Model of Legal Framework for Soil and Aquifer Protection in Mesoamerican Countries

In response to the interest of Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panam/t, and Dominican Republic governments, members of the Mesoamerica Project, in developing a common approach for the regulation of the integral management of hazardous materials and wastes contaminated sites, learning from Mexico＇s experience in the field, a systematic review of key legislations to support it in each country was developed, having in mind the right to a healthy environment as a human right. Particular attention was paid to the crucial factors to consider for the effective application of the intended regulation, regardless of the differences on the particular legal regimes in each country.     

Fear and Loathing in California: Contextual Threat and Political Sophistication Among Latino Voters

Environments having candidates or policies deemed threatening to an individual or group have previously been found to trigger feelings of anxiety that in turn motivate people to closely monitor political affairs. Racially charged ballot propositions, and the strong feelings they evoked, made California in the mid-1990s just such an environment for Latino citizens—resulting, we believe, in higher levels of political information. Using the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute's 1997 postelection survey of Hispanic citizens, we compare levels of political knowledge between naturalized and native-born Latino citizens in California and similarly situated Latino citizens in Texas. We find that, as a result of these highly publicized and controversial initiatives, Latino immigrants in California (a) are more likely than native-born Latinos and Latinos outside California to perceive racial issues as most important, and (b) manifest higher levels of political information than their fellow native-born Latinos and Latino citizens outside of California, controlling for other well-recognized predictors of political information levels.