The Precautionary Principle in UK Environmental Law and Policy

Abstract

In the last decade the precautionary principle has entered into the lexicon of modern environmentalism with remarkable speed and stealth. Nowadays, it appears regularly in national legislation, in international statements of policy and in the texts of international conventions and protocols. More recently, it has been adopted as a guiding principle of environmental policy in both the EU and the UK, and it makes an appearance in the 1992 Rio Declaration (a statement of principles and general obligations to guide the international community towards actions that promote more environmentally sustainable forms of development). So frequently is the term invoked that Cameron and Abouchar (1991: 27) go as far as to posit that, if the present rate of proliferation is sustained into the future, precaution may well become ‘“the” fundamental principle of environmental protection policy and law at the international, regional, and local scales’ (emphasis in original). Even the more cautious of the principle’s advocates suggest that ‘the concept has at least approached the status of a rule of customary international law’ (Hey, 1992: 307).KeywordsSewage SludgeEnvironmental PolicyPrecautionary PrinciplePrecautionary MeasureMarine Pollution BulletinThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.