Environmental Matters Research Articles

Intellectual Property Law Aspects of Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development: Where Is the Line Between Public and Private Interests?

Protection of the environment is regulated by numerous laws and bylaws, within legal areas. As regards regulations of an imperative nature, there is no doubt that these provisions represent the public interest and responsibility of the state to preserve and improve the environment. The paper examines the potential of private law rights to contribute to environmental protection and improvement, because the action of entities depends on the choice of whether to act or not in certain circumstances. To illustrate a possible contribution of private law in environmental protection matters, patent and indications of geographical origin have attracted attention. While trying to determine a particular connection between rights and environmental matters, it has become clear that significant improvement of environmental protection can be provided in a circular flow through different areas of law. Protecting and supporting private law rights is not detached from guarding the public interest. An examination of patent law potential should demonstrate that cooperation between scientific research institutions and industry is of primary concern in modern society. In practice, a number of issues obstruct successful cooperation; however, this is an opportunity for the state to encourage collaboration. A similar approach should be suggested in relation to indications of geographical origin. State and local governments should encourage recognition of indicators of geographical origin, attracted to localities of high environmental quality.

Public participation and access to justice in environmental matters in Croatia

Environmental protection is often achieved through participation in administrative procedures by the interested public in the form of interested parties. Such parties are able to participate in administrative procedures through which, for example, building permits and environmental permits are issued. In this manner, the public is able to challenge administrative decisions in front of first-instance and second-instance bodies in administrative procedure, and, subsequently, in administrative disputes in front of competent administrative courts. However, in many sector laws this opportunity is being bypassed by narrowing the possibility to participate in administrative procedure. Croatia is also a party to the Aarhus Convention, which guarantees the possibility of the public concerned (having only factual interest to prove) to participate in administrative procedures regarding administrative matters. Furthermore, the possibility to partake in spatial planning will also be analyzed in this paper, as spatial planning has a huge impact on the environment. Therefore, this paper will analyze the opportunities and challenges for public participation and access to justice in environmental matters in Croatia.

Environmental justice at the environmental courts? Mining, socioenvironmental conflicts, and environmental litigation in northern Chile

With the judicialization of politics and the creation of new environmental institutions, environmental litigation is now an increasingly common dimension of socioenvironmental conflicts. This study examines this pattern in the context of recently created environmental courts in Chile, focusing on lithium and copper mining litigation in the Atacama salt flats of the Antofagasta Region. I argue that while the courts are formally open to a wide variety of legal complaints, community groups face an uphill battle when using legal mobilization strategies due to the underlying political and economic power of the mining industry in northern Chile. Nevertheless, environmental litigation matters for environmental policy implementation because it reveals conflicts over environmental compliance, highlighting gaps between environmental laws on the books and actual practices. In this sense, environmental litigation activates environmental regulations and can provide communities with greater leverage to demand stronger enforcement, even as the long-term implications of judicial rulings for addressing current and past harms remain to be seen. The paper is based on documents from the Chilean environmental courts database, media sources, and twenty-two semi-structured interviews with activists and community leaders, lawyers, scientists, and government officials to better interpret and contextualize the court archival data.

The Effects of the Ward Environment and Language in Palliative Care: A Qualitative Exploratory Study of Victorian Nurses' Perspectives.

The current study aimed to explore regional nurses' perspectives of how bad news is delivered and the physical, natural, social, and symbolic environments where these conversations occur. In regional hospitals within Victoria, Australia, palliative and end-of-life patients are cared for in acute wards that are often busy, noisy, and do not have a palliative psychosocial focus. On the other hand, Palliative Care Units (PCUs) have more home-like dedicated spaces, yet nearly all these facilities are in metropolitan areas. Diagnostic/prognostic (bad news) conversations about life-limiting illnesses often occur at the bedside in both environments. Nurses providing palliative or end-of-life care in regional or metropolitan Victorian hospital inpatient wards were invited to interview and recruited through social media and snowballing. Six semi-structured, audio-recorded online interviews were conducted between March and May 2022, and themes were developed using reflexive thematic analysis. Semi-structured online interviews were conducted with six female, registered nurses, four of whom worked in regional Victorian hospitals and two in metropolitan PCUs as Nurse Unit Managers. Three central themes were developed: "conducting family meetings," "palliative care practice," and "the environment matters." A therapeutic environment for palliative patients and their families consists of home-like ambience and aesthetics and a psychosocial environment created by staff who can provide holistic palliative care. Holistic palliative care requires mentoring and mirroring of expert practice to increase the expertise and capacity of the palliative care workforce in acute general hospital wards.

