THE POLITICS AND POLICIES BEHIND THE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

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This article is written by Avishka Saini of 5^th Semester of BALLB of Delhi Metropolitan Education, Noida, an intern under Legal Vidhiya

ABSTRACT:

Since the beginning of time, there have been inextricable links between humans and the environment. Pakistan, a developing nation, is working to advance in every area that will help to address our rapidly evolving socioeconomic problems. But in addition to the development of our infrastructure and our economy, environmental pollution is also causing a number of severe and drastic environmental crises, which is one of the negative effects. We cannot ignore the severe effects of environmental pollution, but we can deal with them by implementing laws and policies that are true and appropriate. The history of Pakistan’s environmental laws, policies, and practices are revealed in this study. Pakistan has a wide variety of environmental laws, but in practice it appears that there are some issues that make it difficult to accomplish the intended goals. This study reveals the past of Pakistan’s environmental laws, policies, and practices. This study reveals the background of environmental laws, policies, and practices in Pakistan. This study provides an overview of the development of Pakistan’s environmental laws, policies, and practices. This study reveals the background of Pakistan’s environmental laws, policies, and practices. The two main types of pollution—air pollution and water pollution—as well as their effects on Pakistan’s population are the main topics of this study. Worldwide and in Pakistan, air pollution is at the top of environmental protection organizations’ priority lists, which is hurting Pakistan’s economy. Moreover, one of the effects of such environmental pollution factors is the abruptly rising health problems. This study also discusses surveys conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the USA’s National Institutes of Health regarding the number of people impacted by these issues globally and in Pakistan. Concluding remarks are made at the end regarding Pakistan’s environmental laws and policies, their implementation, and the state of the environment at the time. These comments also include some suggestions and recommendations.

INTRODUCTION :

The Government of India has environmental laws as part of its environmental policies. Article 48(a) of the Directive Principles of State Policy states that “the state shall endeavor to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country.” Article 51-A further states that “it shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment, including forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures.[1] The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) treaty includes India as one of its signatories. India had different environmental laws in place before the CBD. Biological diversity was safeguarded by the Indian Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. Later, it was changed several times. Conservation was the guiding principle of the 1988 National Forest Policy. For biodiversity control, the government also passed the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986 and the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act of 1992. Notably, the government has passed numerous laws to stop environmental harm, including the Environmental Protection Act of 1986, the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, the Water Prevention and Control of Pollution Act of 1974, the Biological Diversity Act of 2002, the Public Liability Insurance Act of 1889, and the National Green Tribunal Act of 2010. The state must work to protect and enhance the environment, according to Article 48 (A) of the Indian Constitution. Additionally, it should work to protect the nation’s forests and wildlife. Every Indian citizen has a fundamental obligation to safeguard and enhance the country’s natural environment, including its forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife, as well as to have compassion for all other living things, as stated in Article 51(A)(g) of the Indian Constitution. [2]

HISTORY :

Environmental protection-related public policies have existed since ancient times. The first sewers were built in Mohenjo-Daro (Indus, or Harappan civilization), which dates back 4,500 years, and in Rome (ancient Roman civilization), which dates back 2,700 years. Environmental laws were adopted by other civilizations. A few thousand years before the year 1000 CE, feudal European societies established hunting preserves that restricted game and timber harvesting to royalty, effectively preventing overexploitation. Around 2,300 years earlier, the city-states of ancient Greece established laws that governed the harvesting of forests. The first extensive sewer system in Europe was created in the 17th century by the city of Paris. Governments created additional rules and regulations for urban hygiene, sewage, sanitation, and housing as well as the first laws devoted to protecting natural areas and wildlife as the effects of industrialization and urbanization increased in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and threatened human health (such as the establishment of Yellowstone National Park as the first national park in the world in 1872). Wealthy people and private organizations like the National Audubon Society (1905) and the Sierra Club (1892) have also made contributions to the cause of wildlife and environmental preservation. During the 1950s and 1960s, people started to become aware of the detrimental effects of industrial chemical emissions, use, and pesticide use. The emergence of Minamata disease in Japan in 1956, which was brought on by mercury leaks from nearby chemical plants, and the publication of American biologist Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), which highlighted the dangers of pollution, raised public awareness of environmental issues and resulted in intricate regulatory frameworks in many industrialized nations. Governments prohibited the use of hazardous substances or set maximum emission levels for particular substances in those regulations to guarantee a minimum level of environmental quality. These regulatory frameworks, like the U.S. Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, were successful in addressing point sources (i.e., e. , any observable discrete location or piece of equipment that emits pollution), such as industrial plants and utilities, where the cause-and-effect relationship between the parties causing the adverse environmental effect could be clearly established. Nevertheless, some environmental issues continued, frequently as a result of the numerous nonpoint (diffuse) sources that contributed to air and water pollution, such as exhaust from individual automobiles and runoff from small farms that contained pesticides and fertilizers. These minor sources might not be harmful when considered individually, but the cumulative pollution they cause can be more than the legally required minimum standards for environmental quality. Additionally, the complexity of causal chains has grown, which has added to ongoing issues. The effects of acid rain in the 1980s demonstrated how environmental pollution causes and effects could be geographically separated. The message that Earth’s natural resources were being depleted and deteriorated was furthered by pollution issues of all kinds. Sustainable development—(i.e., the promotion of economic growth while preserving the quality of the environment for future generations—became a leading concept in environmental policy making. Making environmental policy was no longer just the responsibility of the government because nature and natural resources were seen as economic drivers. Instead, the environmental responsibilities of private industry and nongovernmental organizations increased. Additionally, the idea emphasized how important it is for communities and individual citizens to work together to implement policies in an efficient manner.

