No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
The recent article by Marco Verweij in Law and Society Review offers a promising approach for studying the effectiveness of rules for achieving environmental goals. He suggests treating levels of toxic substances as the independent variable, and then looking at that variable across a range of legal and regulatory cultures. In the article, he argued that the adversarial culture of the United States compared to the cooperative culture in civil law nations meant that firms in Europe were more proactive in cleaning up their emissions than was the case in the United States. To make this point, he sought to compare chemical pollution in the Rhine to that found in the Great Lakes of North America. He also claimed that the International Joint Commission (IJC), a small-but-respected international organization, had worsened the situation in the Great Lakes. Verweij's approach is so promising, but the execution so flawed, that a comment on his thoughtful effort seemed in order. My comments will address, first, the scientific/technical difficulties in his study and, then, political/social science issues. It concludes with a brief review of other ways we could test his idea. I believe correcting the flaws related to the biophysical science and executing a relevant study along the lines he suggests would advance our understanding of how differences in legal cultures and institutions produce real-world outcomes.
1 “Why Is the River Rhine Cleaner than the Great Lakes (Despite Looser Regulation)?” 34 Law & Society Rev. (2000), pp. 1007–51.
2 Personal communication, Oct. 24, 2001.
3 I'm again indebted to Dr. Green.
4 See the thesis by H. J. Winkel, “Contaminant Variability in a Sedimentation Area of the River Rhine.” http://www.dpw.wageningen-ur.nl/ssg/publ/winkels.htm
5 http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/dwinfo.htm This site provides information on many public water works water quality reports. The samples, however, come from the treated water rather than the pretreated water.
6 He said it was one interview of many, but relied heavily on that one in reaching his conclusion.
7 Interview with Durfee, 1990, at the Center for the Study of the Great Lakes, Chicago. At a 1995 meeting of the Lake Superior Binational Forum, the CGLI representative said that zero discharge was not, even in principle, acceptable to its members. When asked what its members were doing in pollution prevention, the representative could not answer. He was instructed to find out and report back. Three hours later he produced a long list of success stories.
8 http://ms.water.usgs.gov/nawqa/pubs/posters/organochlorine/organochlo-rine_compounds_in_fish.htm