Environmental Standards in the BRICS: An Analysis of Vehicular Pollution

2021 ◽  
pp. 002088172110280
Author(s):  
Krishnendra Meena

Since its inception, the BRICS has received attention as a geopolitical challenger to the already established institutions of the Global North. BRICS members have also been vocal on issues concerning global environment. Brazil, India, China and South Africa have raised important issues at international conferences on Climate Change. The article looks at the specific issue of vehicular pollution in the BRICS countries. Vehicular pollution standards already in existence through the United Nations Environment Programme and the most cited and practised standards of the European Union remain the yardstick to be followed around the world. The article looks at the standards set up by the individual BRICS countries. Subsequently efforts of the BRICS as a group are explored through their joint statements. The article argues that despite important players in global vehicle market, the BRICS as a grouping has not been able to formulate any viable alternative standards for vehicular emissions.

1999 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Chabason

Abstract. The history ofthe relationship between man and nature, since time immemorial, sets the scene for studying issues related to sustainable development. Concepts of «carrying capacity» and «ecological impact» are not new, as is illustrated by the example of the use of water resources in Ancient Greece. The Mediterranean region is particularly sensitive to such problems, and the protection of the Mediterranean sea was one of the first results to emerge from the Stockholm Conference in 1972. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), born after the Conference, gave birth to the Mediterranean Action Plan, leading to the Barcelona Convention linking together twenty coastal states, as well as the European Union. In this framework, the Blue Plan was set up and designed to study the impacts on the environment of development and population growth. Several possible scenarios were set up, providing background material for the Earth Summit in Rio. The period between 1990 – 1995 saw the newly set up Mediterranean Commission dealing with issues relating to water (management, pollution), tourism (colonisation of natural sites, pressure on the environment) and sustainable management of coastal regions. Other points were also raised recently, such as sustainable urban development. However, this institutionalisation of environmental problems that happen at both the national and international levels, should not lead to a compromise Statement achieving nothing concrete. Indeed, the maintenance of environmental achievements and the definition of new concepts should allow sustainable development to move forward.


Foundations ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-183
Author(s):  
Imane Es-safi ◽  
Hamza Mechchate ◽  
Amal Amaghnouje ◽  
Fatima Zahra Jawhari ◽  
Dalila Bousta

Nowadays, knowledge about the uses of medicinal plants is growing exponentially, and in order to conserve and valorize this knowledge, the European Union has set up multiple regulations to control their usage by the population. In this framework, this work is based on EU regulations to elaborate a new phytomedicine for intestinal comfort. The phytomedicine subject of elaboration is under the category of Traditional Use Herbal Medicine Products (TUHMPs), containing plants of approved medicinal use of at least 30 years, including 15 years in the European Union (Myrtus communis L. leaves (MC), Pimpinella anisum L. seeds (PA) and Carum carvi L. (CC) fruit). The EU pharmacopeia and monographs recognize the individual effect of each plant selected, and this work aims to study their combined effect using a mixture design. Acetic acid-induced writhing test in mice is used to study the efficacy of the mixture as pain relief and for intestinal comfort. According to the test result, the individual, binary and ternary combination were very effective compared to negative and positive control approving by that the synergy between the plants. Following the mixture design analysis, the best formulation was a ternary combination with different ratios (MC: 45%, PA: 52% and CC with 3%). The predicted formulation was studied after that and approved by the test result. This work provided a practical way to establish new phytomedicines within the EU and could be a model for new outcoming phytomedicine in the market.


Author(s):  
Jens Blom-Hansen

Rules issued by the European Commission, based on powers delegated by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, constitute the vast majority of all EU rules. They regulate the daily operation of common policies in all areas. Because the devil is often in the details, Commission rules are tightly controlled by the member states. This traditionally takes place in the so-called comitology system, which is a system of 200–300 member state committees set up to control and approve draft Commission rules. Comitology dates back to the early 1960s, when the Common Agricultural Policy was introduced. The institutional setup of the comitology system is a four-tiered structure composed of Treaty rules, framework rules, daily legislation, and the formal and informal working practices in the individual comitology committees. The Treaty of Lisbon gave the comitology system a major overhaul and introduced new types of Commission rules, delegated acts, and implementing acts. Research on comitology has focused on the purpose and design of the system and its daily workings. Relevant research questions for future studies include the legislative choice between delegated and implementing acts, the daily workings of the comitology committees, lobbying of comitology committees by interest groups, introduction of comitology through the back door in the delegated acts system, and the relationship between comitology and the new rule-making role of European agencies.


2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Keukeleire ◽  
Arnout Justaert ◽  
Robin Thiers

AbstractDiverse shifts have taken place in both the daily practice and academic analyses of diplomacy. The authors argue that the various conceptualizations do not sufficiently take into account that diplomacy is increasingly concerned with influencing or shaping structures. The aim of this article is therefore to reappraise the nature of diplomacy in general and of the European Union in particular by elaborating on the concept structural diplomacy. This concept refers to the process of dialogue and negotiation by which actors in the international system seek to influence or shape sustainable external political, legal, economic, social and security structures at different relevant levels in a given geographic space (from the level of the individual and society, to the state, regional and global levels). The EU's institutional and diplomatic set-up allows it to conduct structural diplomacy. However, the extent and effectiveness of this diplomacy strongly differ depending on the regions in question.


