Legal Control of Industrial Air Pollution in Israel

Abstract

Unlike Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States and others, Israel has no comprehensive legislative code for environmental protection generally, and air pollution control in particular. It has rather over twenty statutes and other enactments of which about half relate to a greater or lesser extent to air quality. Responsibility for setting norms, coordinating programmes, supervision of standards and their enforcement is distributed among various government bodies, both central and local, on a pragmatic principle. Accordingly it is perhaps more useful to analyse the situation from a functional viewpoint, namely: 1) the planning of industrial location, 2) the implementation of policy in the establishment and construction of industrial plants, 3) the management of industrial operations, and 4) private and governmental supervision of air quality, external to the industry.