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Elizabeth R. DeSombre

Elizabeth R. DeSombre is Camilla Chandler Frost Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Wellesley College. She is the author of Flagging Standards: Globalization and Environmental, Safety, and Labor Regulations at Sea (MIT Press, 2006) and other books.

Titles by This Author

Flagging Standards

Globalization and Environmental, Safety, and Labor Regulations at Sea
By Elizabeth R. DeSombre

Shipping is among the most globalized of industries. Shipowners can choose where to register their vessels, based on cost, convenience, and the international and domestic regulations that would govern their operation. This system of open registration, also known as flags of convenience (FOC), can encourage a competition in regulatory laxity among states that want to attract shipping revenues—a race to the regulatory bottom. In Flagging Standards, Elizabeth DeSombre examines the effect of globalization on environmental, safety, and labor standards in the shipping industry.

Domestic Sources of International Environmental Policy

Industry, Environmentalists, and U.S. Power
By Elizabeth R. DeSombre

How do international environmental standards come into being? One important way, as Elizabeth DeSombre shows in this book, is through the internationalization of regulations that one or more countries have undertaken domestically. Domestic environmental regulation, DeSombre argues, can create an incentive for environmentalists and industry—previously at odds with each other—to work together to shape international environmental policy. For environmentalists, international regulation offers greater protection of a resource.