The Application Of The Precautionary Principle In Practice

This overview of the role played by the precautionary principle in international trade law, European law and national law compares how precautionary considerations have been applied in the fields of pesticide regulation and the regulation of base stations for mobile telephones in Sweden, the UK and the US. A number of problems in the current application of the precautionary principle are identified and discussed. For example, it is shown that a firm reliance on a wide and open-ended precautionary principle may lead to problems with the consistency, foreseeability, effectiveness and efficiency of measures intended to reduce environmental or health risks. It is suggested that the precautionary principle indeed may be an important tool, but that in order to be acceptable it must be coupled with strong requirements on the performance of risk assessments, cost/benefit analyses and risk trade-off analyses.

The precautionary principle puts forward the 'commonsense' notion that decision-makers should be cautious when assessing potential health or environmental harms in the absence of the full scientific facts. It is now a well-established tenet of environmental law. The debate has turned to its legal implementation, especially its application 'in practice'. The Precautionary Principle in Practice - Environmental decision-making and scientific uncertainty focuses on these issues. It considers how decision-makers can assess threats to health or the environment when the available scientific evidence is sparse and discusses the types of 'uncertainties' that bring the precautionary principle into play.Peel uses detailed case studies which examine the implementation of the precautionary principle in actual decision-making scenarios: fisheries management; risk assessment for genetically modified organisms; and environmental impact assessment for development applications. She demonstrates an approach that takes account of variable uncertainty issues and can be adapted to different circumstances to ensure a comprehensive assessment of the potential threats to health or the environment. Jackie Peel has a background in both science and law. She took a BSC/LLB with 1st class honours at the University of Queensland and holds an LLM from New York University where she studied in 1999-2000 as a Fulbright Scholar. She is now is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne.

Great uncertainty typically surrounds decisions and management actions in the conservation of biodiversity and natural resource management, and yet there are risks of serious and irreversible harm for both biodiversity and the humans that rely on it. The precautionary principle arguably underlies all international conservation efforts and promotes acting to avoid serious or irreversible environmental harm, despite lack of scientific certainty as to the likelihood, magnitude or cause of harm. This book is the first to examine the application of the precautionary principle to biodiversity conservation and natural resource management, incorporating perspectives from scientists, economists, lawyers and practitioners from both developing and developed countries. It analyses the application and impacts of the principle in many areas including forestry, invasive alien species, wildlife trade, protected areas and fisheries, in a range of national and international contexts. Particular attention is drawn to issues of equity, livelihoods, science and politics, and the book provides guidelines for applying the precautionary principle to biodiversity conservation and natural resource management.

Papers presented at the meetings facilitated by the Sanders Institute at the Faculty of Law of the Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Law School of the University of Hull.

The precautionary principle, or precautionary approach, is now widely accepted in environmental law and policy at international and, increasingly, national level. However, the principle remains highly controversial, its meaning contested, its acceptance and implementation inconsistent across sectors and contexts and its impacts unclear. This paper aims to inform and assist IUCN and its members in developing greater shared understanding of the meaning and implementation of the principle in the context of biodiversity conservation and natural resource management, respecting priorities of both conservation and sustainable development. It examines the meaning of the precautionary principle and its incorporation into biodiversity and resource management law and policy, and discusses a series of issues raised by its implementation in this sector for biodiversity conservation and for livelihoods and poverty alleviation.

The precautionary principle—which holds that action to address threats of serious or irreversible environmental harm should be taken even in the absence of scientific certainty—has been accepted as a key feature of environmental law throughout the European Union. In the United States, however, it is still widely unknown, and much of what has been written on the topic takes a negative view. Precautionary Politics provides a comprehensive analysis of the precautionary principle—its origins and development, its meaning and rationale, its theoretical context, and its policy implications. Kerry Whiteside looks at the application of the principle (and the controversies it has stirred) and compares European and American attitudes toward it and toward environmental regulation in general. Too often, Whiteside argues, American critics of the precautionary principle pay insufficient attention to how the principle has been debated, refined, and elaborated elsewhere. Precautionary Politics fills this gap. Whiteside demonstrates the different responses of Europe and the United States, first by describing the controversy over genetically modified crops, and then by using this example throughout the book to illustrate application of the precautionary principle in different contexts. He contrasts the European view that new types of risk require specially adapted modes of regulation with the American method of science-based risk assessment, and argues that despite Bush administration opposition, U.S.-European convergence on precaution is possible. Finally, he looks at the ways in which participatory innovation can help produce environmentally positive results. Whiteside's systematic defense of the precautionary principle will be an important resource for students, scholars, activists, and policymakers and is particularly suitable for classroom use.

This challenging book takes a broad and thought-provoking look at the precautionary principle and its implementation, or potential implementation, in a number of fields. In particular, the essays within the book explore the challenges faced by public decision-making processes when applying the precautionary principle, including its role in risk management and risk assessment. Frameworks for improved decision making are considered, followed by a detailed analysis of prospective applications of the precautionary principle in a number of emerging fields including: nanotechnology, climate change.

The "precautionary principle" -- the environmental version of the admonition first, do no harm -- is now enshrined in numerous international environmental agreements including treaties addressing global warming, biological diversity, and various pollutants. Some environmentalists have invoked this principle to justify policies to control, if not ban, any technology that cannot be proven to cause no harm. In this innovative book, Goklany shows that the current use of the precautionary principle to justify such policies is flawed and could be counterproductive because it ignores the possible calamities those very policies might simultaneously create or prolong. The precautionary principle, unfortunately, does not provide any method of resolving such dilemmas, which are commonplace in the field of environmental policy. To address that problem, Goklany develops a framework consistent with the precautionary principle to resolve such dilemmas. That framework ranks potential threats to the environment on the basis of their nature, magnitude, immediacy, uncertainty, persistence, and the extent to which they can be alleviated. Applying that framework to three contentious environmental policy issues facing humanity and the globe -- DDT, bioengineered crops, and global warming -- Goklany shows that some popular policy prescriptions, despite good intentions, are in fact likely to do more harm than good.