Literatura académica sobre el tema "Environmental Rights Action (Organization)"

The Convention concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour was adopted by the International Labour Organization in 1999. 174 countries around the world have signed or ratified the convention, which requires countries to adopt laws and implement programs to prohibit and eliminate child labor that poses harms to health or safety. Nonetheless, child labor continues to be common in the agriculture and mining sectors, where safety and environmental hazards pose significant risks. Drawing upon recent human rights investigations of child labor in tobacco farming in Kazakhstan and gold mining in Mali, the role of international human rights mechanisms, advocacy with government and private sector officials, and media attention in reducing harmful environmental exposures of child workers is discussed. Human rights-based advocacy in both cases was important to raise attention and help ensure that children are protected from harm.

Crimes against the environment are actions that in certain circumstances cause Pollution, destruction or damage to the environment. The importance of preventing these crimes is because it relates directly to the health of human beings. Today non-governmental actors play an important role in the national and international arena.The Geographical diversity of activities and their different functions has led to state actors cannot be indifferent to the role of these new actors. NGOs are involved in two "competing" or "partner" forms of governments. In issues related to human rights, these to be a competitor to governments. While in the case of issues such as health development and environment it is considered as a partner of governments. In Iran's legal system the action role of these organizations in regard to environmental protection is undeniable: But there is still a lot of vacuum at the reactionary stage: must provide suitable substrates for the active Participation of this actors in environmental litigation: In a way that they can achieve a favorable position in criminal proceedings: Also, the organization of NGOS as the right hand of governments in helping to solve these problems has also a special place. The research method was descriptive-analytic and the date was collected as a library. In this research we decided to investigate the role of grassroots institutions in preventing environmental crime and accomplish the strengths and weaknesses of these institutions.

Social movements near American military bases have been increasingly successful at opposing the continue militarization of their home communities. Focusing on groups from Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawai'i and Okinawa –as well as the global “No Bases” network – this paper examines how social movements in presently colonized places organize their multi-scalar activism to challenge the legitimacy of militarism. While the American state views many of these places as sacrifice areas for an imperial national security, these organizations resist this banal colonialism through campaigns for a localization of sovereignty and a redefinition of security. Inspired by strategies of decentralized organization, affinity, direct action and mutual aid these ‘newest social movements’ are not merely petitioning the imperial state for greater access to rights through a politics of demand, but are engaged with creating secure physical and social environments through struggles for local self-determination, demilitarization, and environmental decontamination. Through their activism these organizations challenge not only the legitimacy of contemporary imperialism, but also the notion that the nation-state is the proper institution (and scale) to define rights, sovereignty, health and security.

Social movements near American military bases have been increasingly successful at opposing the continue militarization of their home communities. Focusing on groups from Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawai'i and Okinawa –as well as the global “No Bases” network – this paper examines how social movements in presently colonized places organize their multi-scalar activism to challenge the legitimacy of militarism. While the American state views many of these places as sacrifice areas for an imperial national security, these organizations resist this banal colonialism through campaigns for a localization of sovereignty and a redefinition of security. Inspired by strategies of decentralized organization, affinity, direct action and mutual aid these ‘newest social movements’ are not merely petitioning the imperial state for greater access to rights through a politics of demand, but are engaged with creating secure physical and social environments through struggles for local self-determination, demilitarization, and environmental decontamination. Through their activism these organizations challenge not only the legitimacy of contemporary imperialism, but also the notion that the nation-state is the proper institution (and scale) to define rights, sovereignty, health and security.

Scientific development concept and governance theory together constitute the theoretical support for the network mode of Chinese environmental disaster governance. Using the method of governance theory, in democratization and information era, network governance model has unparalleled advantages. The governments environmental disaster governance awareness and ability are key variables to other governance bodies. Enterprises should implement the legal system of the state environmental protection laws effectively, accept initiatively supervisions from the government environmental institutions, environmental organizations, the media and public, and assume the economic and ecological responsibility positively. The environmental organizations should vigorously publicize the environmental protection knowledge, recruit and train volunteers and directly involve in the environment protection action. The media should expose and criticize the damage behaviors. The public should safeguard their environment rights actively.

In the article there is considered the problem of optimization of the control and supervision activities of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing on the criterion “prevention of the economic damage”. In the process of the solution of the multi-objectives optimization the task was reduced to one-criterion, to be solved by the methods of mathematical programming. The results were obtained by the use of main criterion methods and successive concessions. The problems were solved with the help of MS Excel means, by using “Search solution” tool. Testing of the solution of the problem was performed on the statistical data at the federal level. The optimal performance indices of the activity of agencies and organizations of Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing were acquired for the script, which preserves the existing level offunding. The use of an optimal model of action allows to predict an increase by 38% of prevention of economic losses from underproduction of Gross Domestic Product due to the loss of health of economically active population of the country at the same cost to the supervisory activities of Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing. The solution of problems of optimization by the criterion offinancial costs of activities of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing has shown that the reduction in funding of control and supervisory activities of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing even in case of the system of measures ’ optimization could have the effect of lowering the total avoided economic loss. The latter indicates to the relevance of the maintenance of the level of providing health surveillance when improving its structure and organization.

This article proposes a framework for understanding large-scale individualized collective action that is often coordinated through digital media technologies. Social fragmentation and the decline of group loyalties have given rise to an era of personalized politics in which individually expressive personal action frames displace collective action frames in many protest causes. This trend can be spotted in the rise of large-scale, rapidly forming political participation aimed at a variety of targets, ranging from parties and candidates, to corporations, brands, and transnational organizations. The group-based “identity politics” of the “new social movements” that arose after the 1960s still exist, but the recent period has seen more diverse mobilizations in which individuals are mobilized around personal lifestyle values to engage with multiple causes such as economic justice (fair trade, inequality, and development policies), environmental protection, and worker and human rights.

