- Email: [email protected]
Legal Strategies for Control and Prevention of Environmental Impact
Copyngm'" It AL Automatea :systems tlased on Human Skill, Aachen, Germany, 2000
LEGAL STRATEGIES FOR CONTROL AND PREVENTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Carina Pettersson*
Goteborgs University, Deparunent for Interdisciplinary Studies, Box 700 SE 405 30 Goteborg, Sweden
Abstract: In order to counleact negalive environmental impact of industrial activities, the law plays an important role, but its effecls appear rather ambigious. This article focuses on internal and exlernal control systems for controlling environmental Impact. TIle lack of feedb:Jck between the systems may strengthen the discrepancy between the two legal strategies for control. The first IS concerned with permits and the second with criminal sanctions. Both strategies will face problems in the control function. The promotion of feedback between internal and external control is presented as a presupposition for developing environmental standards of limits and improving the legal control. Copyright © 2000 IFAC Keywords: Decision, Control, Feedback, Industrial control, Air pollution, Water pollution.
I. INTRODUCTION
the limits for environmental impact are negotiable. Without clear limits, it will be more difficult to take action against trespassers and environmental crime. The situation will imply an asymmetrical relationship between the evaluation of limits and the determination of sanctions against crime and trespassers (penersson 1999). Under such circumstances, there is no guarantee that strengthened sanctions will result in a strengthened determination of limits for environmental impact, leading to decreased numbers of trespassers and environmental crime. Therefore, the best procedure would be to provide a basic form for the weighing of subjective and objective factors, which reflects a clear standard of limits of environmental impact. 11lis standard should have full legal effect, sufficient for maintaining the demands for environmental protection and also make it possible to prosecute treespassers and environmental criminals. This paper focuses olegal dimension in decision making and highlights the effects of pollution control, through internal and external control functions. The work does not intend to include the influence of other instruments for environmental control and prevention, such as for example economic or informative instruments. 1be work presented here is an extension of the research project in Pettersson (1999). It is important to observe that environmental problems are unique in many respects and that the traditional legal system has failed in its intent to regulate those problems effectively.. Therefore, there is a need for new research approaches
One of the major difficulites in environmental legal decision making is how to balance objective and the subjective factors. The outcome of the decision and the possibility to control and reduce environmental impact will depend on how subjective and objective factors are weighed.. Studies show that the outcome, both in cases of permission licences and in cases of criminal to impede legal security. sanctions, tends Consequences and effects of the influence of subjective factors in the decision making are, for instance, found in the work of (Eriksson 1988; Carlman 1993' Karlmark 1997; Hyden & Baier 1998; Jewell & Steel~ 1998; Cavallin 1999; Pettersson 1999). It has to be observed that none of the investigations are focused on criminal sanctions in the light of the permission licences, except for the work of Hyden & Baier (1998). This work is concerned with the question of fault in the environmental scandal of the tunnel project through the Hallandsasen in Sweden. The effects of widespread environmental damage caused by the use of the toxic substances acrylamide and Nmethylacrylamide, in the building of the tunnel, was analysed in the light of the permission licence. Usually and in practice, the problem of the influence of subjective factors in the determination of limits for environmental impact and in cases of criminal sanction, is the difficulty to establish definite standards to be used in the legal decision making. Under circumstances when the decision making for permission licence to a great extent is based on cooperation between the authority and the company,
which require intellectual, theoretical and practical innovation (Hyden & Gillberg, 1996, p. 88). The control of environmental impact can either start from
• Corresponding author. Phone: +46 31 7734183, +46 31 474593. Fax: +4631 7734933
245
The first case is concerned with a permission licence. The Swedish company Sandvik AB is developing and refining steel products. In 1992 the company applied for permission to increase the production of steel to 200 000 tons per year (Dnr 138-203-92). In the decision making, the authorities had to take into consideration the increased levels of discharge of nitrogen, cadmium, chrome, nickel, copper and zinc. The county administrative board and the Swedish national environment protection board granted a permit to increase the production, on the condition that the company invest in new technology to decrease the discharge of dust and nitrogen into air and water. The demands also included provisions for recycling acid The company disagreed with the agencies to which the proposed measures had been referred for consideration. The company's arguments can be summarized in the following three points: I. The expenses for investment in new technology is too high, related to the expected reduction of pollution. 2. The new technology can not be used until it is possible to apply this technology to all production processes, and not only to one part. 3. New technology is expensive and the motivation to implement this technology in order to reduce environmental impact would be stronger if similar demands were directed to other companies within the same branch.
