Waste and Site Remediation

• Author: Bradley M. Campbell
• Pages: 123-136

CHAPTER 8

Waste and Site Remediation

BRADLEY M. CAMPBELL

I. Introduction

Disparities among nations in establishing and enforcing public health and

environmental protections are perhaps nowhere more evident than in the

treatment of solid and hazardous waste and in the management of sites at

which there has been a release or spill of hazardous substances or oil. These

disparities have been reflected in four prevalent patterns: the direct transfer

of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries (LDCs) lack-

ing sufficient capacity for treatment or regulation; the relocation of hazard-

ous waste-producing industrial and extraction activities to LDCs; the

abandonment of former industrial, military, and extraction sites in LDCs

without adequate remediation; and limited institutional and juridical capac-

ity in the LDCs to enforce environmental standards and protections.

The response to these disparities over the past 30 years has been the

development of numerous multilateral agreements and institutions, the

strengthening of domestic environmental standards in the LDCs; and, to a

much lesser extent, development of environmental regulatory and enforce-

ment capacity among LDC governments. These responses have tempered or

eliminated some stark disparities between the developed nations and the

LDCs, and have established broad consensus on certain principles of interna-

tional environmental governance—most notably the principle that transship-

ment of hazardous waste should require receiving country consent.

But progress in many areas has been stymied by uneven country partici-

pation at the international level, including in particular the limited participa-

tion of the United States in the development of strong international agreements

and institutions. The persistent lack of adequate juridical capacity among the

LDCs also has rendered both international and domestic regulatory regimes

less effectual in the LDCs. These limiting factors have resulted in the persis-

tence of wide disparities in environmental governance between the developed

world and the LDCs with respect to oil and hazardous waste management,

and in mostly unsuccessful attempts to use courts in more developed coun-

tries to address environmental claims arising in the LDCs.

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