AbstractThe decade of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) coincides with India’s National Voluntary Guidelines on businesses’ social, environmental, and economic responsibilities (NVGs) and the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC) – an updated version of the NVGs. Human rights are one of the core principles in both guidelines and they draw upon the ‘Protect–Respect–Remedy’ framework of the UNGPs. The NVGs and NGRBC go beyond the UNGPs by requiring organizations not only to respect human rights, but also to promote them in their spheres of influence. Several factors, however, derailed the implementation of this progressive policy shift. This article explores the challenges in implementation and calls for the multiple actors involved to work together and shape a collaborative action plan for effective implementation of the NGRBC in the next decade. The authors reiterate the need for alternative lenses to frame the responsible business agenda within developing countries through positive obligations.

In many issue-areas, the world is witnessing a move to law. As the century turned, governments and individuals faced the following international legal actions. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britain's ban on homosexuals in the armed forces violates the right to privacy, contravening Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic during a NATO bombing campaign to force Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo. Milosevic remains in place in Belgrade, but Austrian police, bearing a secret indictment from the International Criminal Tribunal, arrested a Bosnian Serb general who was attending a conference in Vienna. In economic affairs the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body found in favor of the United States and against the European Union (EU) regarding European discrimination against certain Latin American banana exporters. A U.S. district court upheld the constitutionality of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) against claims that its dispute-resolution provisions violated U. S. sovereignty. In a notable environmental judgment, the new Law of the Sea Tribunal ordered the Japanese to cease all fishing for southern bluefin tuna for the rest of the year.

Although social movement organizations have established themselves successfully on the European level, there is dispute whether the European Union is conducive or detrimental to movement politics. One view is that the EU's particular opportunity structures and styles of policy making subvert unconventional forms of action and participation, thus transforming social movements into a fragmented field of individual interest groups and lobbies. This article critically assesses this perspective. It traces these processes, showing that they were indeed part and parcel of the gradual Europeanization of social movements during the 1970s and 1980s. It then presents evidence that, in the aftermath of the Single European Act of 1986, the European movement sector began moving towards a more integrated multi-level structure. Data drawn from interviews with Euro-level movement activists and EU functionaries present a picture of this new interorganizational structure and multi-level action forms with reference to the European groups working on environmental protection, and human and social rights. It is argued that the present developments stress sectorial and cross-sectorial networking, self-regulation, and common policy deliberation.

This research work addresses the problem being faced by developing countries in the commercial exploitation of their traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) by third parties without giving due attribution to nor sharing benefits with the communities from which these TCEs originate. This problem stems from the inability of customary law systems which regulates life in such communities to adequately cater for the protection of these TCEs. The legal systems of the developing countries have also proven to be ineffective in the protection of TCEs from such misappropriation and unauthorized commercial exploitation. This mini-thesis examines how TCEs have been protected domestically through national legislation and internationally through treaties and proposes means by which they can be protected in a manner that would preserve them, while promoting the dissemination of those which can be shared without destroying their inherent nature. This mini-thesis thus explores avenues through which the protection of TCEs would contribute to economic and human development in developing countries.

There is an existing conflict between trade and environmental policies. There are different opinions and attitudes in the relation between free trade and environmental protection. Free trade regards environmental factors as part of the comparative advantages that one country may have over another. However, many environmentalists are critical about trade liberalization. The scope of this paper was limited to the interaction between international free trade and the environmental protection. The main objectives of this study was to examine the interaction between trade(free trade) and environment and to analyse the areas of conflict between free trade under the World Trade Organization and environmental protection.

Este estudo tem por objeto a efetivação dos direitos sociais por meio da atuação preventiva do Poder Público. Os direitos sociais fazem parte dos direitos fundamentais, posições jurídicas de suma relevância no ordenamento jurídico, objetivando à concretização da dignidade humana. Os direitos sociais são direitos fundamentais referentes à concretização da justiça social por meio da transformação das estruturas sociais e, por isso, sua não observância ou violação representa sério desrespeito aos princípios fundantes do Estado Democrático de Direito. Atualmente, os mecanismos jurídicos existentes, de forma geral, priorizam a atuação repressiva do Estado. Logo, a atuação em defesa dos direitos sociais (deveres de proteção do Estado), normalmente, acontece posteriormente à não observância ou violação do direito. O presente estudo, então, propõe a atuação preventiva do Poder Público para a efetivação de direitos sociais, considerando-se que esta forma de atuação pode ser uma forma de concretização de direitos fundamentais, pois visa a evitar o desrespeito a tais direitos, sendo, por via oblíqua, uma forma de sua efetivação. Nesse sentido, defende-se a utilização de instrumentos jurídicos de caráter preventivo existentes no âmbito do Direito Ambiental para a tutela de direitos sociais, mais especificamente, do licenciamento ambiental, que, no caso seria chamado de licenciamento social para os casos de instalação de indústrias.
The aim of this study is the fulfillment of social rights through preventive action of the Government. Social rights are part of fundamental rights, legal positions of utmost relevance in the legal system, aiming the achievement of human dignity. Social rights are fundamental rights relating to the achievement of social justice through the transformation of social structures and, therefore, your non-compliance or violation represents serious disrespect to the founding principles of the Democratic State of Law. Currently, the existing legal mechanisms, in general, prioritize the repressive actions of the state. Therefore, the acting in defense of social rights (state duties of protection) usually happens after the non-compliance or violation of right. Then, this study proposes the preventive action of the Government for the realization of social rights, considering that this mode of working can be an achievement of fundamental rights, because it aims to prevent disrespect of such rights, and, aslant, a form of its implementation. In this sense, advocates the use of legal instruments of preventive character existing under Environmental Law for the protection of social rights, more specifically, the environmental licensing, which in this case would be called social licensing for cases of installation of industries.

