Implementing the Precautionary Principle: Perspectives and Prospects

Front Cover
Elizabeth Charlotte Fisher, Judith S. Jones, René von Schomberg
Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006 M01 1 - 336 pages
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.

From inside the book

Contents

perspectives and prospects
1
PART 1 General Implications of the Precautionary Principle for Public Decision Making
17
2 The precautionary principle and its normative challenges
19
3 The role of science and precaution in environmental and public health policy
42
lessons from a constitutional reform in France
63
5 Precautionary policy assessment for sustainability
88
PART II The Challenges Involved in Implementing the Precautionary Principle
111
the development of frameworks for applying the precautionary principle
113
lessons for judicial review
182
10 Precautionary only in name? Tensions between precaution and risk assessment in the Australian GMO reulatory framework
202
PART III Prospective Applications of the Precautionary Principle in Specific Fields
221
11 A long and winding road? Precaution from principle to practice in biodiversity conservation
223
12 Climate change and the precautionary principle
245
13 The tension between fiction and precaution in nanotechnology
270
integrating science and participation in the social appraisal of risk
284
Index
316

the precautionary principle in an Australian administrative context
137
precaution in WTO decision making
160

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Popular passages

Page 240 - In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.
Page 255 - Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.
Page 137 - The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects, where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures...
Page 255 - The ultimate objective of the Convention is to achieve the 'stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate...
Page 86 - Rapport fait au nom de la commission des lois constitutionnelles, de la législation et de l'administration générale...
Page 46 - All scientific work is incomplete - whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have or to postpone the action that it appears to demand at a given time
Page 88 - ARE: — to enhance individual and community well-being and welfare by following a path of economic development that safeguards the welfare of future generations...
Page 226 - Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Contiguous Atlantic Area...
Page 39 - Where there is uncertainty as to the existence or extent of risks to human health, the institutions may take protective measures without having to wait until the reality and seriousness of those risks become fully apparent"; paras.

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