the source of disturbance, or focus on the environmental effects of certain industrial activities. In Sweden and other nordic and western European countries, the control of environmental impact mainly in the sources takes its starting point (Riksrevisionsverket, 1999). For the purpose of this paper, this is also the starting point. Environmental problems can, of course, be regarded from other perspectives than the point of view of legal regulation. Political and economical aspects are important to take into consideration, in the sense that these aspects also influence social forces which are essential for a democratic decision making process. An interesting question on this topic is, for instance, how we perceive and handle environmental risks related to economical risks in the decision making. Is it only a matter of weighing our own immediate costs against our own immediate benefits? (Nilsson, 1996). This question is not addressed in this paper, but for an extended discussion, readers may refer to the listed references (Sooerbaum, 1993; Brannlund & Kristrom, 1998; Somsen 1998; Ralph & Perhac, 1999;).
2. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CONTROL The judgement of the effects of pollution can never be regarded as purely objective. The subjective influence is both a result of the problems of objectively interpreting scientific data, and also a result of pollution being percieved as a problem mainly when damage begins affect human interests (Springer, 1983). The fact is that evaluations of risks, consequences, and causes of pollution vary both according to time and location, and the interpretation of the law will also vary. Important questions in the application of law are for example, who is responsible for pollution and who should the law place liability upon? A situation where a river is polluted may be a consequence of a number of factories discharging effluents into the river. Should all those factories be prosecuted, or only the worst one, or the factories which least of all are vulnerable for expenses? In order to manage these kinds of questions, one theoretical approach is harmonize the environmental demands placed on all the factories involved. One problem is that such a harmonization can be difficult to achieve in practice, as individual companies tend to differ in their conception of acceptable levels of pollution. They also have varying economical and technical capacities for reducing environmental impact. An example related to this problem will be highlighted in this section. Another problem is how to acertain that the legal requirements are being met? The promotion of feed-back is necessary in the use of external control, based on control by the authorities and internal control within the company. However, the significance is that different types of legal strategies are required (Fox, 1990) and accordingly require different forms of feed back systems. In this paper the legal strategies concern permission licences and criminal sanctions.
As a result of these arguments, the authorities did reduce the demands on the company and the reduction of discharges failed to take place. The established limits of environmental impact were stretched and replaced by temporary limits. In order to control the implementation of environmental improvements, (through measures and supervision) the authorities referred to the company's internal control. The lack of suitable technology resulted the external control by the authorities not being considered reliable. There is, in other words, a lack of feedback between the internal and external control systems. This accords both national and international results of investigations, that technical and economical factors are the driving forces in legal decision making. Decision making is furthermore mainly based on the company's argumentation (Pettersson, 1999). The focus is on economical effect and consequences for the company, rather than on environmental goals and risks. The second case is focused on the discrepancy in the decision making of permission licence and criminal sanctions. In October 1999, the Swedish company Eka Chemicals AB applied for permission to increase production of chlorine and natriurnhydtroxide (Nr M 221-99:5). A few months before, the company h
2.1 Implementation
246
also important in the connection between the external and internal control and decision making. In practice, this will mean that decisions taken within the company, concerning, for example, introduction of new technology or changes in production processes, in order to reduce environmental impact, have to be reflected in decisions taken by the authorities and in The the determination of environmental limits. importance of feedback between the systems can be regarded in the light of there being many different environmental states to control, and the condition of which may vary considerably. Through ongoing feedback between the internal and external controls, the development of limits may in certain cases at least, through the development of legal praxis, and transformation into the legal system, lead to a standardization of limits. This is also a presupposition for environmental limits being legally relevant. According to Gipperth, the implementation procedure therefore needs not only be linked to the legal system, but also reflect this system. Finally, this will imply that a legal implementation has to link environmental standards of limits to rights and obligations for the companies, and also to obligation for implementing authorities to react effectively, if and when an environmental standard is not met (Gipperth, 1999).