"Although the African Commission recognised that non-state actors (in this case the transnational corporations (TNCs)) contributed to the violations that prompted the SERAC communication, it failed to hold the TNCs accountable for the violations. The Commission rather held the state party responsible [for] failing to prevent the violations in its territory. The reason for the failure of the Commission to hold the non-state actor accountable is obvious. As Anderson has noted, 'conventional jurisprudence contends that human rights are enforceable only against the acts of omissions of the state rather than the acts of private entities'. Consequently, especially in international fora, violations by non-state actors have gone largely unaccoutned for. Hence, commentators have argued in favour of seeking an appropriate regime for holding non-state actors accountable for such violations, some arguing for horizontal application at international fora. However, non-state actors lack the status to allow Charter institutions exercise jurisdiction over them. This leaves the option of domestic systems as fora for their accountability. Thus, the emerging principle of horizontal applicability of human rights in domestic jurisdictions and the assumption of independent judiciaries provide the premises for this study. ... Chapter 1 contains a general overview of the study. In Chapter 2, the essay examines the scope and content of the right to a satisfactory environment as contained in the African Charter. Chapter 3 examines the existing framework for the realisation of the right to a satisfactory environment under the African Charter. The SERAC case is considered briefly in this chapter as an example of the difficulty to arrest non-state actor violations in the existing framework. Chapter 4 presents the case for horizontal application of article 24 of the African Charter at the domestic level as a complimentary approach to realisation of the right. The debate on horizontal applicability of human rights is highlighted to show that it is not yet widely accepted but it is presented as a basis for this option. The recent Nigerian case of Gbemre v SPDC is examined as an example of the possibility of horizontal applicaton of the article 24 right in a domestic tribunal. Chapter 5 summarises the conclusions from the study and makes recommendations in support of applying the African Charter based right horizontally in domestic courts." -- Introduction.
Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2006.
http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html
Centre for Human Rights
Centre for Human Rights
LLM
LLM

Though mainstream environmentalism, both in the U.S. and India, was initially rooted in social justice, it has, over time, moved away from this focus. The Environmental Justice Movement consequently arose to reunite social and environmental activism. In this thesis, I trace the historical relationship between the mainstream environmentalism, the Environmental Justice Movement, and marginalized communities. After providing this general overview, I examine two case studies – in Los Angeles and New Delhi respectively – where marginalized communities have been involved in Environmental Justice activities. My analysis reveals that marginalized communities often act in an ‘environmentalist’ or ‘environmentally friendly’ manner, without defining their actions as such. That is, their socio-political activism often is or becomes environmental because of the contexts it operates within.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Antioch University, 2010.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed July 22, 2010). Advisor: Richard Couto, Ph.D. "A dissertation submitted to the Ph.D. in Leadership and Change program of Antioch University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, March 2010."--from the title page. Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-165).

AbstractAgency is central to humans’ individual rights and their organization as a community. Human agency is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through guaranteed rights, such as the right to life, basic education, freedom of expression, and the freedom to form personal relationships, which all protect humans from tyranny and oppression. Though studies of animal agency consistently suggest that we grossly underestimate the capacity of animals to make decisions, determine and take action, and to organize themselves individually and as groups, few have concerned themselves with whether and how animal agency is relevant for the law and vice versa. Currently, most laws offer no guarantee that animals’ agency will be respected, and fail to respond when animals resist the human systems that govern them. This failure emerges from profound prejudices and deep-seated anthropocentric biases that shape the law, including law-making processes. Law and law-making operating exclusively as self-judging systems is widely decried and denounced—except in animal law. This chapter identifies standpoint acknowledgement as a means to dismantle these tendencies, and provides instructions on how to ask the right questions. It concludes by calling for an “animal agency turn” across disciplines, to challenge our assumptions about how we ought to organize human-animal relationships politically and personally, and to increase our civic competence and courage, empathy, participation, common engagement, and respect for animal alterity.

AbstractSince its inception in 1995, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has become a trusted institution in the Australian regulatory landscape. The ACCC has conserved its enforcement mission by adapting to challenges in the political and business environments; through expanding and re-directing its repertoire for regulatory action and broadening its consumer and small business constituencies. This chapter describes the origins of the ACCC and the ways in which its leaders have capitalized on and adapted its organizational capacities to address today’s threats to the organization’s existence and institutional status.

AbstractWith strategic litigation, lawyers and public interest NGOs have sought to bring socio-structural problems before courts around the world for many years. In doing so, they (a) initiate legally substantiated lawsuits that (b) pursue goals beyond a legal process’ “success” and (c) address considerable political issues. Litigation strategists often strive to realise the judicial enforcement of human rights, environmental rights, trade union rights, migrant and refugee rights, and so on, in these proceedings. In other words, they seek to make the law “better.” It is precisely here that legal mobilisation’s structural limitations—also present in the day-to-day business of law—come to light in the context of strategic litigation.