2004 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHARINA HOLZINGER ◽  
CHRISTOPH KNILL

The theory of regulatory competition suggests a race to the bottom of environmental standards. This theory, however, has not found much empirical support. Several attempts to account for this theoretical failure have been made in the literature, which mainly refer to the underlying assumptions of the theory. In this article, we present an alternative explanation. We argue that in reality regulatory competition is overlapped by other mechanisms affecting the adjustment of national policies. Most important are the effects emerging from regulatory cooperation at the level of the European Union (EU). To arrive at more precise theoretical predictions, we therefore not only analyze the individual effects of competition and cooperation on national policies, but also the impact of their interaction.


1977 ◽  
Vol 16 (02) ◽  
pp. 112-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. O. Köhler ◽  
G. Wagner ◽  
U. Wolber

The entire field of information processing in medicine is today already spread out and branched to such an extent that it is no longer possible to set up a survey on relevant literature as a whole. But even in narrow parts of medical informatics it is hardly possible for the individual scientist to keep up to date with new literature. Strictly defined special bibliographies on certain topics are most helpful.In our days, problems of optimal patient scheduling and exploitation of resources are gaining more and more importance. Scientists are working on the solution of these problems in many places.The bibliography on »Patient Scheduling« presented here contains but a few basic theoretical papers on the problem of waiting queues which are of importance in the area of medical care. Most of the papers cited are concerned with practical approaches to a solution and describe current systems in medicine.In listing the literature, we were assisted by Mrs. Wieland, Mr. Dusberger and Mr. Henn, in data acquisition and computer handling by Mrs. Gieß and Mr. Schlaefer. We wish to thank all those mentioned for their assistance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Valeriy HEYETS ◽  

Self-realization of the individual in the conditions of using the policy of “social quality” as a modern tool of public administration in a transitional society is largely related to overcoming the existing limitations of the individual in acting in such a society and economy transitioning to a market character. Given that, in particular, in Ukraine the market is hybrid (and this is especially important), the existing limitations in self-realization of the individual must be overcome, including, and perhaps primarily, through transformations in the processes of socialization, which differ from European practices and institutions that ensure its implementation. Thus, it is a matter of overcoming not only and not so much the natural selfish interests of the individual, but the existing gap in skills, which are an invisible asset to ensure the endogenous nature of economic growth. It is shown that there is an inverse relationship between the formation of socialization and the policy of “social quality”, which is characterized by the dialectic of interaction between the individual and the group and which is a process of increasing the degree of socialization. The latter, due to interdependence, will serve to increase the effectiveness of interaction between the individual and the group, which expands the possibilities of self-realization of the individual in terms of European policy of “social quality” as a tool of public administration, whose successful application causes new challenges and content of the so-called secondary sociology. The logic of Ukraine's current development shows that new approaches are needed to achieve the social development goals set out in the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union and to minimize the potential risks and threats that accompany current reforms in Ukrainian society. They should introduce new forms of public administration to create policy interrelationships of all dimensions, as proposed, in particular, by the social quality approach to socialization, the nature of which has been revealed in the author's previous publications. As a result, the socio-cultural (social) dimension will fundamentally change, the structure of which must include the transformational processes of socialization of a person, thanks to which they will learn the basics of life in the new social reality and intensify their social and economic interaction on the basis of self-realization, thereby contributing to the success of state policy of social quality and achieving stable socio-economic development.


Author(s):  
John Gray ◽  
Mike Baynham

This chapter considers the phenomenon of queer migration from a linguistic perspective, paying particular attention to the constitutive role of spatial mobility in narrative and its role in the construction of queer migrant identities. The chapter begins by looking at the way in which queer migration has been discussed in the literature and then moves on to address three different types of queer migration in greater depth: migration within national borders from the village/countryside to the city; migration between cities in member states within the context of the European Union; and finally, asylum-seeking within the context of migration from the Global South to the Global North. The chapter concludes by suggesting that queer migration is a complex phenomenon in which the intersection of sexuality, gender identity, desire, affect, abjection, economic necessity, class, politics, and fear for one’s life combine in ways that are unique in the lives of individual migrants.


2019 ◽  
Vol 130 (629) ◽  
pp. 1384-1415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Hertwig ◽  
Michael D Ryall

ABSTRACT Thaler and Sunstein (2008) advance the concept of ‘nudge’ policies—non-regulatory and non-fiscal mechanisms designed to enlist people's cognitive biases or motivational deficits so as to guide their behaviour in a desired direction. A core assumption of this approach is that policymakers make artful use of people's cognitive biases and motivational deficits in ways that serve the ultimate interests of the nudged individual. We analyse a model of dynamic policymaking in which the policymaker's preferences are not always aligned with those of the individual. One novelty of our set-up is that the policymaker has the option to implement a ‘boost’ policy, equipping the individual with the competence to overcome the nudge-enabling bias once and for all. Our main result identifies conditions under which the policymaker chooses not to boost in order to preserve the option of using the nudge (and its associated bias) in the future—even though boosting is in the immediate best interests of both the policymaker and the individual. We extend our analysis to situations in which the policymaker can be removed (e.g., through an election) and in which the policymaker is similarly prone to bias. We conclude with a discussion of some policy implications of these findings.


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