Investigation of transformation products of selected veterinary drugs generated by electrochemistry, microsomal assays, hydrolysis & photolysis

The knowledge of transformation pathways and transformation products of veterinary drugs is important for health, food and environmental matters. Residues (original veterinary drug and transformation products) are found in food products of animal origin and also in the environment (e.g., soil or surface water). Several transformation processes can alter the original veterinary drug, ranging from biotransformation in living organism to environmental degradation processes like photolysis, hydrolysis, or microbial processes. In this thesis, four veterinary drugs were investigated, three ionophore antibiotics Monensin, Salinomycin and Lasalocid and the macrocyclic lactone Moxidectin. Ionophore antibiotics are mainly used to cure and prevent coccidiosis in poultry especially prophylactic in broiler farming. Moxidectin is an antiparasitic drug and is used for the treatment of internal and external parasites in food‐ producing and companion animals. The main objective of this work was the usage of different laboratory approaches to generate and identify transformation products. The identification was conducted using high‐resolution mass spectrometry (HR‐MS). A major focus was put on the application of electrochemistry for simulation of transformation processes. The electrochemical reactor, equipped with a three‐electrode flow‐through cell, enabled the oxidation or reduction by applying a potential. Derived transformation products were analyzed by online coupling of the electrochemical reactor and a HR‐MS and offline by liquid chromatography (LC) combined with HR‐MS. The main modification reaction of the identified transformation products was different for each investigated veterinary drug. Monensin was showing decarboxylation and demethylation as main modification reactions, for Salinomycin mostly decarbonylation was occurring and for Lasalocid methylation was prevalent. For Moxidectin I observed oxidation (hydroxylation) reaction and adduct formation with solvent. In general, for salinomycin and Lasalocid more transient transformation products (online measurement) than stable transformation products (offline measurements) were detected. In contrast, the number of transformation products using online and offline measurements were identical for monensin and moxidectin. As a complementary approach, metabolism tests with rat or human liver microsomes were made for the ionophore antibiotics. Monensin was investigated by using rat liver microsomes and identified transformation products were based on decarboxylation and demethylation. Salinomycin and Lasalocid were converted by human and rat liver microsomes. For both substances were more transformation products found by using human liver microsomes. The transformation products of the rat liver microsome conversion were redundant, the transformation products were also found at the human liver microsome assay. Oxidation (hydroxylation) was found to be the main modification reaction for both. In addition, a frequent ion‐exchange between sodium and potassium was identified. The last two experiments were performed for one substance each, the hydrolysis of monensin and the photolysis of moxidectin was investigated. The transformation products of the pH‐ dependent hydrolysis were based on ring‐opening and dehydration. Moxidectin formed several transformation products by irradiation with UV‐C light and main modification reactions were isomeric changes, (de‐)hydration and changes of the methoxime moiety. In summary, transformation products of the four investigated veterinary drugs were generated by the different laboratory approaches. Most of the identified transformation products were identified for the first time. The resulting findings provide an understanding for clarifying the transformation behavior.

The impact of maritime service quality on employee satisfaction by seafarers rank: evidence from a global survey grounded on ERG theory