AbstractIn this chapter, we identify the need for a curriculum that is intended to not only enable educators to teach about climate change, but to also foster leaders who can engage in policy analysis and civic action related to the issue of climate change. Unlike Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-57927-2_3, which details a whole-school approach, we have specifically focused our attention on developing a curriculum with an associated implementation plan since the ability of teachers to build transferable leadership skills in younger generations are integral to any larger reform initiative. Ultimately, the efficacy of the curriculum is enhanced by a more holistic approach to the prioritization of climate change action in the context of schools and broader education systems, so a synthesis of approaches is recommended.The Climate Change Leadership Curriculum was designed in collaboration with the Arava Institute (AI), an organization in Israel that brings together Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians and international students from outside the region to engage in environmental and peace-building education. The work of AI is specific to tertiary education, so our initiative to build a climate change leadership curriculum constitutes an attempt to expand the reach of the mission and pedagogy of AI to encompass secondary education. The implementation plan also involves leveraging the network of AI to find partners for implementing the curriculum. The fact that there are AI alumni who work in secondary education opened possibilities for dissemination of the curriculum in collaboration with teachers who have a deep understanding of the pedagogy. As teachers integrate the curriculum into their particular contexts, our plan was to not only support them in the implementation, but to also solicit feedback to continually improve the resources and identify the most effective ways to provide support. This will enable us to make the curriculum accessible to teachers from diverse backgrounds in a wide variety of contexts, inside and outside of the target region.

This chapter examines the campaigns for constitutional rights to environmental protection. In the 1960s and 1970s, when Congress was passing landmark environmental regulations and an entire executive agency had been developed to address the subject, environmental activists continued to lobby for the insertion of positive rights to environmental protection into their state constitutions. As a result, state constitutions came to include broad rights to environmental health and protection. The chapter first provides an overview of environmental activism during the 1960s and 1970s before explaining why environmental activists targeted state constitutions despite so much environmental action at the national level. It argues that environmentalists did not choose to pursue constitutional rights to environmental protection only at the federal level. Instead, states' constitutional conventions, environmental organizations, and even legislatures continued to alter state constitutions by adding mandates for protective and interventionist government.

There are two broad intellectual streams in the description and explanation of social action. One, characteristic of the work of most sociologists, sees the actor as socialized and action as governed by social norms, rules, and obligations. The principal virtues of this intellectual stream lie in its ability to describe action in social context and to explain the way action is shaped, constrained, and redirected by the social context. The other intellectual stream, characteristic of the work of most economists, sees the actor as having goals independently arrived at, as acting independently, and as wholly self-interested. Its principal virtue lies in having a principle of action, that of maximizing utility. This principle of action, together with a single empirical generalization (declining marginal utility), has generated the extensive growth of neoclassical economic theory, as well as the growth of political philosophy of several varieties: utilitarianism, contractarianism, and natural rights. In earlier works (Coleman 1986a, 1986b), I have argued for and engaged in the development of a theoretical orientation in sociology that includes components from both these intellectual streams. It accepts the principle of rational or purposive action and attempts to show how that principle, in conjunction with particular social contexts, can account not only for the actions of individuals in particular contexts but also for the development of social organization. In the present paper, I introduce a conceptual tool for use in this theoretical enterprise: social capital. As background for introducing this concept, it is useful to see some of the criticisms of and attempts to modify the two intellectual streams. Both these intellectual streams have serious defects. The sociological stream has what may be a fatal flaw as a theoretical enterprise: the actor has no “engine of action.” The actor is shaped by the environment, but there are no internal springs of action that give the actor a purpose or direction. The very conception of action as wholly a product of the environment has led sociologists themselves to criticize this intellectual stream, as in Dennis Wrong’s (1961) “Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology.”

This chapter notes that American Catholics were initially quite reluctant to embrace environmentalism. It asks, after decades of political engagement with labor, poverty, peace, women’s rights, and immigration, why did US Catholics largely overlook the growing environmental problems in the twentieth century? And what caused this to change in the early twenty-first century? The chapter summarizes early Catholic efforts to promote environmentalism and describes the initial responses of the Catholic Church and its members, who often prioritized human needs over environmental matters. It also describes how the Catholic Church and Catholic laypeople started placing greater emphasis on the environment toward the end of the twentieth century. The chapter then surveys the main themes of various Catholic teachings and publications—from the US Catholic Bishops Conference’s Renewing the Earth (1991) to Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si (2015)—that have given impetus to more Catholic environmental action. The chapter concludes with a description of the work of two activist groups: the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an ecumenical organization, and Catholic Climate Change.