In this case, there is an obvious discrepancy and a lack of feedback between the two forms of decision making. The result is that the company can break the rules and cause extensive environmental damage, and in spite of that, still have the possibility to get permission to increase its production, which may consequently lead to further environmental impact. The problems related to the first and the second case can be summarized in the following three points: - There is a lack of feedback between the two forms of legal decision making. - There is a lack of feedback between the internal and external control. - The legal demands are negotiable and mainly based on the company's argumentation. - The subjective factors are in focus for the judgement. In the light of this, the demands for the promotion of environmental protection and legality are not met. For improvements in these respects, a new apporach with environmental standards of limits in the decision making is needed.
3. STANDARDS OF LIMITS 'standards' implies From a legal point of view, generality in the sense that they are applied in the same way to all involved, under the same circumstances (Hyden, 1999). In this section, the focus is on how to implement environmental standards of limits and the expected effects of such an implementation. First of all, in order to attain environmental limits, it is necessary to break the environmental goals down, until rules of conduct derived from these goals can be laid down. In this process the feedback between and within the internal and external control systems is important. There are many different factors to take into consideration, of economical, technical and environmental character. Technical and economical aspects are usually given priority in decision making within the company. In accordance with that, the definition of a certain problem also has a bearing on the question of whether the decision maker feels that a solution really are possible. Apparently unsolvable problems and impractical solutions are much less likely to initiate further decision making acitivites (Mintzberg et aI., 1976). Another problem in the internal decision making and control is that companies tend to categorize problems in terms of their internal organizational structure. This means that problems are conceived as, for example, a marketing problem, a production problem, a technical problem and so on. The decision have to be translated into concrete action programmes. There are some risks in the implementation which concern the time aspect. The decision may be implemented, but the situation may change so drastically that it is no longer a good solution. The implementation process should be designed in such a way as to ensure flexible responses also to unforeseen circumstances (Noorderhaven 1995). Furthermore, the implementation requires a feedback from the first to the last phase within the internal control system and decision making. The feedback is
4. CONCLUSION The problems related to control and prevention of environmental impact have been presented from a legal point of view. The results show that in order to counteract and reduce point source pollution of industrial activities, the legal strategies for control are inefficient. One cause is the lack of of feedback between the two forms of decision making; strategies for permission and strategies for criminal sanctions. The lack of feedback can also be observed between internal and external environmental control. Since regulation must inevitably adapt to technical and economical pressures and constraints within the company, and since the the evaluation of how to adapt to these constraints not seldom differ between the the internal examination within the company and the external examination of the authorities, the situation may fortify the lack of feedback. This situation will impede a development of environmental standards of limits. In the decision making for permission, it is necessary to to weigh internal and external standpoints, but without a clear environmental standards of limits, such subjective evaluations is itself imperfect and cannot guarantee a reduction of environmental impact through strengthen demands. In the light of this, the presumption for a pragmatic approach to legal regulation and the definition of standards of limits is that the engineers in their application of control techniques can examine the possibility to improve the technology. A basic form ofperformance require, in the first instance and from a technological point of view, that the result of the examination of to what extent control and reduction of pollution is possible, have to be relative constant and not vary from one moment in time to the next. The examination must thereafter be reflected in the decisions taken by the authorities through an ongoing feedback. This procedure may at 247
Administrative Science Quarterly, vol 21, pp 246-75. Nilsson, A. (1996). Science, global crises and the media circus. Challenges in environmental human dimensions rescarch, some Swedish perspectives. Edited and published by Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research, pp 5461. Stockholm. Noorderhaven, N. (1995). The decision making process, Strategic decision making. pp 16-38. AddisonWeslcy publishing company: Amsterdam. Peuersson, C. (1999). MiljokrQV och utmaningar i svensk metallindustri, en normteoretisk anal)'s. Licentiaw.vhandling. Institutionen for tvarvctenskap, Goteborgs Univcrsitel: Goteborg. Ralph, M. & Perhac, Jr. (1999). Environmental justice The issue of disproportionality. Environmental ethics. All interdisciplinQl} jounzal dedicated to the philosophical aspects of environmental problems. Vo\. 21, number 1, pp. 81-92. Riksrevisionsverket. (1999). Brottsma1skedjan - i Sverige ceh andra hinder, kart1aggning och analys. Edited by K. Dahlen & L. Reischer. RRV 1999: 30. Bromma tryck: Bromma. Somsens, H. (1998). Dynamics, process, and instruments of environmental decision-making in the European Union. Law in environmental decision -making. National, European and inrenzational perspectives. Edited by T. Jewell & J. Steele, pp 161- 205. Clarendon press: Oxford. Springer, A. (1983). lntenzatiollallaw of pollution: Protecting the global environment in a world of sovereign states. Westpon Conn, Quorum Books. Soderbaum, P. (1993). Ekologisk ekonomi,. Milja och utveckling ill)' belysnillg. Studentlitteratur: Lund. Wersall, F. (1988). Miljobrottslighet fdin aklagarsynpunkt. Miljobrott och straff. Edited by \. Eriksson, pp 73-82. Allmanna fOrlaget: Stockholm. Westerlund, S. (1988). Riitt och milja. Carlsson bokforlag: Lund.
