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The Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar SeriesThe Precautionary Principle in Environmental Policy
The concept first originated in national legislation in Germany's Emission Control Act. The Act when first adopted in 1968 already included the precautionary principle. It has also been enshrined in the 1990 Bergen Declaration and the Rio Declaration at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. The Bergen Declaration defined the Precautionary Principle as, "Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation." The Rio Declaration qualified "measures" as "cost-effective measures." Use of the precautionary principle is growing as seen recently by inclusion in the Biosafety Protocol as part of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Application of the precautionary principle at the international level faces many challenges because effective use of it is based on shared perceptions of scientific risk. However forging shared understandings of scientific outcomes is difficult because, "Uncertain science is simply a fact of life in environmental management." As well, very little is known compared to what remains to be learned about the functioning of complex biological systems. Shared scientific understandings of risk are also challenging to create because of the diversity of institutional arrangements between countries for generating scientific knowledge and for turning it into public policy. "Scientific research operates according to universal rules but because of the way it is organized one would expect different countries to have different research strengths because they ask different questions, are organized differently, and their reward structure is different." An example is provided by contrasting relations between government and scientific bodies in Germany and the United States. Germany's national advisory boards are autonomous from government and choose when and what information to provide to it, unlike the U.S. National Academy of Science that is chartered to always be available to provide scientific advice upon request to government. Risk assessment is one method of turning scientific information into precautionary public policies. It is a useful technique is for organizing information for analytical purposes to address para-scientific questions but it must also be seen as a specific emanation of the United States structure of government. The appeal of risk assessment in the U.S. is its use to underpin decisions and generate records in the context of competitive relations between government institutions. It is also clear that too few risk assessments are based on sound science. To make the precautionary principle work effectively at the international level several points were made. We need to recognize that both the problems that create the need for the precautionary principle and the challenges of applying it are universal, systematic, and will not solve themselves. To address these challenges, we must recognize the need for extraordinary, institutional sophistication and coordination at the international level. New structures will be needed to carry out this role. Effective international coordination will also require increasing the transparency of how scientific results are developed and used to form policy in different countries. At the same time, we need to explore the issue of "equivalency whereby we can live with a diversity of international approaches" to operationalizing the precautionary principle based on the production of differing but comparable scientific knowledge. "There is no need to harmonize beyond a point where things work adequately." A diversity of approaches to governance can also be seen to work well within integrated markets. Similarly, procedures need to be used to resolve conflicts in regard to equivalency. These procedures would examine "where different outcomes are appropriate and need to be left in place [as opposed to instances] where we have to ensure a greater degree of comparability." Finally, the World Trade Organization settlement process should be avoided in this regard. This is because at present it would produce inadequate results due to a poor balancing at present of trade and environmental policy goals at the international level. BiographyKonrad von Moltke works on international environmental relations. Recent work has focused on environmental policy and international economic relations: debt, trade and development. Dr. von Moltke is a Senior Fellow at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C., and at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. He is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College. He is editor of International Environmental Affairs, a journal for research and policy. He is President of Bioprime Ltd., a Vermont corporation devoted to the transfer of environmental technology from Europe. Dr. von Moltke studied mathematics at Dartmouth College (B.A. 1964) and medieval history at the University of Munich and the University of Gottingen (Ph.D. 1970). He taught at the State University of New York/Buffalo where he was also a member of the administration. From 1972 to 1974, Dr. von Moltke lived in Europe where he developed American Studies curriculum materials and was active in founding a number of private European policy-oriented institutions in the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam). Between 1976 and 1984, he was founding Director of the Institute for European Environmental Policy (Bonn, Paris, London), a private institution devoted to the analysis of policy alternatives for European environmental problems. List of articles and reports by Dr. Konrad von MoltkeCompiled in support of an Environment Canada Policy Research Seminar, held in Hull on March 10, 2000.
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