Māris kļaviņŠ, azamat azizov, JĀnis zaļoksnis environment, pollution, development: the case of uzbekistan

Voluntarily  made  commitments (self-regulation). Self-regu-
la tion is rooted in the idea that enterprises voluntarily assume 
additional commitment for environ mental protection.
Another  form  of  self-regulation  is  environ mental  audit, which 
is carried out within the framework of the environ mental  manage-
ment and audit system established by law. When a company becomes 
involved in this system on a voluntary basis, it commits itself to 
develop and implement its own environ mental policy and regu-
larly conduct environ mental audits, that is, to check whether the 
company’s environ mental policy is being implemented, whether 
the environ mental protection investments are not spent in vain and 
whether the company’s business activity meets the environ mental 
protection requirements. The purpose of such a system is to encour-
age the involved companies to be more environ ment-friendly, at the 
same time gaining some benefits from the involvement in the sys-
tem – to raise their competitiveness in the market.
Another  self-regulation  measure  is  eco-labelling. Eco-labels 
provide consumers with information on the environ mental impact 
of products.
In Europe, a transition to a new public management model took 
place in the 90s of the 20
th
 century. In accordance with this mod-
el, public management takes over the management style typical to 
the private sector, i.e. it is aimed at economy and efficiency. As a 
consequence, environ mental regulation has been increasingly using 
economic means with the objective to promote economy that would 
be economically viable and environ mental friendly at the same time. 

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11. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT: LEGISLATION, POLICIES, INSTITUTIONS
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Examples  of  such  means  include  environ mental  taxes  (in  Latvia  – 
the natural resource tax) and the EU’s newly implemented pollution 
rights trading system. This system provides that a company which, 
as a result of technical improvements, has not used all the allocated 
CO
2 
and other greenhouse gas emission allowances, can sell the un-
used allowances to another company.
To make the right decisions, accurate information is needed first 
of all. The information at the basis of making political decisions and 
dealing with environ mental issues has to be public and transparent. 
Today, obtaining environ mental information has become one of the 
state functions. Environ mental laws require the state to establish and 
maintain registers and databases, providing access, for example, to 
the data on environ mental situation, pollution and its sources, state-
issued permits for polluting activities, environ mental monitoring, 
environ mental impact studies, as well as environ mental legislation 
and policy documents.
At the same time, public access to the environ mental information 
at the disposal of the state has been significantly liberalised – in the 
EU Member States, the right of public access to this information is 
stipulated by law. The state has to create publicly available and free 
online databases, the publicly available environ mental information 
has to be presented in an easily perceivable and comprehensible 
manner, the requesters of the environ 
mental information do 
not need to provide reasons why they need this information. The 
receipt of environ mental information can be restricted only in 
the cases specified by law. However, it should be noted that these 
requirements for public access to environ mental information does 
not apply to private companies.
Finally, the right of society – any of its member – to apply to 
court, so that it would verify whether the decisions or actions of the 
state itself (its authorities) comply with the requirements of environ-
mental legislation can also be considered a means of environ mental 
legal regulation.