Attention to safety and health are of ever-increasing priority to industrial organizations. Good Safety is demanded by stockholders, employees, and the community while increasing injury costs provide additional motivation for safety and health excellence. Safety has always been a strong corporate value of DuPont and a vital part of its culture. As a result, DuPont has become a benchmark in safety and health performance. Since 1990, DuPont has re-engineered itself to meet global competition and address future vision. In the new re-engineered organizational structures, DuPont has also had to re-engineer its safety management systems. A special Discovery Team was chartered by DuPont senior management to determine the “best practices’ for safety and health being used in DuPont best-performing sites. A summary of the findings is presented, and five of the practices are discussed. Excellence in safety and health management is more important today than ever. Public awareness, federal and state regulations, and enlightened management have resulted in a widespread conviction that all employees have the right to work in an environment that will not adversely affect their safety and health. In DuPont, we believe that excellence in safety and health is necessary to achieve global competitiveness, maintain employee loyalty, and be an accepted member of the communities in which we make, handle, use, and transport products. Safety can also be the “catalyst” to achieving excellence in other important business parameters. The organizational and communication skills developed by management, individuals, and teams in safety can be directly applied to other company initiatives. As we look into the 21st Century, we must also recognize that new organizational structures (flatter with empowered teams) will require new safety management techniques and systems in order to maintain continuous improvement in safety performance. Injury costs, which have risen dramatically in the past twenty years, provide another incentive for safety and health excellence. Shown in the Figure 1, injury costs have increased even after correcting for inflation. Many companies have found these costs to be an “invisible drain” on earnings and profitability. In some organizations, significant initiatives have been launched to better manage the workers’ compensation systems. We have found that the ultimate solution is to prevent injuries and incidents before they occur. A globally-respected company, DuPont is regarded as a well-managed, extremely ethical firm that is the benchmark in industrial safety performance. Like many other companies, DuPont has re-engineered itself and downsized its operations since 1985. Through these changes, we have maintained dedication to our principles and developed new techniques to manage in these organizational environments. As a diversified company, our operations involve chemical process facilities, production line operations, field activities, and sales and distribution of materials. Our customer base is almost entirely industrial and yet we still maintain a high level of consumer awareness and positive perception. The DuPont concern for safety dates back to the early 1800s and the first days of the company. In 1802 E.I. DuPont, a Frenchman, began manufacturing quality grade explosives to fill America’s growing need to build roads, clear fields, increase mining output, and protect its recently won independence. Because explosives production is such a hazardous industry, DuPont recognized and accepted the need for an effective safety effort. The building walls of the first powder mill near Wilmington, Delaware, were built three stones thick on three sides. The back remained open to the Brandywine River to direct any explosive forces away from other buildings and employees. To set the safety example, DuPont also built his home and the homes of his managers next to the powder yard. An effective safety program was a necessity. It represented the first defense against instant corporate liquidation. Safety needs more than a well-designed plant, however. In 1811, work rules were posted in the mill to guide employee work habits. Though not nearly as sophisticated as the safety standards of today, they did introduce an important basic concept — that safety must be a line management responsibility. Later, DuPont introduced an employee health program and hired a company doctor. An early step taken in 1912 was the keeping of safety statistics, approximately 60 years before the federal requirement to do so. We had a visible measure of our safety performance and were determined that we were going to improve it. When the nation entered World War I, the DuPont Company supplied 40 percent of the explosives used by the Allied Forces, more than 1.5 billion pounds. To accomplish this task, over 30,000 new employees were hired and trained to build and operate many plants. Among these facilities was the largest smokeless powder plant the world had ever seen. The new plant was producing granulated powder in a record 116 days after ground breaking. The trends on the safety performance chart reflect the problems that a large new work force can pose until the employees fully accept the company’s safety philosophy. The first arrow reflects the World War I scale-up, and the second arrow represents rapid diversification into new businesses during the 1920s. These instances of significant deterioration in safety performance reinforced DuPont’s commitment to reduce the unsafe acts that were causing 96 percent of our injuries. Only 4 percent of injuries result from unsafe conditions or equipment — the remainder result from the unsafe acts of people. This is an important concept if we are to focus our attention on reducing injuries and incidents within the work environment. World War II brought on a similar set of demands. The story was similar to World War I but the numbers were even more astonishing: one billion dollars in capital expenditures, 54 new plants, 75,000 additional employees, and 4.5 billion pounds of explosives produced — 20 percent of the volume used by the Allied Forces. Yet, the performance during the war years showed no significant deviation from the pre-war years. In 1941, the DuPont Company was 10 times safer than all industry and 9 times safer than the Chemical Industry. Management and the line organization were finally working as they should to control the real causes of injuries. Today, DuPont is about 50 times safer than US industrial safety performance averages. Comparing performance to other industries, it is interesting to note that seemingly “hazard-free” industries seem to have extraordinarily high injury rates. This is because, as DuPont has found out, performance is a function of injury prevention and safety management systems, not hazard exposure. Our success in safety results from a sound safety management philosophy. Each of the 125 DuPont facilities is responsible for its own safety program, progress, and performance. However, management at each of these facilities approaches safety from the same fundamental and sound philosophy. This philosophy can be expressed in eleven straightforward principles. The first principle is that all injuries can be prevented. That statement may seem a bit optimistic. In fact, we believe that this is a realistic goal and not just a theoretical objective. Our safety performance proves that the objective is achievable. We have plants with over 2,000 employees that have operated for over 10 years without a lost time injury. As injuries and incidents are investigated, we can always identify actions that could have prevented that incident. If we manage safety in a proactive — rather than reactive — manner, we will eliminate injuries by reducing the acts and conditions that cause them. The second principle is that management, which includes all levels through first-line supervisors, is responsible and accountable for preventing injuries. Only when senior management exerts sustained and consistent leadership in establishing safety goals, demanding accountability for safety performance and providing the necessary