Suchergebnisse

This is a dissertation about lawyers, judges, international NGOs and legal action in an authoritarian state. The state is contemporary China. The type of legal action is civil environmental lawsuits, as when herdsmen from Inner Mongolia sue a local paper factory over poisoned groundwater and dead livestock or a Shandong villager demands compensation from a nearby factory for the noise that allegedly killed 26 foxes on his farm. Empirically, this is a close-to-the-ground account of everyday justice and the factors that shape it. Drawing on fifteen months of field research in China, along with in-depth exploration of four cases, legal documents, government reports, newspaper articles and blog archives, this dissertation unpacks how law as litigation works: how judges make decisions, why lawyers take cases and how international influence matters. Conceptually, civil environmental lawsuits illustrate one pathway between litigation and social change in China and, by implication, possibly other illiberal states. With the exception of the first chapter, each chapter introduces a new actor's perspective on the interaction between state signals and legal professionals' response. The key theme, which cuts across chapters on the state, judges, lawyers and international NGOs, is what I call political ambivalence: conflicting official (or quasi-official) signals regarding the desirability of certain types of citizen action. Simultaneous impulses to promote law but control courts, to protect the environment and yet pursue economic growth, generate a medley of statements, cases and regulations that do not necessarily concord. For legal professionals on the ground, these mixed messages translate into a degree of opportunity. Without official sanction or intent, conflicting signals crack open enough political space to allow limited judicial innovation (chapter 3), legal activism (chapter 4), sustained international encouragement (chapter 5) and policy promotion (chapter 6). Even on tough terrain, political ambivalence over law can provide a limited opportunity to probe new roles and, in so doing, gently push the limitations of political tolerance.

This study examined factors affecting risk estimates and tolerance among persons directly exposed to environmental health risks. Data were gathered from questionnaires distributed at public hearings regarding proposed air pollution standards for an arsenic emitting copper smelter located in Tacoma, Washington. Approximately 80% of the area residents who attended the hearings completed the questionnaires, and the responses of 347 subjects were analyzed. Results indicated that informal risk estimates and risk tolerance were closely associated with judged benefits of the hazard source, acceptance or denial of vulnerability, judgments of exposure voluntariness, and environmental attitudes. Neither factual knowledge of formal risk estimates and proposed standards nor residential distance from the smelter was found to be closely related to risk tolerance or informal risk estimates. Implications of the results are discussed in relation to past and future studies of reactions to risk, and in relation to risk management policy and practice.

Transgenic plants with improved salt and drought stress tolerance have been developed with a large number of abiotic stress-related genes. Among these, the most extensively used genes are the glycine betaine biosynthetic codA, the DREB transcription factors, and vacuolar membrane Na⁺/H⁺ antiporters. The use of codA, DREBs, and Na⁺/H⁺ antiporters in transgenic plants has conferred stress tolerance and improved plant phenotype. However, the future deployment and commercialization of these plants depend on their safety to the environment. Addressing environmental risk assessment is challenging since mechanisms governing abiotic stress tolerance are much more complex than that of insect resistance and herbicide tolerance traits, which have been considered to date. Therefore, questions arise, whether abiotic stress tolerance genes need additional considerations and new measurements in risk assessment and, whether these genes would have effects on weediness and invasiveness potential of transgenic plants? While considering these concerns, the environmental risk assessment of abiotic stress tolerance genes would need to focus on the magnitude of stress tolerance, plant phenotype and characteristics of the potential receiving environment. In the present review, we discuss environmental concerns and likelihood of concerns associated with the use of abiotic stress tolerance genes. Based on our analysis, we conclude that the uses of these genes in domesticated crop plants are safe for the environment. Risk assessment, however, should be carefully conducted on biofeedstocks and perennial plants taking into account plant phenotype and the potential receiving environment. ; The authors are thankful to the Directorate of Science and Technology (DoST), Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for financial support.

