Regulating pesticide risk reduction: the practice and dynamics of legal pluralism (English summary)

Synthetic pesticides have become widely used in the past century to combat agricultural pests and diseases, and hence to achieve higher yields. However, their inherently toxic properties are also the reason that pesticides may cause harm to the environment and human health during the different stages of their life-cycle, that in its simplest form consists of the stages of production, marketing, use, and residues. In the production stage, site-specific emissions to the environment may occur as the result of production processes of pesticide substances and products, and workers in pesticide plants and people living in the neighbourhood of such production facilities may be at risk of exposure to hazardous emissions and industrial accidents.