resources, can a safety program be effective in an industrial environment. The third principle states that, while recognizing management responsibility, it takes the combined energy of the entire organization to reach sustained, continuous improvement in safety and health performance. Creating an environment in which employees feel ownership for the safety effort and make significant contributions is an essential task for management, and one that needs deliberate and ongoing attention. The fourth principle is a corollary to the first principle that all injuries are preventable. It holds that all operating exposures that may result in injuries or illnesses can be controlled. No matter what the exposure, an effective safeguard can be provided. It is preferable, of course, to eliminate sources of danger, but when this is not reasonable or practical, supervision must specify measures such as special training, safety devices, and protective clothing. Our fifth safety principle states that safety is a condition of employment. Conscientious assumption of safety responsibility is required from all employees from their first day on the job. Each employee must be convinced that he or she has a responsibility for working safely. The sixth safety principle: Employees must be trained to work safely. We have found that an awareness for safety does not come naturally and that people have to be trained to work safely. With effective training programs to teach, motivate, and sustain safety knowledge, all injuries and illnesses can be eliminated. Our seventh principle holds that management must audit performance on the workplace to assess safety program success. Comprehensive inspections of both facilities and programs not only confirm their effectiveness in achieving the desired performance, but also detect specific problems and help to identify weaknesses in the safety effort. The Company’s eighth principle states that all deficiencies must be corrected promptly. Without prompt action, risk of injuries will increase and, even more important, the credibility of management’s safety efforts will suffer. Our ninth principle is a statement that off-the-job safety is an important part of the overall safety effort. We do not expect nor want employees to “turn safety on” as they come to work and “turn it off” when they go home. The company safety culture truly becomes of the individual employee’s way of thinking. The tenth principle recognizes that it’s good business to prevent injuries. Injuries cost money. However, hidden or indirect costs usually exceed the direct cost. Our last principle is the most important. Safety must be integrated as core business and personal value. There are two reasons for this. First, we’ve learned from almost 200 years of experience that 96 percent of safety incidents are directly caused by the action of people, not by faulty equipment or inadequate safety standards. But conversely, it is our people who provide the solutions to our safety problems. They are the one essential ingredient in the recipe for a safe workplace. Intelligent, trained, and motivated employees are any company’s greatest resource. Our success in safety depends upon the men and women in our plants following procedures, participating actively in training, and identifying and alerting each other and management to potential hazards. By demonstrating a real concern for each employee, management helps establish a mutual respect, and the foundation is laid for a solid safety program. This, of course, is also the foundation for good employee relations. An important lesson learned in DuPont is that the majority of injuries are caused by unsafe acts and at-risk behaviors rather than unsafe equipment or conditions. In fact, in several DuPont studies it was estimated that 96 percent of injuries are caused by unsafe acts. This was particularly revealing when considering safety audits — if audits were only focused on conditions, at best we could only prevent four percent of our injuries. By establishing management systems for safety auditing that focus on people, including audit training, techniques, and plans, all incidents are preventable. Of course, employee contribution and involvement in auditing leads to sustainability through stakeholdership in the system. Management safety audits help to make manage the “behavioral balance.” Every job and task performed at a site can do be done at-risk or safely. The essence of a good safety system ensures that safe behavior is the accepted norm amongst employees, and that it is the expected and respected way of doing things. Shifting employees norms contributes mightily to changing culture. The management safety audit provides a way to quantify these norms. DuPont safety performance has continued to improve since we began keeping records in 1911 until about 1990. In the 1990–1994 time frame, performance deteriorated as shown in the chart that follows: This increase in injuries caused great concern to senior DuPont management as well as employees. It occurred while the corporation was undergoing changes in organization. In order to sustain our technological, competitive, and business leadership positions, DuPont began re-engineering itself beginning in about 1990. New streamlined organizational structures and collaborative work processes eliminated many positions and levels of management and supervision. The total employment of the company was reduced about 25 percent during these four years. In our traditional hierarchical organization structures, every level of supervision and management knew exactly what they were expected to do with safety, and all had important roles. As many of these levels were eliminated, new systems needed to be identified for these new organizations. In early 1995, Edgar S. Woolard, DuPont Chairman, chartered a Corporate Discovery Team to look for processes that will put DuPont on a consistent path toward a goal of zero injuries and occupational illnesses. The cross-functional team used a mode of “discovery through learning” from as many DuPont employees and sites around the world. The Discovery Team fostered the rapid sharing and leveraging of “best practices” and innovative approaches being pursued at DuPont’s plants, field sites, laboratories, and office locations. In short, the team examined the company’s current state, described the future state, identified barriers between the two, and recommended key ways to overcome these barriers. After reporting back to executive management in April, 1995, the Discovery Team was realigned to help organizations implement their recommendations. The Discovery Team reconfirmed key values in DuPont — in short, that all injuries, incidents, and occupational illnesses are preventable and that safety is a source of competitive advantage. As such, the steps taken to improve safety performance also improve overall competitiveness. Senior management made this belief clear: “We will strengthen our business by making safety excellence an integral part of all business activities.” One of the key findings of the Discovery Team was the identification of the best practices used within the company, which are listed below: ▪ Felt Leadership – Management Commitment ▪ Business Integration ▪ Responsibility and Accountability ▪ Individual/Team Involvement and Influence ▪ Contractor Safety ▪ Metrics and Measurements ▪ Communications ▪ Rewards and Recognition ▪ Caring Interdependent Culture; Team-Based Work Process and Systems ▪ Performance Standards and Operating Discipline ▪ Training/Capability ▪ Technology ▪ Safety and Health Resources ▪ Management and Team Audits ▪ Deviation Investigation ▪ Risk Management and Emergency Response ▪ Process Safety ▪ Off-the-Job Safety and Health Education Attention to each of these best practices is essential to achieve sustained improvements in safety and health. The Discovery Implementation in conjunction with DuPont Safety and Environmental Management Services has developed a Safety Self-Assessment around these systems. In this presentation, we will discuss a few of these practices and learn what they mean. Paper published with permission.