The study was conducted between May 2016-August 2017. An auger was used to collect 60 random soil samples to carry out the physical and chemical analyses. The selected plants were Salola baryosma and Aeurops lagopoides in the salt marsh and Prosopis juliflora and Calotropis procera in the valleys. The results revealed clear physical and chemical differences within the soils of the salt marshes and valleys that prove to be sandy, loamy, basic and saline. All investigated variables differ in the selected areas e.g. % of sand, silt, clay. The soil of all the salt marshes was devoid of gravel which was abundant in the valleys' soils. Similar differences were evident for the pH, moisture content, EC, TDS, SO4 2- , CO3 2- ,Cl- ,Ca+2 , Na+ , K+ in the salt marsh and valleys.The results of frequency, density/hectare and richness indicated that Salsola and Aeluropus and Suaeda aegyptiaca scored the highest values in the salt marsh and whereas Prosopis and Senna alexandriana Mill and Calotropis prospered within the valleys. The least values for these parameters were related to Dactyloctinium aegyptium (L) Wild, Phonix dactylifera L. in the salt marsh and Andropogon cucomus and Cynodon dactylon in the valleys. The vegetation of these sand dunes consists of plants tolerant to the dunes' harsh environmental conditions e.g. Aeluropus lagopoides and Prosopis juliflora. The lifestyles of vegetation included trees, shrubs, herbs and grasses depending on the local conditions; shrubs were the most abundant.The chemical analyses results indicated that the superiority of Umbeekha salt marsh and valley over Boyish and Alaega with regard to Cl- , Na+ , K+ , Mg+2 and proline constituents within the leaves of Salsola and Aeluropus and Prosopis and Calotropis, The present study recommended conserving, developing and sustainable management of the vegetation cover in the study area. Laws and environmental legislations that guarantee rational use must be formulated. To improve environmental awareness on the importance of its vegetation, biodiversity and rationalization of human activities and to conduct the essential scientific research to improve and conserve.

Haze pollution has become the most serious environmental risk in China and generated a large amount of public concerns. Influencing almost all the citizens in the polluted area, it is necessary and important to take public perception as an essential element in haze abatement. From the perspective of social psychology, this paper explores haze tolerance in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, also the key influential factors on haze tolerance from four dimensions: political trust, perceived risk, cost perception, and haze knowledge. Based on the sample of 517 respondents, the results show that compared with Shanghai and Guangzhou, Beijing residents had the lowest tolerance level of haze pollution but have the highest levels of trust in the government&rsquo ; s capacity to control haze and self-evaluation of their own haze knowledge. People in Shanghai had the lowest cost perception and the strongest willingness to acquire haze knowledge. Meanwhile, the empirical analysis revealed that political trust and cost perception could enhance the public&rsquo ; s haze tolerance while perceived risk and haze knowledge had negative impacts on tolerance. Also, our research could provide some suggestions to government officials when making policies for abating haze pollution from the perspective of social risk control. Policy makers are supposed to launch various policy instruments to control haze effectively and engage the citizens in the decision-making process to improve their political trust, and publicize the knowledge of haze pollution to help the public to acquire objective and scientific knowledge and diminish unnecessary worries.

Period during the late ХХ century – the beginning of the ХХІ century is marked by high number of social and political conflicts all over the world. Obviously, natural and environmental disasters, a wave of post-Soviet revolutions, endless wars, and terrorist actions led to the spread of ethnic conflicts. Consequently, the attention of progressive members of the scientific world, politicians, and educators focused on the problem of xenophobia as a new phenomenon for the beginning of the third millennium. This notion is associated with the unfriendly attitude to all foreign, strange and unfamiliar which at the same time is a sign of cultural limitations of a modern person. In turn it encouraged foreign and native scientists to develop and introduce new ways of tolerant coexistence of different nations and nationalities, both within one state, and on a global scale. We consider organization of educational work in this direction to be one of the best ways to overcome the ethnic conflicts.