CHAPTER 6

Techniques and Procedures in

Environmental
Law

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1. Introduction
• Various techniques and procedures have been used
for the purpose of implementation of the
environmental policies and legislation.
• Environmental protection requires reducing hazards
from pollution and interferences with life-support
systems like the ecosystem and the global climate.
• It also requires measures to conserve landscapes,
cultural heritage and wildlife.
• Prudent use of natural resources is a key to
environmental protection.

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• Environmental law aims to prevent environmental
harm by adopting various methods and institutions
(judicial and administrative).
2. Environmental Standards
• All human activities generate pollution which
contaminates one or more environmental
“compartments” (air, water, land, ecosystems).
• When the concentration of a given pollutant in the
environment becomes too high, it can cause serious
environmental damage and/or health impacts
depending on its toxicity.

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• As a typical example, the EC Drinking Water
Directive stipulates that the maximum permissible
concentration of iron (Fe) in drinking water shall not
exceed 200 μgl–1 (parts per billion) or the Ethiopian
standard of lead (Pb) concentration which is 0.5
µg/m3 micrograms (one-millionth of a gram) per
cubic meter of air.
• Another example:
The total concentration of leads in paint or any
paint product that uses lead in paint as an input shall
not be above 90 parts per million.
Lead in Paint Control Council of Ministers Regulation
No. 429/2018, Art. 4 (1) 4
An environmental standard is a permissible limit of a
certain pollutant in a medium (e.g. air, water, soil, …)
• There are a number of different types of environmental
standards. For the sake of simplicity, four types are briefly
discussed here.

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A. Environmental Quality Standards
B. Emission Standards
C. Process Standards
D. Product Standards

E. Environmental Quality Standards

• Levels of exposure to pollutants which should not
be exceeded.
• It may be set by reference to a particular medium
(e.g. a river or an area where air quality or noise
levels are fixed within factories or any other
enclosed area).
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• Examples of environmental quality standards
include:
a) Setting air quality standards for the maximum
concentration of any specified pollutant in the air;
b) Setting water quality standards for the
concentration of specified pollutants in (e.g. a lake
or a river).
o The USA standard  maximum lead concentration in
drinking water is 15 µg/L and they are working towards
10 µg/L;
o The Ethiopian standard  lead concentration for surface
water is 50 µg/L and for underground water is 1.0 µg/L
(Guideline Ambient Environment Standards for Ethiopia,
2003) 7
 STANDARDS FOR NOISE
Source: GUIDELINE AMBIENT ENVIRONMENT STANDARDS FOR
ETHIOPIA, 2003

Limits in dB
(A)

Category of
Area Code Day time Night time
area

A Industrial area 75 70

Commercial
B 65 55
area

C Residential area 55 45
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B. Emission Standards
• The maximum allowable discharges of pollutants
into the environment from fixed points; for example,
the maximum emissions that may be discharged into
the atmosphere from industrial stacks or chimneys
measured in weight per unit time or concentration;
• Emission standards are commonly described in one
or more of the following ways:
– weight of pollutants per unit volume of discharged gas,
for example, micrograms per cubic meter;
– volume of pollutants per unit volume of discharged gas,
for example, parts per million.
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A draft directive submitted to the Ministry of Transport and Logistics for
vehicular emission standards. Note: If this directive is approved, Ethiopia will
use a Euro-4 emission standard. Currently, many European countries are using
a Euro-6 standard.

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C. Process Standards
• Process standards specify design requirements or
operating procedures applicable to fixed installations such
as factories or the means and methods of activities like
hunting or fishing.
 A particular production process or technique may be imposed on
operations. (E.g. The Ethiopian Draft Directive for Environmentally
Sound Management of Lead-acid Batteries states that):
– “Melting and smelting operations shall be undertaken in a
safe, hygienic and controlled manner such that all fume and
dust is captured. For this all furnace openings shall be
equipped with fume hoods that effectively capture all dust and
fumes and ventilate them to a filter plant, also during furnace
charging and tapping operations. Furnace charging shall refer
to automated or semi-automated charging methods.”
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D. Product Standards
• This may be done with the aim of protecting against
damage the product may cause whilst it is being
used, or when it is disposed of, or even when it is
manufactured.
• Product standards may regulate (e.g. the physical or
chemical composition of items such as
pharmaceuticals or the sulfur content of fuels or list
of substances whose presence is forbidden in certain
products, for instance, mercury in pesticides).

