This paper examines the two most important current efforts to devise new rules binding all nations the negotiations in the WTO of trade rules and the negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to devise rules restricting the annual emissions of greenhouse gases. Both negotiations have failed after several years of intensive effort. There are remarkable parallels in these ...

In their paper, Nikogosian and Kickbusch show how the effects of the adoption by the World Health Organization (WHO) of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and its first Protocol extend beyond tobacco control and contribute to public health governance more broadly, by revealing new processes, institutions and instruments. While there are certainly good reasons to be optimisti...

Trend detection in hydrologic and water quality time series has received considerable attention in the recent past for pure research purposes on methodological development and/or assessment of ecological status [1,2]. Trend assessment is of particular interest because environmental changes have been sometimes unusual in the past few decades with consequences on the environment in general, inclu...

The implementation of tobacco control measures is a political choice. Although tobacco control will improve the wellbeing of the populations that governments serve, the industry spares no attempt to deter, dilute, or delay effective measures for tobacco control, be it taxation or prominent pictorial health warnings. There is troubling evidence that the tobacco industry is exerting undue influen...

By the Aarhus Convention (1998) it is recognized the right of citizens to get access to and influence decision-making in respect to issues affecting the state of the environment. More specifically, in Article 8 it is stated that public authorities are forced to engage public participation when preparing regulations or legally binding rules that have a significant environmental impact. Towards t...