Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The precautionary principle is a regulatory approach, under conditions of scientific uncertainty , requiring that a new chemical or technology be regulated or banned until it is proven safe. This principle was developed in opposition to the dominant regulatory standard, which requires affirmative evidence of harm before regulatory action can be taken. These two approaches designate a central conflict in environmental and food regulation, particularly related to chemical release and use of genetically modified organisms. Precautionary approaches to regulation have existed for much of the past century. For example, the United States Food and Drug Administration works on a precautionary model for drugs and food additives. Thus, pharmaceutical companies cannot market a drug in the United States until it is explicitly approved following affirmative evidence of safety. Precaution as an explicit principle of policymaking has more recent origins. It arose out of 1970s German environmental policy, particularly the Vorsorgeprinzip (foresight principle). In international regulation it was first codified in the 1984 First International Convention on Protection of the North Sea. Its most important articulation may be found in the Rio Declaration of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, which states in Principle 15 that the “lack of full scientific certainty” should not prevent ... log in or subscribe to read full text