Japanese environmental regulations

Abstract

After World War Two (WW2), Japan sought for industrial development and entered a high-growth period with the growth of baby boomers. However, the Japanese focused too much on the development and neglected consideration for environmental protection. As a result, many unfortunate affairs relating to environmental pollution occurred in Japan. Then the Japanese government finally decided to establish the Environmental Basic Act of 1993. Since then, their environmental policy has been going in the right direction based on the viewpoint of protection. In this chapter, we describe the history for the development of environmental protection acts in Japan and explain some of the important ones.