that address indoor air generally. However, a common European approach to achieving healthy indoor environments is desirable for several reasons including providing a broader recognition of the problem of unhealthy indoor air, setting a policy example for all 27 EU member states, and achieving greater public health equity across the different European nations. In this article we address the question "Why is it so difficult in the EU to develop a coherent approach on indoor environment?" We identify and describe four main barriers: a) the subsidiarity principle in EU policymaking, introducing decentralization of decision making to the member states; b) fragmentation of the topic of the indoor environment; c) the differences in climate and governance among different member states that make a common policy difficult; and d) economic issues. We discuss potential lessons and recommendations from EU and U.S. successes in achieving healthier indoor environments through various policy mechanisms.

This book examines issues of landscape change and the eco-cultural nature of the environment. It looks at how widespread landscape abandonment, rural depopulation, and urbanisation effects the environment and appropriate protection and conservation measures.