Charles Cheney Humpstone

The same environmental concerns that have found public and political voice in the United States over the past five years have emerged in other countries and governments and in international organizations as well. For the most part, however, international action has not yet taken an effective form. The organizations and individuals who have attempted to identify aspects of pollution that have international effects have done so with varying success. Their efforts are characteristic of our own examination of pollution problems: two conflicting definitions of pollution and correspondingly conflicting approaches to pollution control repeatedly emerge. A dispute continues between the absolute duty to release nothing harmful and the relative duty to do no more harm than is reasonable under the circumstances.