As regulators increasingly organise around risks rather than around their
own familiar programmes and processes, their focus shifts from their
own regulatory performance to the challenge of regulatory orchestration.
The reasons are clear. Real-world risks do not conform to national
boundaries. Nor do they align neatly with the domains of responsibility
carved out for specific regulatory and law-enforcement agencies.
Many of today’s most critical environmental risks, including a significant
number of transnational environmental crimes, are especially
dangerous precisely because of their awkward shape and the difficulty
of organising around them. Examples covered in this volume include
the transportation and dumping of toxic wastes; illegal logging and
fishing operations; trafficking in environmentally critical commodities
such as ozone-depleting substances, exotic species, endangered species,
ivory, and rhino horns; the illegal transportation of Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment (WEEE); and the illegal wildlife trade, including
flora and fauna.
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