Human endeavors can be understood at the levels of evaluating what is good (values identification) and judging what is right (norms identification). These ethical considerations ideally find expression by becoming embedded in daily activity, with the ideal often buttressed by formal laws and regulations. Commitments to a strategy of sustainable management remain principally an ethical (rather than a regulatory) issue and are addressed primarily by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) rather than states. The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a blueprint for a more sustainable future. Faced with the consequences of climate change, natural disasters, environmental degradation, armed conflicts, and mass migration, NGOs’ commitments to the SDGs may be expressed in their engagement with meeting the immediate basic needs of present generations (e.g., for clean air, clean water, food, clothing, and shelter) and by humanitarian or developmental actions (which are part and parcel of sustainability development strategy and its implementation). In the present paper, I will offer a preliminary exploration of the question, to what extent do NGOs’ ethical commitments encompass strategy-led sustainable development capable of contributing to improving the likelihood of survival of a vulnerable population?

<p>Asset management depends on well-defined rules and standards for general application. Research results often represent the state of science in specific sections of specific cases. Standardization needs a downgrade of scientific work towards generally applicable specifications. This often leads to irritation in the scientific community fearing that their most interesting results are not specifically appreciated. This conflict makes standardization sometimes difficult.</p><p>COST action TU1406 is devoted to harmonizing the state of science and technology and to bring all involved disciplines into the process. The results produced are of value for a number of standards on ISO, CEN and National level. This represents another difficulty, namely, to find the right place in any of the organizations and to identify the most suitable technical committee and code.</p><p>This contribution reports on the experiences made with various committees and the results achieved. It soon became clear that specific parameters for bridge assessment cannot be standardized because they are too specific for a small sector. The way out is formulating the principles how to define them, to make a framework under which the detail results can be applied, and to define the interfaces to other necessary disciplines.</p><p>Sustainability as a headline was found to be suitable and TC59 of ISO was the committee of choice. Frameworks set in ISO55000 (asset management) and ISO31000 (risk management framework) are successfully addressed. A final draft of ISO 21929-2 is to be expected by early 2019.</p>

Values as relatively enduring ideas about the good and fair treatment of people in society are the most general part of the normative world. Therefore, they are also the forerunners of legal norms that institutionalize and operationalize values or ideas about the desired social functioning of people. By defining rights and duties in legal norms, social relations also become legal relationships. The result of conscious and rational connections of people is formal organizations as institutional frameworks that encourage and monitor the activities of their members. It is therefore possible to imagine a sequence: values --- norms --- organization --- action.

Environmental problems have become the main agenda of all countries in the world since 1970’s. Various reports have been written, international meetings have been held and various contracts, agreements and action plans were accepted according to these decisions. Each of these arrangements has reflected to policies of countries. The most important issue of international meetings is that environmental values and natural resources should be used rationally and without extravagancy, should be protected and sustained considering the policy of using rights and benefits of current and future generations. In this sense, the concept of “sustainable development” which aims at enabling economic growth and is defined as an environmentalist view in included in the report called Our Common Future which is prepared by Bruntland in 1987 and presented to United Nations Commission of Environment and Development. Later on, this principle was accepted as the main principle of meeting in RIO Summit of 1992. Turkey which is one of the developing countries did not remain out of this process and determined environmental policies in accordance with decisions in global level. Turkey participated in both meetings mentioned above; carried out preparation studies according to these principles and adapted these principles to legal regulations and policies about environmental and economic development. In this study, first of all historical development of sustainable development concept in global sense will be explained and then it will be evaluated how this principle influences environmental policies in Turkey in analytical way together with examples of practice.

<p>The design and construction of structures throughout history has too often been realized through the labor of enslaved people, both in the direct construction of these structures and in the procurement and fabrication of building materials. This is as true today as it was at the time of the pyramids.</p><p>Despite the challenges, the design and construction industries have a moral and ethical obligation to eradicate modern human trafficking practices. If done right, this shift will also lead to commercial advances.</p><p>Led by the Grace Farms Foundation, a Connecticut-based non-profit organization, a working group composed of design professionals, builders, owners, and academics has set out to eliminate the use of modern slaves within the built environment through awareness, agency, and tangible tools. Although inspired by the success of the green building movement, this initiative does not use the past as a template. Rather, we are committed to work with the most advanced tracking and aggregation technology to give owners, builders, and designers the tools they need to allow for clear and concise integration of real-time data into design and construction documents.</p><p>This paper summarizes the history of the issue, the moral, ethical, and commercial call to action, and the tangible solutions – both existing and emergent – in the fight against modern-day slavery in the design and construction industries.</p><p>Our intent is to present this material via a panel discussion. The panel will include an owner, an international owner’s representative, a builder, a big data specialist, an architect, an engineer, and a writer/academic who will act as moderator.</p>

Abstract There is increasing interest all over the world in Environmental Management Systems. Many Japanese electronic companies have mandated that their plants should be registered to ISO 14001 irrespective of what country they are located in. The big three automobile manufacturers in the United States have requested their suppliers to become registered to ISO 14001 within the next few years. The EPA is openly supporting Environmental Management Systems including ISO 14001. Twenty-two US States have enacted legislation that encourages voluntary environmental audits by granting immunity to certain non-compliance issues that was discovered during the audit, providing prior notice of the audit was given to the state and the auditee had no prior knowledge of the non-compliance. In response to the interest in Environmental Management Systems, this paper highlights the process flow from one environmental core element to the next in flow diagrams and gives examples from a number of implemented systems. There are a number of system concepts comprising of core elements that are described in ISO 14001 but the link between the core elements are not always immediately obvious. The main processes are as follows: • Identifying aspects, evaluating which are significant and then implementing control procedures for those issues, monitoring/measuring the outcome of the controls and reporting to management for corrective action or continuous improvement. • Identification of regulatory issues that apply to the organizations activities, keeping up to date with regulatory changes and reporting to regulatory offices as may be required. • Identifying which aspects that the organization wishes to pursue as an improvement program. The improvement program will include objectives, measurable targets for those objectives, the means by which those objectives will be achieved, the time frame and people responsible for the program. • Internal assessments, corrective actions, preventive actions and management review and re-action. An understanding of the EMS core elements and their inter relationship will be of interest to those who are considering implementing an Environmental management System in their organization.