least promote a development of legal praxis and to a transformation into the legal system. Finally, the interrelationsip between thc two forms of legal strategies for environmental control and the need of feedback between the internal and external control systems, holds only in questions of point source pollution. Therefore, innovative rescarch aimed at articulating the mechanisms by which law can create a dynamic balance between social and economic development and ecological constraints, related to for example impacts of climate change, and the use of natural resources, which concern both national and international interests, is still a subject of future research.
REFERENCES
Reports The Swedish environmental coun of law. (1999). Diarienumber: M 2221-99:5. Coun of first instance. Swedish criminal case. (1999). Diarienumber: 1401-K15147-98. The Swedish national franchise board for for environment protection (1992). Diarienumber:
138-203-92. literature Brann1und, R. and B. Kristrom (1998). Mi/jaekonomi. Studentliueratur: Lund. Carlman, I. (1993). Tiinkom, studier av konj1ikter i svellska miljaiirenden. IMIR 1993:2, Institutet for mi1jorau: Uppsala. Cavallin, S. (1999). Skuld. Iustus fOrlag AB: Goteborg. Eriksson, 1. (1988). Miljobrott -ett avvagningsproblem. Miljabrott och stra!f Edited by I. Eriksson, pp 7-17. Allmanna forlaget: Stockholm. Fox, M. (1990). Earth matters? Legal regulation and environmental contro\. Law, society and change. Edited by S. Livingstone & J. Morison, pp. 7195. Dartmouth publishing company Iimitcd: Aldershot. Gippenh, L. (1999). MiljaA:valitetsnormer, en riittsvetenskaplig studie i regleteknik far operatiollalisering av miljamal, Uppsala UniversitCl: Uppsala. Hyden, H. and M. Baier (1998). Nar kunskapen blir onOdig. Milja i grund och botten -erfarerzheter fran Hallandsanen. Slutrapport QV tunnelkommissionell. SOU 1998: 137. Norstedts Tryckeri AB: Stockholm. HyMn, H. M. Gillberg (1996). Law as a safety belt and market as an enforcer. Challenges in environmental human dimensions research, some Swedish perspectives. Edited and published by Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research, pp 71-91. Stockholm. Jewell, T. and J. Steele (1998). Law in environmental decision -mahng. National, European and intenzational perspectives. Clarendon press: Oxford. Karlmark, S. (1997). Miljariitt ur ett straffriittsligt perspektiv. Iustus forlag AB: Uppsala. Sweden. Mintzberg, H. and D. Raisinghani (1976). The structure of unstructured decision processes.
248
LEGAL STRATEGIES FOR CONTROL AND PREVENTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Carina Pettersson*
Goteborgs University, Deparunent for Interdisciplinary Studies, Box 700 SE 405 30 Goteborg, Sweden
Abstract: In order to counleact negalive environmental impact of industrial activities, the law plays an important role, but its effecls appear rather ambigious. This article focuses on internal and exlernal control systems for controlling environmental Impact. TIle lack of feedb:Jck between the systems may strengthen the discrepancy between the two legal strategies for control. The first IS concerned with permits and the second with criminal sanctions. Both strategies will face problems in the control function. The promotion of feedback between internal and external control is presented as a presupposition for developing environmental standards of limits and improving the legal control. Copyright © 2000 IFAC Keywords: Decision, Control, Feedback, Industrial control, Air pollution, Water pollution.