PurposeThis study aims to reveal the constituents of seafaring service quality (physical and social environment) and their effects on seafarer employee satisfaction (job satisfaction and turnover intention) and analyse any differences among seafarer ranks. Literature on service quality has overlooked the transportation sector and seafaring in particular.Design/methodology/approachSeafaring service quality is measured by the workplace environment constituted of physical and social environments. Two types of employee (job) satisfaction were explored: overall job satisfaction and turnover intention. This study is based on a unique, large survey based on the Existence-Relatedness-Growth (ERG) needs theory. An exploratory factor analysis revealed four physical environment factors (Ship conditions, Communication facilities, Nautical health and Living conditions) and four social environment factors (Social fit, Team cohesion, Ship company support and Intercultural environment). Multi-group regression analysis assessed the effects of seafaring service quality on employee satisfaction.FindingsThe social environment has stronger effects than the physical environment on job satisfaction but not on employee retention. Team cohesion has strong effects on employee retention, while social fit has stronger effects on overall job performance. Seafarer ranks showed significant variations. The physical environment matters for 2nd engineers' and cadets’ job satisfaction but not for ratings, masters and chief officers. Team cohesion is significant to master, chief officer, engineer and cadet ranks but not for junior officers and ratings. Social fit has stronger effects on overall job performance than employee retention, particularly for ratings, cadets, master, chief officer and chief engineer ranks. Ship company support has the stronger effect on overall job satisfaction among all workplace factors; this is also observed across all ranks.Research limitations/implicationsMotivation theories like the ERG theory can help understand service quality and employee satisfaction in the maritime sector; future studies should examine more behaviour variables/constructs from these theories.Practical implicationsMaritime companies can offer better services to seafarers, who are considered as key workers, by customising their interventions to specific seafarer ranks and developing a supportive culture that improves seafarer well-being.Originality/valueThis study examined the overlooked topic of maritime service quality based on a large-scale survey grounded on ERG theory and reveals how the physical and social environment has different effects on seafarer job satisfaction and retention.

The importance of cultivating awareness of environmental matters in science classrooms: a cross-regional study

AbstractAs scientific literacy plays a contributing role in identifying, analysing, and solving environmental matters that our world is facing, there is growing consensus to mandate environmental matters in science classrooms following five decades of efforts in promoting environmental education. However, much remains unknown about the relationship between students’ awareness of environmental matters and their science literacy scores on standardised test. Using data drawn from the 2015 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) science performance assessment, this study investigates the relationship between students’ awareness of environmental matters and their science literacy scores in the context of established predictors for science learning. In all the regions’ multilevel models ranging from medium to large effect sizes, a significant and positive relationship emerges between students’ awareness of environmental matters and science literacy scores. Among the well-known predictors for science learning, student science self-efficacy associates positively with student science literacy scores across the regions. In contrast, inquiry-based science instruction associates negatively with the scores. Except for these two well-known predictors, variations exist in the relationships between other variables among the regions. Given all the regions’ evidence showing the positive linkage between students’ awareness of environmental matters and science literacy scores, the present study signifies the importance of integrating environmental issues into traditional science classrooms, suggesting that there should be systematic supports that enable both environmental and science educators to collaborate towards the development of an interdisciplinary environmental science curriculum.

How do nature governance rules affect compliance decisions? An experimental analysis

In an age of unprecedented decline in global biodiversity levels, the task of designing laws that effectively protect nature and biodiversity is urgent. To help address this enforcement deficit, European policymakers have sought to democratise environmental enforcement by conferring citizens and environmental nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) with legal rights of access to environmental information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters, derived from an international treaty known as the UNECE Aarhus Convention (the so-called “Aarhus mechanisms”). However, there has been little systematic empirical research to date on the effectiveness of this new wave of private nature governance laws, and their impacts on compliance decisions. This paper seeks to address this gap. We investigate, by means of a laboratory experiment with student participants, the extent to which different nature governance rules affect individuals' decisions to comply. By nature governance rules, we mean the legal tools used to promote compliance with nature conservation rules, including traditional governance rules such as criminal penalties and civil fines, but also the new generation of private governance rules, in the form of the Aarhus mechanisms. Our findings provide new empirical experimental confirmation that traditional and private environmental governance rules together achieve more effective nature conservation outcomes than traditional governance rules alone. They also suggest, however, that private governance rules may lead to some duplication of enforcement effort by the State and citizens.

Correction to: The environment matters: season and female contact affect the behavior of captive Addax nasomaculatus male antelope

Correction to: The environment matters: season and female contact affect the behavior of captive Addax nasomaculatus male antelope

Stakeholder Opinions of Implementing Environmental Management Systems in the Construction Sector of the U.S.