The ratification of the European Charter of Local Self-Government and the adoption of the Concept of the Reform of Local Self-Government and the Territorial Organization of Power in Ukraine in April, 2014 laid the groundwork for the approval of fiscal decentralization and the creation of fiscal frameworks for the development of rural areas. One of the defining conditions of fiscal decentralization is the provision of the local government with financial resources in an amount sufficient to perform their tasks for development of rural areas. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to study the peculiarities of rural development of Ukraine in terms of fiscal decentralization, identify the main problems, and present an argument for the directions towards enhancing the positive impact of fiscal decentralization on the social and economic development of rural areas. The methodological basis of the article is general scientific and special methods of research, in particular: economic and statistical; analysis and synthesis; tabular and graphical. The conducted research has made it possible to establish that the implementation of fiscal decentralization has resulted in greater interest of village council in increasing revenues to local budgets by transferring the right to receive more tax revenues and non-tax revenues, finding contingency local budgets, improving the efficiency of tax administration and fees. The study gives grounds for proposing approaches to increase the effectiveness of fiscal decentralization in the context of rural development, including expanding of the list of taxes and fees in budget revenues of united territorial community (e.g. corporate income tax, personal income tax, environmental tax); improving the mechanism for providing local budgets with inter-budget transfers from the State Budget of Ukraine; optimization of budget expenditures under the condition that a guaranteed and affordable level of public services is provided; increasing the accountability of local governments in order to prevent corruption; involvement of the population in active participation in development policy of rural areas.

Environment protection, like a new religion consists of: environmental programmes, objectives and targets, training, incentive schemes, audit frequency, site inspections, administration and community relations. This paper presents the main environmental performance indicators. They should therefore be cost-effective and appropriate to the size and type of organization and its needs and priorities. Organizations should make the optimum use of the environmental information they collect. To this end the indicators should fulfill the dual purpose of assisting the management of the organization and providing information to stakeholders. In article we present a set of Environmental Performance Indicators (EPI). These indicators should therefore be cost-effective and appropriate to the size and type of organization and its needs and priorities. We present many categories of environmental performance indicators: comparability (indicators should enable a comparison and show changes in the environmental performance); balance between problematic (bad) and prospective (good) areas, continuity (indicators should be based on the same criteria and should be taken over comparable time sections or units); timeliness (indicators should be updated frequently enough to allow action to be taken); clarity (indicators should be clear and understandable).

In our country, there is not any domestic or international regulation regarding assessment of cumulative impacts of air pollution caused by thermal power stations in the region or environment in where the station is established. According to the Article 56 of the Constitution, everyone has the right to live in a healthy and balanced environment and it is the duty of the State and citizens to protect the environmental rights. These rights include right to live in an environment which is protected and is not damaged or polluted, in addition to social and cultural development, and the efficient use of national resources for in particular the rapid, balanced and harmonious development of industry and agriculture throughout the country, which is stated in the Article 166 of the Constitution. Cumulative impact assessment is evaluation of the effects caused by the combined results of a project or a certain project action and foreseeable past, current and future human actions. Cumulative impact assessment of thermal power stations could be possible with the determination of the combined effects of existing and licensed power stations while licensing process of a new stations. There should be an assessment regarding the place, location and type of other power stations which are already established or are planned to establish in the same city or geographic area. This requirement is crucial in terms of judicial review of licensing of new power stations which are planned to establish upon Environment Impact Assessment is Positive decision.

This helpdesk report provides a critical review of the literature on the role of faith and religious values in environmental engagement and action. Contemporary studies have examined the relationship between religion and climate change including the ongoing “greening” process of religions. The review focuses on the responses of the Islamic faith in the MENA region to climate-related issues. MENA is considered one of the region’s most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The rapid review drawing from empirical findings notes that religious organizations have great potential in the protection of the environment. Religious organizations possess resources and infrastructure to positively impact the conversation on climate change. While the review acknowledges the important role that religion plays in environmental engagement, there is still no unified perception of climate change among members of the Islamic faith. There are those who believe that there are other more urgent issues such as radicalism, terrorism, democracy, and human rights. The review notes that the shared challenge of climate change can provide a mechanism to bring together faiths to discuss, share teachings, and agree on common action.

This report presents a statistical analysis of the Regulated Substances Library (RSL) developed by the Illinois Department of Transportation. The RSL is comprised of surficial soil chemistry data obtained from rights-of-way subsurface soil sampling conducted for routine preliminary site investigations. The 3.7-million-record RSL database is compared with four independent studies of inorganic soil constituents of naturally occurring soils in Illinois. A selection of 22 inorganic soil analytes are examined in this study: Al, Sb, As, Ba, Be, Cd, Ca, Cr, Co, Cu, Fe, Pb, Mg, Mn, Hg, Ni, K, Se, Na, Tl, V, and Zn. RSL database summary statistics, mean, median, minimum, maximum, 5th percentile, and 95th percentile, are determined for Illinois counties and for recognized environmental concern, non-recognized environmental concern, and de minimis site contamination classifications. The RSL database at a 95% confidence level is compared with current and proposed thresholds for defining naturally occurring soil concentrations for the selected analytes. The revised thresholds proposed by Cahill in 2017 are predominantly larger than the current standards found in the Tiered Approach to Corrective Action Objectives rules and are in better agreement with observed distributions of soil concentrations for both naturally occurring and RSL soils. A notable exception is antimony (Sb), for which Cahill proposed a reduced threshold similar in magnitude to the median for many Illinois Department of Transportation districts.