I. INTRODUCTION
the limits for environmental impact are negotiable. Without clear limits, it will be more difficult to take action against trespassers and environmental crime. The situation will imply an asymmetrical relationship between the evaluation of limits and the determination of sanctions against crime and trespassers (penersson 1999). Under such circumstances, there is no guarantee that strengthened sanctions will result in a strengthened determination of limits for environmental impact, leading to decreased numbers of trespassers and environmental crime. Therefore, the best procedure would be to provide a basic form for the weighing of subjective and objective factors, which reflects a clear standard of limits of environmental impact. 11lis standard should have full legal effect, sufficient for maintaining the demands for environmental protection and also make it possible to prosecute treespassers and environmental criminals. This paper focuses olegal dimension in decision making and highlights the effects of pollution control, through internal and external control functions. The work does not intend to include the influence of other instruments for environmental control and prevention, such as for example economic or informative instruments. 1be work presented here is an extension of the research project in Pettersson (1999). It is important to observe that environmental problems are unique in many respects and that the traditional legal system has failed in its intent to regulate those problems effectively.. Therefore, there is a need for new research approaches
One of the major difficulites in environmental legal decision making is how to balance objective and the subjective factors. The outcome of the decision and the possibility to control and reduce environmental impact will depend on how subjective and objective factors are weighed.. Studies show that the outcome, both in cases of permission licences and in cases of criminal to impede legal security. sanctions, tends Consequences and effects of the influence of subjective factors in the decision making are, for instance, found in the work of (Eriksson 1988; Carlman 1993' Karlmark 1997; Hyden & Baier 1998; Jewell & Steel~ 1998; Cavallin 1999; Pettersson 1999). It has to be observed that none of the investigations are focused on criminal sanctions in the light of the permission licences, except for the work of Hyden & Baier (1998). This work is concerned with the question of fault in the environmental scandal of the tunnel project through the Hallandsasen in Sweden. The effects of widespread environmental damage caused by the use of the toxic substances acrylamide and Nmethylacrylamide, in the building of the tunnel, was analysed in the light of the permission licence. Usually and in practice, the problem of the influence of subjective factors in the determination of limits for environmental impact and in cases of criminal sanction, is the difficulty to establish definite standards to be used in the legal decision making. Under circumstances when the decision making for permission licence to a great extent is based on cooperation between the authority and the company,
which require intellectual, theoretical and practical innovation (Hyden & Gillberg, 1996, p. 88). The control of environmental impact can either start from
• Corresponding author. Phone: +46 31 7734183, +46 31 474593. Fax: +4631 7734933
245
The first case is concerned with a permission licence. The Swedish company Sandvik AB is developing and refining steel products. In 1992 the company applied for permission to increase the production of steel to 200 000 tons per year (Dnr 138-203-92). In the decision making, the authorities had to take into consideration the increased levels of discharge of nitrogen, cadmium, chrome, nickel, copper and zinc. The county administrative board and the Swedish national environment protection board granted a permit to increase the production, on the condition that the company invest in new technology to decrease the discharge of dust and nitrogen into air and water. The demands also included provisions for recycling acid The company disagreed with the agencies to which the proposed measures had been referred for consideration. The company's arguments can be summarized in the following three points: I. The expenses for investment in new technology is too high, related to the expected reduction of pollution. 2. The new technology can not be used until it is possible to apply this technology to all production processes, and not only to one part. 3. New technology is expensive and the motivation to implement this technology in order to reduce environmental impact would be stronger if similar demands were directed to other companies within the same branch.
the source of disturbance, or focus on the environmental effects of certain industrial activities. In Sweden and other nordic and western European countries, the control of environmental impact mainly in the sources takes its starting point (Riksrevisionsverket, 1999). For the purpose of this paper, this is also the starting point. Environmental problems can, of course, be regarded from other perspectives than the point of view of legal regulation. Political and economical aspects are important to take into consideration, in the sense that these aspects also influence social forces which are essential for a democratic decision making process. An interesting question on this topic is, for instance, how we perceive and handle environmental risks related to economical risks in the decision making. Is it only a matter of weighing our own immediate costs against our own immediate benefits? (Nilsson, 1996). This question is not addressed in this paper, but for an extended discussion, readers may refer to the listed references (Sooerbaum, 1993; Brannlund & Kristrom, 1998; Somsen 1998; Ralph & Perhac, 1999;).
2. INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CONTROL The judgement of the effects of pollution can never be regarded as purely objective. The subjective influence is both a result of the problems of objectively interpreting scientific data, and also a result of pollution being percieved as a problem mainly when damage begins affect human interests (Springer, 1983). The fact is that evaluations of risks, consequences, and causes of pollution vary both according to time and location, and the interpretation of the law will also vary. Important questions in the application of law are for example, who is responsible for pollution and who should the law place liability upon? A situation where a river is polluted may be a consequence of a number of factories discharging effluents into the river. Should all those factories be prosecuted, or only the worst one, or the factories which least of all are vulnerable for expenses? In order to manage these kinds of questions, one theoretical approach is harmonize the environmental demands placed on all the factories involved. One problem is that such a harmonization can be difficult to achieve in practice, as individual companies tend to differ in their conception of acceptable levels of pollution. They also have varying economical and technical capacities for reducing environmental impact. An example related to this problem will be highlighted in this section. Another problem is how to acertain that the legal requirements are being met? The promotion of feed-back is necessary in the use of external control, based on control by the authorities and internal control within the company. However, the significance is that different types of legal strategies are required (Fox, 1990) and accordingly require different forms of feed back systems. In this paper the legal strategies concern permission licences and criminal sanctions.
As a result of these arguments, the authorities did reduce the demands on the company and the reduction of discharges failed to take place. The established limits of environmental impact were stretched and replaced by temporary limits. In order to control the implementation of environmental improvements, (through measures and supervision) the authorities referred to the company's internal control. The lack of suitable technology resulted the external control by the authorities not being considered reliable. There is, in other words, a lack of feedback between the internal and external control systems. This accords both national and international results of investigations, that technical and economical factors are the driving forces in legal decision making. Decision making is furthermore mainly based on the company's argumentation (Pettersson, 1999). The focus is on economical effect and consequences for the company, rather than on environmental goals and risks. The second case is focused on the discrepancy in the decision making of permission licence and criminal sanctions. In October 1999, the Swedish company Eka Chemicals AB applied for permission to increase production of chlorine and natriurnhydtroxide (Nr M 221-99:5). A few months before, the company h
2.1 Implementation
246
also important in the connection between the external and internal control and decision making. In practice, this will mean that decisions taken within the company, concerning, for example, introduction of new technology or changes in production processes, in order to reduce environmental impact, have to be reflected in decisions taken by the authorities and in The the determination of environmental limits. importance of feedback between the systems can be regarded in the light of there being many different environmental states to control, and the condition of which may vary considerably. Through ongoing feedback between the internal and external controls, the development of limits may in certain cases at least, through the development of legal praxis, and transformation into the legal system, lead to a standardization of limits. This is also a presupposition for environmental limits being legally relevant. According to Gipperth, the implementation procedure therefore needs not only be linked to the legal system, but also reflect this system. Finally, this will imply that a legal implementation has to link environmental standards of limits to rights and obligations for the companies, and also to obligation for implementing authorities to react effectively, if and when an environmental standard is not met (Gipperth, 1999).
In this case, there is an obvious discrepancy and a lack of feedback between the two forms of decision making. The result is that the company can break the rules and cause extensive environmental damage, and in spite of that, still have the possibility to get permission to increase its production, which may consequently lead to further environmental impact. The problems related to the first and the second case can be summarized in the following three points: - There is a lack of feedback between the two forms of legal decision making. - There is a lack of feedback between the internal and external control. - The legal demands are negotiable and mainly based on the company's argumentation. - The subjective factors are in focus for the judgement. In the light of this, the demands for the promotion of environmental protection and legality are not met. For improvements in these respects, a new apporach with environmental standards of limits in the decision making is needed.
