The precautionary principle and environmental monitoring

摘要

Too much of the enormous amount written about the Precautionary Principle (e.g. even the comprehensive recent handbook by Tickner and Raffensperger (1999)) implies that our knowledge of the uncertainty of environmental risk from similar industrial developments is static. The Precautionary Principle is taken here to mean that if information about the environmental impacts of a development is sparse then appropriate precautionary action should be taken, e.g. the development can be refused, or it can be permitted but with appropriate constraints, such as waste management controls, and with monitoring and effective information feedback to the industry and regulators. An alternative understanding of the Precautionary Principle is that if a development cannot be proved environmentally safe, then it should not proceed, but that is not used here.