The Environmental Laws and Policies of Taiwan: A Comparative Law Perspective

This Article discusses the development of environmental regulation and preservation in Taiwan in light of United States environmental law. The Article begins with a discussion of how few measures have been enacted to protect the Taiwanese environment. It then illuminates some of the problems with the Taiwanese environmental regulations that do exist. According to the author, some of these problems include: ambiguous and conflicting goals enunciated in the legislation; political pressures on the authorities influencing environmental policies; poor enforcement mechanisms; a legislative bias in favor of regulating new sources of pollution and against enforcing regulations in the case of old sources; and little or no litigation over environmental laws. The author next points out the weaknesses in Taiwan\u27s policy of selective enforcement and its ineffective use of economic instruments to control pollution. The author concludes this Article with some suggestions of how Taiwan could improve its environmental regulation efforts

New Developments in Environmental Law and Policy in Taiwan

This article provides a critical review of the important developments of the environmental laws and policies of the Republic of China on Taiwan since 1993. The article also supplements the author\u27s 1990 and 1993 publications. Section II briefs the reader on background political and economic changes. Section III analyzes three new environmental statutes, including the Environmental Impact Assessment Act of 1994. Section IV investigates the problems encountered in some environmental initiatives, including the collection of air pollution control fees and the newly launched four-in-one recycling program. Section V summarizes important environmental decisions by the Administrative Court. Section VI suggests strategies for further progress, including changing the mode of legislation, making the administrative decision-making process accessible to the public, as well as reforming the judicial system

Relationships between Connectedness, Performance Proficiency, Satisfaction, and Online Learning Continuance

Maintaining momentum is vital in terms of how soon students can complete a program, especially for those who are in the early stage of taking online courses. This study attempted to extend the existing literature by examining the influence of online students’ perceived sense of connectedness, performance proficiency, and satisfaction on their intentions to continue an online learning course. A quantitative survey approach was adopted to test our hypothesized structural model. Three hundred and sixty-nine students who had taken fewer than three fully online courses participated in this study. The results revealed that three out of four testing hypotheses were all supported at the 0.01 significance level, and one of the path coefficients indicated that online students’ confidence in their ability or competency to perform academic tasks did not directly influence their intention to take future online courses. Instead, the influence of performance proficiency on online learning continuance intention was mediated through the factor of satisfaction. In addition, satisfaction was found to have a significantly direct impact on online learning continuance intention, suggesting that when students taking online courses are satisfied with their online learning experience, the likelihood for them to continue taking other online courses is higher