Nanotechnology Lawyer & Attorney : Porter Wright Morris & Arthur : Nanotechnology Law Report - Germanium nanobead image provided by UT-Battelle, which manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Department of Energy

If you're near Monash University on Friday March 11, you might want to stop by the Monash University Law Chambers (at 472 Bourke Street in Melbourne) to attend the launching party for "International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies" published by Edward Elgar Publishing - wonder if that means there'll be some "Pomp and CIrcumstance" ?

The International Handbook, edited by

 Graeme A. Hodge, Director, Monash Centre for Regulatory Studies, Faculty of Law, Monash University, Australia, Diana M. Bowman, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Health Policy, Programs and Economics, Melbourne School for Population Health, University of Melbourne, Australia and Andrew D. Maynard, Director, Risk Science Center, University of Michigan School of Public Health, US

discusses four areas of concern:

Part 1: Concepts and Foundations

Part 2: Framworks for Regulating Nanotechnologies

Part 3: Case Studies in Regulating Nanotechnologies and Nano-Products

Part 4: The Future Regulatory Landscape

Part 5 is a concluding chapter by the three editors referred to above.

John Monica, an attorney and noted author on nanotechnology himself, notes on the back cover of this treatise

`The Handbook's 26 chapters do a remarkable job of capturing the last decade of commentary and policy perspective regarding nano-related environmental health and safety regulatory issues, along with providing some fresh perspectives on where its future might be headed. It is an invaluable primer for those wanting to hear about the issue from some of the most authoritative voices in the area.'
 

To RSVP, please e-mail meli.voursoukis@monash.edu. Please RSVP by Thursday March 3, 2011

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On February 17 2011, the EPA, in conjunction with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the UK's Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC), announced the awarding of $12 million ($5.5 million from the EPA, $500,000 from CPSC, and $6 million from NERC) to three consortia to fund research aimed at providing a greater understanding of potential risks to human health and the environment posed by engineered nanomaterials and their increasing use in a wider variety of products.

The three consortia, the "Consortium for Manufactured Nanomaterial Bioavailability and Environmental Exposure", "Risk Assessment for Manufctured Nanoparticles Used in Consumer Products (RAMNUC)", and "The Transatlantic Initiative for Technology and the Environment", are composed of leading US and UK Universities and research centers, such as Duke University, Carnegie-Mellon University, and Lancaster University. NERC's $6 million is limited to participating universities and research centers in the UK.  The table below provides more information.

The results of the grant supported research "will help researchers determine whether certain nanomaterials can leach out of products . . . when they are used or disposed of and whether they could become toxic to people and the environment. The results could also be used by nanoindustries to create better and safer products.

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A new addition to the growing body of nanotechnology and law treatises will be coming out sometime this month. Carolina Academic Press is publishing Nanotechnology Law and Policy Cases and Materials by Victoria Sutton, the Paul Whitfield Horn Professor at Texas Tech University School of Law. The book,  a product of Professor Sutton's courses by the same title, focuses on the international, Federal, State, and municipal regulation of nanotechnology and discusses litigation involving nanotech products.

Judging from the table of contents, table of cases and table of statutes that are available from the Carolina Academic Press website, this looks like a title worth adding to a good nanotechnology library.

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