An article on the symposium titled “Environmental Law Practitioner Roundtable (Part 3): This Year’s Forecast of the Development of Environmental Law” in which Kenji Sarukura participated as a panelist was published in the March 2025 issue of the monthly magazine “Environment Management” (Vol. 61 No. 3).
– Soil Contamination Countermeasures Act
– Measures to address chemical substances
– Future product design (Plastics, PFAS)
“The serial article ’The depth of environmental issues observed by law practitioners’ of this journal is written by law practitioners who are members of the Environmental Law Experts Committee of the Japan CSR Promotion Association. The theme of the third symposium is ‘Future Development of Environmental Law.’ The two main topics are: (i) the Soil Contamination Countermeasures Act and land trading and (ii) measures and regulations regarding chemical substances. In the past, soil contamination was mostly addressed by replacing the soil on a large scale; however, there is now an option to block risks from underground soil contamination by covering the land with concrete, etc. In the future, there will be an issue of excess land lots due to population decrease. Regulations on chemical substances entail the significant issue of trade-offs with various functions and convenience yielded by PFAS. Unlike the time when pollution could be addressed by restricting excessive emissions of hazardous substances, the environmental law practitioners’ work continues to be more diverse and sophisticated, as they are dealing with complex environmental issues that cannot be simply classified as good or bad. Their more active involvement is anticipated.”
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