Environmental concerns over the effects of construction sector activities necessitate meaningful measures to be taken. Despite worldwide increases in the uptake of environmental management systems (EMS), implementation of EMS across the construction sector of the U.S. remains slow. To date, stakeholder opinions about the uptake of EMS in the construction sector of the U.S. remain unexplored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the views of U.S. stakeholders towards the benefits and barriers of implementing EMS, and how these compare internationally. Underpinned by a positivism philosophy, an online questionnaire survey was used to collect the views of construction professionals (n = 50). Weighted average analysis scores reveal that the benefits of EMS are seen to improve the public perception and credibility of an organization/company and reduce waste levels and are a tool to improve the environmental standards of the U.S.’s construction sector; in contrast, the barriers of EMS are an absence of sub-contractor cooperation and resistance to change in existing company structure and policy, plus the requirement for additional employee training. The potential impact of this work demonstrates not only the role that the U.S. construction sector can play in advancing environmental and sustainability matters using EMS but also the obstacles that need to be addressed to enable their success. Understanding these benefits and barriers at an organizational level could enable them to devise more effective business strategies/policies, where evidence-based practices could be used to support EMS implementation.

Can environmental regulations change the environmental behaviour of local leaders and enterprises? Evidence using the accountability audit of natural resources in China

ABSTRACT Securing long-term environmental pollution control in a system where local leaders in China hold tenure for only a short term is a challenge. The innovative Chinese accountability audit of natural resources (AANR) pilot project attempts to address this problem by mandating lifelong accountability for local leaders. Using this pilot as a quasi-natural experiment, we explored macro-effectiveness and micro-mechanisms of AANR. The results show that AANR has a positive impact on the environmental investment behaviour of enterprises. This paper finds that AANR stimulates enterprises’ investments in the environment by improving the environmental behaviour of local leaders. During mobilisation meetings, local leaders convey signals on environmental matters. Political connections are bridges which convey the signals of mobilisation to enterprises. Those enterprises receive the signals and increase environmental investment. AANR thus promotes collaborative governance by ensuring that the interests of key stakeholders are aligned to prevent pollution.

The necessity defence in (the Swiss) climate protest cases: Democratic contestation in the age of climate activism

AbstractThe transnational movement of climate activists is resorting increasingly often to acts of civil disobedience. Upon being prosecuted for those acts, climate activists across various jurisdictions are starting to plead the general criminal law defence of necessity. The present article takes the cases in which that defence was pleaded before Swiss courts as a case study to analyse the legal questions raised by the ‘climate necessity defence’, conceptualised as an instance of climate litigation. The article hence situates the Swiss cases within a broader framework, trying to draw interpretive insights from international environmental law and climate science, as well as the transnational case‐law on the climate necessity defence. The article's overarching submission is that a broad interpretation of the defence, tending towards accepting its applicability, is more in line with the current legal thinking on environmental matters than a restrictive interpretation rejecting a priori climate necessity claims.

환경교육강사의 교육 경험에 관한 연구

Environmental education aims to solve a variety of problems around all kinds of pending environmental issues. In South Korea, environmental education has developed in a dual system between school environmental education provided by environment teachers as part of the school's subject curriculums and social environmental education provided by environmental education instruction in the community outside the school. Today school environmental education has shrunk considerably while needs for environmental education in the community grow day by day. In this situation, environmental education instructors outside the school provide students with environmental education by visiting schools themselves as well as in the community outside the school, covering most of practical environmental education for students. In the area of education, there have been no full researches on environmental education outside the school and especially environmental education instructors providing the education. This study thus set out to investigate the educational experiences of environmental education instructors by selecting four environmental education instructors as research participants and conducting an in-depth interview with them in June~September, 2021.
 The findings show that environmental education instructors took various chances to begin providing education and there was a high degree of diversity in the content of education and the aspects of growth through educational experiences among the instructors. These findings once again demonstrated the value of diversity that environmental education should guarantee. The environmental education instructors all made many efforts to provide the right education on all sorts of discriminating environmental matters while pursuing diversity. A high level of spontaneity demonstrated by the instructors in the process became an important foothold for their self-growth. The uniqueness of individual environmental education instructors was reflected on environmental education in various ways, and their enriched educational experiences added further diversity to their unique educational capabilities. These findings raise a need for social and educational supports to help the content and methods of environmental education develop in a productive manner in harmony with the uniqueness of environmental education instructors. It is also needed to provide institutional supports for the management of environmental education to guarantee diversity and flexibility like today and, at the same time, ensure systematic long-term education.

