The United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, it took until the 1840s to bring onto the statute books legislation to control water pollution. It was extended to all rivers and coastal water by 1961. However, currently the clean up of historic contamination is controlled under a specific statutory scheme found in Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (Part IIA), as inserted by the Environment Act 1995, and other ‘rules’ found in regulations and statutory guidance. The Act came into force in England in April 2000.

Within the current regulatory framework, Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) is a regime for controlling pollution from certain industrial activities. The regime introduces the concept of Best Available Techniques ("BAT") to environmental regulations. Operators must use the BAT to control pollution from their industrial activities to prevent, and where that is not practicable, to reduce to acceptable levels, pollution to air, land and water from industrial activities. The Best Available Techniques also aim to balance the cost to the operator against benefits to the environment. The system of Pollution Prevention and Control is replacing that of Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) (which was established by the Environmental Protection Act 1990) and is taking effect between 2000 and 2007. The Pollution Prevention and Control regime implements the European Directive (EC/96/61) on integrated pollution prevention and control.

China

China's rapid industrialization has substantially increased pollution. China has some relevant regulations: the 1979 Environmental Protection Law, which was largely modelled on U.S. legislation. But the environment continues to deteriorate.^[4] Twelve years after the law, only one Chinese city was making an effort to clean up its water discharges.^[5] This indicates that China is about 30 years behind the U.S. schedule of environmental regulation and 10 to 20 years behind Europe.

22. Terrorism and Disarmament

The role of the Department for Disarmament Affairs

The Secretary-General, in his address to the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security held in Madrid in March 2005, declared that terrorism is a threat to all States and to all peoples and that the United Nations must be at the forefront in fighting against it. In its Outcome Document, adopted 13 September 2005, the 2005 World Summit condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and acknowledged the important role played by the United Nations in combating it. The World Summit also stressed the vital contribution of regional and bilateral cooperation, particularly at the practical levels of law enforcement cooperation and technical exchange.

The Outcome Document went on to urge the United Nations, to assist States in building national and regional capacity to combat terrorism and invited the Secretary-General to submit proposals to the General Assembly and the Security Council to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations system to assist States in combating terrorism and to enhance the coordination of United Nations activities in this regard.

The basic elements of a comprehensive United Nations counter-terrorism strategy that the Secretary-General first set out in his statement to the Madrid Summit mentioned above were reflected in the Outcome document. These basic elements, also known as the "five D's" are:

• to dissuade disaffected groups from choosing terrorism as a tactic to achieve their goals;

• to deny terrorists the means to carry out their attacks;

• to deter States from supporting terrorists;

• to develop State capacity to prevent terrorism; and

• to defend human rights in the struggle against terrorism.

Two of those elements are directly relevant to the work of DDA, namely, denying terrorists the means to carry out their attacks; and developing States' capacity to prevent terrorism. Both of these elements are directly addressed through the activities of the Department.

DDA provides substantive support to the work of the Committee established pursuant to United Nations Security Council resolution 1540 (2004). In this resolution, the Security Council decided that all States shall refrain from providing any form of support to non-state actors that attempt to develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer or use nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery, and required all States to adopt and enforce appropriate effective laws to this effect. The resolution also required them to establish various types of domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of such weapons. In this connection, DDA supports all aspects of the work of the experts serving the 1540 Committee; maintains the Committee's website; and also supports the work of the Committee and its experts in facilitating the provision of technical assistance to Member States, where required, for the effective implementation of UNSC resolution 1540.

DDA also promotes the universalization of a series of international and regional instruments in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation all of which have a direct bearing on many aspects of the terrorist threat. DDA therefore encourages States to implement their obligations under those instruments and assists them in capacity-building across a broad range of issues, including small arms and light weapons, through projects implemented by its three Regional Centres for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.