The Precautionary Principle: A Critical Appraisal of Environmental Risk Assessment

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Cato Institute, 2001 - 119 pages
"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 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."--BOOK JACKET.

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Contents

ESCAPING GOBLINS ONLY TO BE CAPTURED BY WOLVES?
1
DDT SILENT SPRING OR SILENT PEOPLE?
13
THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS
29
GLOBAL WARMING FROM THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE?
57
ENSURING THAT GOOD INTENTIONS DO NOT SPAWN BAD OUTCOMES
89
REFERENCES
95
INDEX
109
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Page 5 - In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
Page 54 - Establish or maintain means to regulate, manage or control the risks associated with the use and release of living modified organisms resulting from biotechnology which are likely to have adverse environmental impacts that could affect the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, taking also into account the risks to human health...
Page 5 - 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 56 - Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Page 6 - To achieve this, such policies and measures should take into account different socio-economic contexts, be comprehensive, cover all relevant sources, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases and adaptation, and comprise all economic sectors. Efforts to address climate change may be carried out cooperatively by interested Parties.
Page 2 - When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.
Page 5 - Parties to them, under other relevant international agreements, particularly the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity, in order to derive maximum benefit from activities under each agreement while avoiding duplication of effort.
Page 53 - Protocol is to contribute to ensuring an adequate level of protection in the field of the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology that may have adverse effects on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, taking also into account risks to human health, and specifically focusing on transboundary movements.
Page 53 - Establish a system of protected areas or areas where special measures need to be taken to conserve biological diversity: (b) Develop, where necessary, guidelines for the selection, establishment and management of protected areas or areas where special measures need to be taken to conserve biological diversity...
Page 54 - The Parties shall consider the need for and modalities of a protocol setting out appropriate procedures, including, in particular, advance informed agreement, in the field of the safe transfer, handling and use of any living modified organism resulting from biotechnology that may have adverse effect on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.

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