3. STANDARDS OF LIMITS 'standards' implies From a legal point of view, generality in the sense that they are applied in the same way to all involved, under the same circumstances (Hyden, 1999). In this section, the focus is on how to implement environmental standards of limits and the expected effects of such an implementation. First of all, in order to attain environmental limits, it is necessary to break the environmental goals down, until rules of conduct derived from these goals can be laid down. In this process the feedback between and within the internal and external control systems is important. There are many different factors to take into consideration, of economical, technical and environmental character. Technical and economical aspects are usually given priority in decision making within the company. In accordance with that, the definition of a certain problem also has a bearing on the question of whether the decision maker feels that a solution really are possible. Apparently unsolvable problems and impractical solutions are much less likely to initiate further decision making acitivites (Mintzberg et aI., 1976). Another problem in the internal decision making and control is that companies tend to categorize problems in terms of their internal organizational structure. This means that problems are conceived as, for example, a marketing problem, a production problem, a technical problem and so on. The decision have to be translated into concrete action programmes. There are some risks in the implementation which concern the time aspect. The decision may be implemented, but the situation may change so drastically that it is no longer a good solution. The implementation process should be designed in such a way as to ensure flexible responses also to unforeseen circumstances (Noorderhaven 1995). Furthermore, the implementation requires a feedback from the first to the last phase within the internal control system and decision making. The feedback is
4. CONCLUSION The problems related to control and prevention of environmental impact have been presented from a legal point of view. The results show that in order to counteract and reduce point source pollution of industrial activities, the legal strategies for control are inefficient. One cause is the lack of of feedback between the two forms of decision making; strategies for permission and strategies for criminal sanctions. The lack of feedback can also be observed between internal and external environmental control. Since regulation must inevitably adapt to technical and economical pressures and constraints within the company, and since the the evaluation of how to adapt to these constraints not seldom differ between the the internal examination within the company and the external examination of the authorities, the situation may fortify the lack of feedback. This situation will impede a development of environmental standards of limits. In the decision making for permission, it is necessary to to weigh internal and external standpoints, but without a clear environmental standards of limits, such subjective evaluations is itself imperfect and cannot guarantee a reduction of environmental impact through strengthen demands. In the light of this, the presumption for a pragmatic approach to legal regulation and the definition of standards of limits is that the engineers in their application of control techniques can examine the possibility to improve the technology. A basic form ofperformance require, in the first instance and from a technological point of view, that the result of the examination of to what extent control and reduction of pollution is possible, have to be relative constant and not vary from one moment in time to the next. The examination must thereafter be reflected in the decisions taken by the authorities through an ongoing feedback. This procedure may at 247
Administrative Science Quarterly, vol 21, pp 246-75. Nilsson, A. (1996). Science, global crises and the media circus. Challenges in environmental human dimensions rescarch, some Swedish perspectives. Edited and published by Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research, pp 5461. Stockholm. Noorderhaven, N. (1995). The decision making process, Strategic decision making. pp 16-38. AddisonWeslcy publishing company: Amsterdam. Peuersson, C. (1999). MiljokrQV och utmaningar i svensk metallindustri, en normteoretisk anal)'s. Licentiaw.vhandling. Institutionen for tvarvctenskap, Goteborgs Univcrsitel: Goteborg. Ralph, M. & Perhac, Jr. (1999). Environmental justice The issue of disproportionality. Environmental ethics. All interdisciplinQl} jounzal dedicated to the philosophical aspects of environmental problems. Vo\. 21, number 1, pp. 81-92. Riksrevisionsverket. (1999). Brottsma1skedjan - i Sverige ceh andra hinder, kart1aggning och analys. Edited by K. Dahlen & L. Reischer. RRV 1999: 30. Bromma tryck: Bromma. Somsens, H. (1998). Dynamics, process, and instruments of environmental decision-making in the European Union. Law in environmental decision -making. National, European and inrenzational perspectives. Edited by T. Jewell & J. Steele, pp 161- 205. Clarendon press: Oxford. Springer, A. (1983). lntenzatiollallaw of pollution: Protecting the global environment in a world of sovereign states. Westpon Conn, Quorum Books. Soderbaum, P. (1993). Ekologisk ekonomi,. Milja och utveckling ill)' belysnillg. Studentlitteratur: Lund. Wersall, F. (1988). Miljobrottslighet fdin aklagarsynpunkt. Miljobrott och straff. Edited by \. Eriksson, pp 73-82. Allmanna fOrlaget: Stockholm. Westerlund, S. (1988). Riitt och milja. Carlsson bokforlag: Lund.
least promote a development of legal praxis and to a transformation into the legal system. Finally, the interrelationsip between thc two forms of legal strategies for environmental control and the need of feedback between the internal and external control systems, holds only in questions of point source pollution. Therefore, innovative rescarch aimed at articulating the mechanisms by which law can create a dynamic balance between social and economic development and ecological constraints, related to for example impacts of climate change, and the use of natural resources, which concern both national and international interests, is still a subject of future research.
REFERENCES
Reports The Swedish environmental coun of law. (1999). Diarienumber: M 2221-99:5. Coun of first instance. Swedish criminal case. (1999). Diarienumber: 1401-K15147-98. The Swedish national franchise board for for environment protection (1992). Diarienumber:
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