ENVIRONMENT LAWS WAS AIDED BY POLICIES :

The authors note that since 2000, three significant environmental laws have been passed by the Indian Parliament. The Biodiversity Act of 2002 (BDA 2002), the Forest Rights Act of 2006 (FRA 2006), and the National Green Tribunal Act of 2010 (NGTA 2010) are these laws. In addition, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has issued a sizable number of rules and regulations in accordance with the Environment Protection Act of 1986 (EPA 1986). These regulations cover safeguarding wetlands, regulating ozone-depleting substances, and managing noise pollution. The EPA of 1986 also occasionally amended older notifications. The Supreme Court’s track record since 2000, according to Divan and Rosencranz, has been uneven. On the plus side, there were rulings that mandated compressed natural gas buses in Delhi and that stopped illegal mining in Karnataka, Odisha, and Goa. What’s more, the judiciary has generally sided with the underdog. India’s environmental laws, according to Divan and Rosencranz, “are largely ineffective despite all the legislation and complex rules.”. ” As a result, India’s regulatory system consists of a lot of legislation, patchy enforcement, and ad hoc judicial orders. The Supreme Court, the high courts, and the NGT are the venues for the judicial resolution of environmental disputes. The authors write that the judges’ “contribution to the evolution of Indian environmental law has been a journey without parallel in world environmental jurisprudence.”. Since the 1980s, these judges have not only resolved specific disputes between citizens and the government, but they have also helped to define the direction of environmental policy. They hone judicial principles and breathe life into sterile laws that were (and still are) wilfully disregarded by a powerless bureaucracy. The case of Godavarman Thirumulpad versus the Union of India (also referred to as Writ Petition No. 202 of 1995). In a petition to the Supreme Court, Thirumulpad, a former feudal chief from Nilambur in the Kerala side of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, claimed that the Tamil Nadu government and the Nilgiris district administration were not protecting the district’s forests, which was causing environmental distress. The First Bench, presided over by Justice J. S. Verma, who was the chief justice at the time, accepted the petition, launched a thorough legal procedure that lasted years, and reevaluated the forest policies at the federal and state levels.[3]

ENVIRONMENT POLICY INSTRUMENTS:

There are many tools available to change the actions of those who contribute to environmental issues. Public policy theories have typically emphasized regulation, financial incentives, and information as the tools of government. New policy tools, though, like tradable permits and performance standards, have been employed.

REGULATION

Setting minimum standards for environmental quality is done through regulation. These interventions aim to promote or inhibit particular activities and their outcomes, including specific emissions, specific inputs into the environment (such as specific hazardous substances), ambient chemical concentrations, risks and damages, and exposure. For those activities, it is common that permits must be obtained, and those permits must be renewed on a regular basis. The issuing and controlling authorities are frequently local and regional governments.

FINANCIAL REWARDS

Governments can decide to provide either positive or negative financial incentives to change behavior, such as through subsidies, tax breaks, or fines and levy reductions. Such rewards have the potential to significantly increase innovation, as well as the diffusion and uptake of innovations. Photovoltaic (PV) panels, for instance, were widely adopted in Germany due to the widespread subsidization of solar energy systems for private homeowners

CONCLUSION :

Environmental policy’s relatively brief existence has brought it to a critical point. Governments all over the world responded to environmentalism in the 1970s by creating agencies and laws to deal with particular problems as they emerged, like oil pollution, acid rain, and ozone depletion. Rather than preserving the environment for its own sake, the main goal of these early innovations was to protect human health. Environmental issues were largely seen by policymakers as being of a purely technical nature and being politically uncontroversial; policies were largely reactive rather than proactive, and sectoral rather than integrated across policy domains. However, the conversation about environmental issues is gradually changing to become more focused on sustainable development. Significantly, sustainable development is not simply development as it is currently understood, “greened” by slapping on cleaner technologies and cutting waste, but rather a process of human development that simultaneously satisfies social, economic, and environmental goals, both within and between various generations around the world. The new conventional wisdom holds that areas of policy that have historically been considered “nonenvironmental,” like agriculture, transportation, and energy, must now permanently incorporate environmental thinking. One of the most significant lessons learned since the 1970s is that these industries are home to the primary forces behind habitat loss and pollution. Environmental protection will forever be a reactive, piecemeal, and ad hoc endeavor unless and until these forces are addressed at their core. Although the concept behind it has been discussed by environmentalists for decades, integrating environmental policy represents a new and potentially challenging stage in the ongoing development of environmental policy (Dobson 1990). However, the political stakes are high because, by greening other policy areas, environmental policy is in fact gradually undermining its own, fought-for independence. Ironically, there won’t be a need for a clearly defined “environmental” policy if and when the environment is fully taken into account in all aspects of policy making.

REFERENCES

[1] https://www.news18.com/news/india/1976-introduced-the-environment-to-the-indian-constitution-set-stage-for-protection-laws-1642757.html

[2] https://api.worldanimalprotection.org/country/india

[3] https://www.theregreview.org/2018/03/27/iyengar-dolsak-prakash-india-supreme-court-enforce-regulations/