 Poor quality products spoil the environment!

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3. The Need for Scientific Determination of
Standard Levels
• Up to now, little science and much guesswork have
gone into the establishment of environmental
standards.
Reason  in most fields, scientific principles for
the setting of standards have not yet been
developed.
Lack of precise scientific principles to set
environmental standards would lead to the
development of poor environmental standards.
As a result of this, the environmental standards may
be unreasonably strict or they may be extremely 13
• Pollutants are measured in parts per million, trillion,
or quadrillion.
• This may be taken as a very little concentration.
– However, such a concentration may cause disastrous
consequences.
– PPM means 1 milliliter of solute/liter of solution
(water) or 1 gram/kilogram of solid.
• The standard should strive to avoid social and
environmental costs.
• It is not feasible or even impossible to provide an
absolute protection for the life and health of people
by setting standards, even if such standards are
extremely strict. 14
• Standards are set to minimize risk conditions, not to
avoid them totally  Avoiding risk is one of the
impossibilities.
• There are challenges irrespective of standards. One
of the challenges is bioaccumulation.
As compared to the
concentration of a certain
pollutant (e.g. DDT), the one
in the human body or in the
body of a predator bird
could be as high as 106 (1
million) times more than its
concentration in the water
microorganisms. 15
 An Example of Bioaccumulation
Assume that factory “X” releases discharges into the nearby river. It
is believed by experts that the concentration of chemical “Y” should
not exceed 0.5 parts per million (ppm) in the discharge, so as not to
affect life in the river. (Chemical “Y” is a pollutant). Fats and bones
of animals have great ability to capture most deadly pollutants.
Hence, it is most likely that chemical “Y” is being captured by the
fats and bones of animals live in the river. As it is known, there exists
a complex prey-predator relationship in the river. That is, smaller fish
are eaten by medium-size fish and the medium-size fish are eaten by
bigger fish. Although 0.5 ppm concentration is believed not to affect
life in the river, as a result of the complex food chain, the
concentration of the pollutant chemical increases as we go from the
smallest prey to the biggest predator. Human beings may be the last
predator in this case and you may imagine how far the concentration
of pollutant chemical “Y” would be in human beings.

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4. Restrictions and Prohibitions
A) Limits or Bans
• If an activity, product or process presents a risk of
environmental harm, strict measures can be imposed
in an effort to reduce or eliminate the harm.
• When the likelihood of risk is too big, the measure
may call for a total product or process ban.
• Regarding restrictions/prohibitions, the Rio
Declaration (Principle 14) states that:
“States should effectively cooperate to discourage or
prevent the relocation and transfer to other States of any
activities and substances that cause severe environmental
degradation or are found to be harmful to human 17
• Article 16 (4) of Hazardous Waste Management and
Disposal Control Proclamation No. 1090/2018 states that:
“The importation of any hazardous wastes is prohibited.”

B. Trade Measures
• Several environmental treaties mandate the use of trade
restrictions or require the imposition of limits on taking
specimens of protected living or non-living resources.
• These treaties include:
– Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species
(CITES);
– Basel and Bamako Conventions on Hazardous Waste;
– Montreal Protocol (on reducing/banning trade in ozone-
depleting substances).
– Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants 18
• The types of restrictions vary and they include:
– Hunting and collecting restrictions;
– Import/export restrictions.
• E.g. The following are prohibited unless a permit is
obtained from the Authority or the concerned
regional organs, as appropriate:
a) Any activity of trade in wildlife and their products;
b) The ownership, sale, transfer, export or import of any
processed or unprocessed wildlife product.

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5. Enforcement and Remedies
• In spite of all preventive efforts, environmental
harm does occur, sometimes through intentional or
negligent conduct, sometimes by accident.
• In order to deter wrongful conduct and remedy
violations that take place, the law must determine
appropriate enforcement actions and remedies.
• Legal systems must also decide who should bear the
loss when accidental harm occurs.
• Rio Declaration, Principle 10, emphasizes on the
need of these conditions by saying:
– “Effective access to judicial and administrative
proceedings, including redress and remedy, shall be 20
• Whosoever pollutes the environment by illegally
importing hazardous waste shall be punished with
rigorous imprisonment not exceeding ten years, and
with fine not less than Five Million Birr. (Article 21
(3) of the Hazardous Waste Proclamation No.
1090/2018)

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