Regulations as Arbiters of Risk: Great Britain, Germany, and the Hazardous Waste Trade in Western Europe

Abstract

This article seeks to explain why Great Britain is one of the world's largest importers of hazardous wastes, while Germany, in contrast, is a waste exporter. Why one country exhibits such risk-acceptance behavior, while another is so risk averse, I argue, depends on differences between their national systems of environmental regulation. The style and structure of Britain's regulatory system, unlike that of Germany and its other partners in Western Europe, gives a high degree of leeway to private firms, filtering out the preferences of environmental groups and public opinion, thus enabling and facilitating the importation of hazardous wastes by waste disposal companies. The empirical section tests this argument against two alternative explanations: a state-centric explanation based on individual governments' calculations of the relevant costs and benefits associated with the waste trade, and second, a comparative advantage explanation, based on the technological superiority of Britain's waste disposal facilities. The conclusion draws out the implications for international environmental regulation and for domestic-level regulatory change. Great Britain is one of the world's largest importers of hazardous wastes. It has maintained this position throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, during which time its waste imports steadily increased.1 Nearly all of this trade is legal, in the sense that its importation has the knowledge and consent of the British government, and the majority of waste imports come from other developed countries, especially Britain's partners in the European Union. By way of contrast, Germany, one of these partners, is one of the world's largest waste exporters, despite its strong environ