The Global Governance of Toxics: Adoption Patterns of Pollutant Release and Transfer Registries in the European Union and North America.

The last two decades have witnessed an increasing deployment of innovative environmental policy instruments that seek to lighten the burden on government to enforce strict regulations. Toxic emission inventories have gained popularity because of their assumed non-regulatory approach. After the Aarhus Convention recently entered into full force, more countries have started to implement pollutant release and transfer registries (PRTRs) worldwide. However, even though the basic assumptions under all of these programmes are the same (reducing toxic emissions), the patterns of adoption have varied greatly. In the case of North American PRTRs, the forces behind implementation have not been the same than in OECD and European Union countries. Moreover, development of implementation plans in EU countries seems to have followed diverging patterns than those in North America. This paper uses a historical approach to investigate this apparent disconnect. Lessons for the global governance of toxics are drawn from this comparison. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]