Individual differences in environmental wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviors explained by self-control.

Climate change is an increasing problem, with more extreme weather conditions and rising temperatures. To fulfill the temperature goals of the Paris agreement a societal change is needed, a change that requires a shift of lifestyle from all of us. If we want to change our behaviors to more sustainable ones, we need to sacrifice substantial things today to improve a future, which often seems distant and abstract. People with high level of self-control have been shown to have a better ability to visualize future events, which makes self-control an interesting trait to look at in relation to pro-environmental behavior. The aim of this study was to examine how self-control correlates with environmental well-being and environmental behavior. An internet-based survey was sent to a representative Swedish sample (n = 602). The respondents were asked to fill out a newly developed scale measuring their anxiety and security regarding environmental matters (environmental wellbeing), as well as indicate how often they engage in six different pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., turning lights off when leaving the room). Additionally, data on the respondents' gender, age, political orientation, and self-control was collected. Our results suggest a positive correlation between self-control and environmental wellbeing and a weaker, but still positive, correlation between self-control and some pro-environmental behaviors. Additionally, respondents who identified themselves as politically left had lower environmental wellbeing, while men had higher environmental wellbeing, but behaved less environmentally friendly. Thus, our results suggest that political orientation was a better predictor of sound environmental behavior than subjective self-control was.

From the Editors-in-Chief: The Right to a Safe, Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment

The discipline of international environmental law is about to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. We, at the Yearbook of International Environmental Law, have just celebrated our thirty years of contributing to the discipline of, and academic research on, the field. As already stated, in these three decades, we have watched environmental matters move slowly but emphatically towards the core of economic and social development and occupy an increasing portion of the political discourse, both at the international scene and on the domestic level. It seems incongruous in this context to celebrate the first panegyric declaration of a right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, initially by the Human Rights Council in Resolution 48/13 (8 October 2021) and later by the UN General Assembly Resolution 76/300 (1 August 2022). One would have presumed that the impressive body of environmental regulation both at the international and national levels would have been safely constructed on a solid principle of law. Instead, reality has worked in the reverse order. Pau de Vilchez and Annalisa Savaresi have produced an impressive piece in which they delve into the specifics of its content with a view to ensuring the full enjoyment of the right. In addition, and perhaps even more important, they delineate and discuss the repercussions of its existence on the increasing use of litigation before domestic courts and international adjudicatory bodies in matters pertaining to climate change. In doing so, climate change moves away from the exclusive government-to-government domain of high politics and descends into the everyday relationship of citizen to state, with all the consequent emphasis on immediacy, effectiveness, and, ultimately, democratic accountability.

Regional communication and media analysis of aquaculture in Atlantic islands

The way the media portrays aquaculture-related events can influence how this industry is perceived by the public and affect its success. Since media are an important source of public information, media content analysis has been carried out in several regions of the world. This study aimed to determine which aspects of aquaculture were more exposed and how they were discussed by regional media in the Madeira archipelago, an oceanic group of Portuguese islands. Analysis of aquaculture’s media coverage in the two most-read regional newspapers of Madeira was carried out over a 5-year period (2017 to 2021). For each news article, the assessment focused on the geographic scope, the main topics covered, the stakeholders with access to the debate, and the general tone of the article (risk/benefit framework). A total of 297 articles were analyzed. Results indicate the occurrence of trigger events that contributed to a shift in the amount of news published and in the way media framed aquaculture. In general, political and economic issues dominated the coverage, whereas social, environmental, scientific, and landscape matters received less media attention. The voice of the government was predominant throughout the 5 years in analysis and aquaculture was generally framed with a balanced tone, slightly more negative. Open and transparent communication between the stakeholders and the media is fundamental for the sustainable development of the aquaculture industry.

The environment matters: season and female contact affect the behavior of captive Addax nasomaculatus male antelope.

