By-Products of Prosperity: Transborder Hazardous Waste Issues Confronting the Maquiladora Industry

The maquiladora program allows Mexican laborers to work in American factories operating in Mexico. This program was specifically designed to generate employment and stimulate industry in Mexico. After a brief discussion of the current status and significance of the maquiladora industry, this Article explains the procedures for the transborder shipment of hazardous waste from Mexico to the United States, a hallmark of the maquiladora program. The authors analyze these procedures in light of anticipated regulatory and economic trends in the region. The analysis includes a discussion of the issue of commingled waste, as well as how NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) will impact Mexico\u27s environmental policies. The authors conclude that the maquiladora program has a prosperous future, despite the hazardous waste issues that threaten the health of the industry

The Calumet Area Hazardous Substance Data Base : A User's Guide with Documentation

HWRIC Project 88/89-055NTIS PB90-25193

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Role in International Law

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has played, and continues to play, an important and largely unrecognized role as a lawmaking body. The OECD occupies a unique space in the international lawmaking field, in large part because it was not established with lawmaking as a priority. In a small number of cases, however, it has played a significant role in crafting the emerging architecture of global governance. Case studies of the hazardous waste trade, the Bribery Convention, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are presented to demonstrate a clear pattern. A topic of major concern arises on the international stage, such as hazardous waste trade, bribery, or corporate conduct. Efforts within the United Nations or other international organizations to draft an agreement are unsuccessful. The OECD proceeds on its own and provides an agreement that serves as the basis for future negotiations in fora with wider membership. The keys to this approach are opportunism and path dependence. The OECD serves as an advantageous forum to host negotiations, in part because of its significant technical expertise, in part because of its membership of like-minded countries, and in part because of its closed proceedings. This can be a very effective strategy to provide the tracks on which the train of international agreements proceeds. But it does not always work. A case study on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment explores the OECD’s greatest failure in international lawmaking

Medical Waste Regulation: Recommendations for Cleaning Up the Mess

In many applications, design or analysis is performed over a finite frequency range of interest. The importance of the H2/robust H2 norm highlights the necessity of computing this norm accordingly. This paper provides different methods for computing upper bounds on the robust finite-frequency H2 norm for systems with structured uncertainties. An application of the robust finite-frequency H2 norm for a comfort analysis problem of an aero-elastic model of an aircraft is also presented

Race, Gender, Age, and Disproportionate Impact: What Can We Do About the Failure to Protect the Most Vulnerable?

Hard economic times and social conditions are driving a reordering of environmental protection priorities that threatens to sacrifice the most vulnerable groups. Environmental regulatory agencies acknowledge that vulnerable populations face the greatest risk of harm from environmental insult and that these groups are not adequately protected. Although a risk-based prioritization of resources benefits the greatest number of people, such allocation would disadvantage minority communities, which contain disproportionate numbers of sensitive subgroups. Our regulatory bodies must therefore develop new strategies to adequately protect sensitive subgroups identified in minority communities. Part II of this Article looks at some of the considerations that influence the health protection priorities and resource allocations that environmental regulatory agencies make. Part III examines the importance of variation in susceptibility to environmental insult and how minorities, women, and the young are particularly affected. Part IV discusses the economic rationale and available mechanisms for protecting vulnerable subgroups

The Victims of NIMBY

Not In My Back Yard, or NIMBY, in its various forms, has three principal types of targets. The first is waste disposal facilities, primarily landfills and incinerators. The second is low-income housing. The third is social service facilities, group homes and shelters for individuals such as the mentally ill, AIDS patients, and the homeless. This Article addresses the issue of the victims of NIMBY, with special reference to the effects of project opposition on racial minorities. Because the effect of facility opposition varies widely with the type of project involved, Part II arrays the types of relevant projects and shows the ways that opposition manifests itself. Part III then briefly discusses the legal techniques used by those who oppose facilities, and the counter measures used by facility proponents. Part IV examines the available evidence on who suffers as a result of the opponents\u27 techniques. Part V looks at who benefits from opposition to siting new facilities. Part VI is devoted to some of the secondary and imponderable effects of facility opposition. Finally, Part VII draws conclusions from the preceding discussion, and shows how the costs and benefits of NIMBY are very different from those envisioned by those who either condemn or applaud facility opposition