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The precautionary principle has its beginnings
in the German principle of Vorsorge, or foresight. At the
core of early conceptions of this principle was the belief that
society should seek to avoid environmental damage by careful forward
planning and blocking the flow of potentially harmful activities.
The Vorsorgeprinzip developed in the early 1970s into a fundamental
principle of German environmental law (balanced by principles of
economic viability). It has also led to the development of a strong
environmental industry in that country. The precautionary principle
has since flourished in international statements of policy and conventions
dealing with high-stakes environmental concerns in which the science
is uncertain and there is a need for global strategies for sustainable
development.
Primarily outside of the United States (U.S.),
the precautionary principle is widely used as a guideline for environmental
decision-making. Several international agreements incorporate versions
of it in their texts. The most widely used description of the precautionary
principle is found in Article 15 of the Rio declaration of 1992,
also known as Agenda 21:
"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."
Because the U.S. signed and ratified the Rio
Declaration, it is bound to use the precautionary principle; it
is not a matter of whether the U.S. will abide by the precautionary
principle, but how. Nevertheless, application of the principle is
far more advanced in Europe and on the international level than
it is in the U.S. Despite U.S. acceptance of the precautionary principle
in international treaties and other statements, little work has
been done to implement the principle. In some cases, especially
those involving trade and proactive legislation in places like Europe,
the U.S. government is actively lobbying against precautionary actions
by other governments.
The precautionary principle was also accepted
as the basis of the Cartegena Biosafety Protocol agreed upon in
Montreal in January 2000, signed by 68 nations who attended the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference in Nairobi in
May 2000. The principle is to be applied to all genetically modified
organisms (GMO) whether used as food or as seeds for environmental
release. The principle was introduced in 1984 at the First International
Conference on Protection of the North Sea. Following this conference,
the principle was integrated into numerous international conventions
and agreements, including the Bergen declaration on sustainable
development, the Maastricht Treaty on the European Union, the Barcelona
Convention, and the Global Climate Change Convention.
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