The addax antelope (Addax nasomaculatus) is a species under serious threat of extinction, as it is more abundant in captivity than in the wild. However, little is known about its basic biology. The aims of this study were to determine how locomotor, feeding, aggressive, marking, and sexual behavior of male addax allocated in all-male groups vary with season and with female contact (i.e., biostimulation). The study was conducted in captive conditions, in two groups of adult males: one with no-physical contact with females, aside from visual and olfactory interactions (CF group, n = 4), and another group completely isolated from females (IF group, n = 4). The frequency of behaviors was recorded during the daytime, 4days per season (total time of observation = 256h). Lying, standing, walking, aggressive, marking, grazing, and ruminating behaviors as well as water and supplement consumptions varied with season (all p < 0.05). The lying, walking, marking, grazing, and ruminating behaviors were more frequently observed for CF than IF males (all p < 0.05). Also, all behaviors, except for marking, varied with the interaction between the group and seasons (all p < 0.05). Sexual behavior was extremely scarce, so it was not possible to analyze how it varied with seasons and the group. The present study suggests that management program and housing conditions, especially in ex situ breeding plans, should consider the influence of the season and the sociosexual context on the behavior of addax males.

Minsky Meets Kapp: A Post-Keynesian Institutionalist Approach to Addressing Climate Change

Post-Keynesian institutional economists have long had much to say about addressing macroeconomic instability, but much less about environmental sustainability. To suggest a way forward on environmental matters, this article outlines a post-Keynesian institutionalist (PKI) approach to addressing climate change. That approach builds on Hyman Minsky’s notion of the need for institutions and public policies to contain economic instability, integrating it with insight from K. William Kapp on social costs and environmental disruption as well as with more recent PKI research on what Minsky called money-manager capitalism. The article applies the PKI approach to the problem of global warming, identifying and briefly considering some near-term and longer-term policy strategies and institutional changes that could restrain climate change, enabling us to minimize further ecological damage, restore the environment, and improve human well-being.

The People’s Republic of China’s ‘Green Medal Strategy’: Environmental Discourse during the 2008 and 2022 Beijing Olympic Games within the Soft Power Arena

ABSTRACT Addressing environmental concerns and hosting ‘green’ Olympic Games played a major role in shaping the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) soft power strategy for both the 2008 and 2022 Olympics, although in significantly different ways. Critical discourse analysis suggests a number of tensions and changes in the narratives related to environmental matters built around the two events. Firstly, an analysis of the narratives related to air pollution and artificial snow demonstrates strong differences between the Chinese and Anglophone media discourse. Secondly, the political shift that occurred between 2008 and 2022 – from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping – is reflected in the different environmental discourse and practices developed by the PRC during the two Olympics: from compliance with international standards to the (self-) elevation as a global leader in environmental sustainability.

Environmental Consciousness, Purchase Intention, and Actual Purchase Behavior of Eco-Friendly Products: The Moderating Impact of Situational Context

Recently, environmental issues have become major social concerns, and consumers are becoming increasingly aware of environmental matters; however, they remain hesitant to purchase eco-friendly products. This study examined consumers' environmental consciousness as a factor influencing the purchase of eco-friendly products, and investigated situational factors that induce hesitancy in purchasing eco-friendly products. We studied the moderating effects of these factors with regard to ease of purchase and eco label credibility. Our research model is validated using data from 220 consumers with experience in purchasing eco-friendly products in Korea. For the data analysis, we used SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 22.0 to perform confirmatory factor analysis and SEM. The specific verification results are as follows. First, environmental interest did not significantly impact the purchase intention of eco-friendly products. Second, consumers' environmental knowledge and consumer effectiveness perception both had a significant impact on the purchase intention of eco-friendly products. Third, the intention to purchase eco-friendly products significantly impacted the purchase behavior of eco-friendly products. In addition, the results of this study show that ease of purchase and eco label credibility have moderating effects on the relationship between purchase intention and purchase behavior. This study results contribute to the eco-friendly consumption literature by explaining the intention-behavior gap. This study also show that eco-friendly consumption can be stimulated through raising eco label credibility and ease of purchase. The findings have theoretical implications for understanding the factors that affect consumers' intentions of and behavior toward eco product purchases, and practical implications for how to stimulate environmental consumer behavior.