Extended producer responsibility: The EU WEEE directive goes global - strict law and order required or self-regulating market power a promising alternative?

About twenty years ago, the dominant principle of environmental protection, the so-called “polluter pays principle” was replaced by a new policy: the extended producer responsibility (EPR). With this paradigm shift to the EPR principle which considers producers as a specific type of polluter, legislators are expressing their belief that producers will be as efficient as - or even more efficient than - government in environmental protection. The concept seems to have been attractive as other countries and regions all over the world already copied or are now copying this legislative principle.