1.0 INTRODUCTION

The objective of environmental protection can only be achieved through a process in which pre-set environmental controls are effectively implemented. The setting of environmental quality standards is one of the common approaches towards protection of human health and the
environment. Different terms such as criteria, guidelines, objectives and standards are normally used to depict the controls that are usually incorporated in legal instruments governing the environment and tend to have a normative and binding effect. Such controls, however, are not self
executing.

For the controls to be effective, a corpus of environmental laws in which those controls are in-built, must be adopted through a machinery in which the regulator and the regulated have conceded the need for environmental
regulation. Involvement of stake-holders in the setting of environmental standards is vital especially in jurisdictions which do not provide incentive for compliance but rather, depend solely on "command and control" approaches.

For purposes of this report, the terms used are defined as follows:

"guidelines" means numerical limits or normative statements which are set to support and maintain designated uses of the environment and human health,

standards" means fixed maximum limits to exposure, and/ or emission of, certain chemicals that are recognised, in enforceable laws by one or more levels of government. Standards do also include threshold (limits) values for air
- borne concentrations of industrial chemicals at work- places.