The Role of Laws Within the Governance of Volcanic Risks

Abstract

The governance of volcanic risks does not take place in a vacuum. In many cultures, volcanic risks are perceived to be susceptible to governance with the objective of achieving their effective mitigation, and have become the responsibility of the institutions and stakeholders of relevant social communities. An array of international, national and local laws dictate governance infrastructures, the roles of duty holders and beneficiaries and the relationships between them (the stakeholders), duties and rights (the stakes) and acceptable standards of safety and wellbeing (the ultimate rewards). Many regional, national and local stakeholders (individuals and entities) have a range of different, yet complementary, roles, duties, rights and powers. Much of this chapter, which has two main sections, represents a summary of a longer paper (Bretton et al. 2015) that addresses legal aspects of the future governance of volcanic risks. After a general introduction to relevant terminology in the first section, the second section describes the significant threat posed by periods of volcanic unrest. The third section contains a general introduction to the critical concept of risk which lies at the heart of governance and provides a more detailed description of the many roles that national laws play. Reference is also made to international law which has an increasingly important role in the absence of relevant national laws, or when national laws are inadequate, ineffective or unenforced.