Legal and political aspects of the regulation of chemicals: Swiss environmental protection law.

The premises for regulations in the field of ecology demonstrate clear scientific deficiency regarding basic relations in technical and scientific aspects but also a deep political disagreement on how to cope with them. These characteristics result in a new kind of law whose prime notion is to satisfy a social concern. The Swiss ecology regulation may be qualified as a so-called "tentative legislation." The structure of this kind of legislation is shown in the use of unclear notions, goal-oriented rules, and deviation to governmental and administrative regulation and may even lead to a more or less symbolic use of legislation.