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ėĊĈĆĚęĎĔēĆėĞ
ėĎēĈĎĕđĊ
by Rupert Read and Tim O’Riordan
Dz Ǥdz
It provides a powerful framework for
improving the quality, decency, and reli-
ability of decisions over technology, sci-
ence, ecological and human health, and
improved regulation of risk-burdened
human affairs. It asks us to pause and
to review before leaping headlong into
innovations that might prove disastrous.
Such a call does not sit well with a de-
regulatory (i.e., environmentally non-
protecting) policy setting, nor with the
expectation by corporations of main-
taining profit in an economic climate
where competition is yelping and reces-
sion is barking at the door.
Because of this, the precautionary
principle is now under fire. Looking
across the world, we find a paradox. The
precautionary principle is entrenched in
government and legal systems in various
places, but most strikingly in the Euro-
pean Union (EU). It has an influential
presence in the patterns and processes
of environmental management across
the board in the EU. It is therefore es-
pecially alarming that the precautionary
principle is under considerable threat
in the EU. Specifically, it may be at risk
in trade treaties currently being negoti-
ated1; it is being challenged by the rival,
so-called, innovation principle2; and
it may be at severe risk in the United
Kingdom as part of the Brexit process.3
Caption?
UEA
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The
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This issue of Environment both re-
affirms the need for and asserts the
changing nature of the precautionary
principle. It seeks to update the precau-
tionary principle to meet the emerging
scientific and technological challenges
of the 21st century, and in particular
the sometimes seemingly inevitable
processes of potential human-triggered
harm that now hang over us.
The Precautionary Principle
in Context
Precaution emerged as a central tenet
of European environmental policy in the
mid 1970s.4 This period has been her-
alded as the period of expansionism in
environmental policy and management.
Precaution made sense when introduc-
ing a fundamental way of stopping re-
alistically irreversible environmental
problems from arising at all. During
this period the precautionary principle
gained strength partly because it was
accompanied by other innovative legal
and regulatory approaches to environ-
mental policymaking. These included:
The principle of prevention (better
than cure)
Stimulation of the best available
technology for increasing the ef-
ficiency of resource use and of
preventing waste
Safeguarding zones of environmental
nurture in the face of ignorance or
uncertainty by (in part) setting a
cap on overall alteration; sharing
the burden of responsibilities ac-
cording to contribution and abil-
ity to pay
Assuring proportionality of regula-
tory action when setting gains
against losses
Sharing the burden of regulatory
responsibilities between govern-
ment and commerce via respon-
sible intervention by accredited
nongovernmental organizations
Providing conditions for the survival
of future generations and ecosys-
tems; and
Making the polluter pay.
The most ambitious claim of precau-
tion was to place the burden of proof of
not causing avoidable danger onto any
decision maker proposing to introduce
or regulate new products, technologies,
or infrastructure developments. Its ge-
nius lay in making it clear that absence
of certainty, or there being insufficient
evidence-based analysis, was not an im-
pediment to innovation, as long as there
was no reasonable likelihood of serious
harm. Crucially, precaution enjoins in-
novatory paths not only against impos-
ing hazard, but also to stop exposing us
to potential risks of such harm.
The precautionary principle reached
its global apogee as Principle 15 of the
Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development agreed by all United Na-
tions (UN) nations in 1992:
In order to protect the environ-
ment, the precautionary approach
shall be widely applied by States ac-
cording to their capabilities. Where
there are threats of serious or irre-
versible damage, lack of full scien-
tific certainty shall not be used as a
reason for postponing cost-effective
measures to prevent environmental
degradation.5
In essence, the precautionary prin-
ciple imposes a duty of planetary care
on the human will. It seeks to deepen,
to widen, and to lengthen all manner
of so-called impact assessments. Above
all, it provides a basis for public discus-
sion and deliberation over what kind of
society and moral accountability we col-
lectively should choose to adopt. Such
decisions have to be collective.6 It is
conceptually impossible for a society to
leave it up to individuals or corporations
to choose what technology to select
when there may be all manner of con-
sequences for others.7 Leaving such de-
cisions to individuals or corporations is
simply a defective way of expressing that
collective will (or lack of will). Precau-
tion therefore comes with responsible
and genuinely democratic governance,
not always a popular concept in the ha-
rassed economies and politics of today.
Precaution is more recognized in the
European regulatory culture than is the
case for the United States. We take this
further in our discussion of the Inno-
vation Principle, much favored in the
United States, but under intense scru-
tiny in the EU. The dividing line here
is the role of innovation and account-
ability to risk taking which tend to be
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given greater weight in U.S. regulation
and court procedures, along with a
more flamboyant approach to learning
through experimentation. Most of the
papers in this edition of Environment
explore the cost, actual and potential, of
such flamboyance.
We argue here that since the Rio Dec-
laration, the precautionary principle has
been steadily downgraded. For this is-
sue we commissioned a number of illu-
minating companion articles to explain
why this is the case, and to suggest what
can be done about it.
The themes of these articles are:
Evidentiary proof (Anne Chapman)
Liability and onus of responsibility
and compensation (Iancu Dara-
mus)
Participatory involvement in assess-
ment procedures for novel tech-
nologies (Ricarda Steinbrecher
and Helena Paul)
The changing international dimen-
sion (Andrew Boswell)
The main messages of this package
are that the sustainability process in
general is being progressively weakened
at a time when we can least afford such
weakening, that various forms of good
environmental governance are being
undermined in terms of effective citizen
participation, and that in particular the
legitimate and legislative foundations of
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Fighting a forest fire.
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the precautionary principle are being
dismantled and removed.
The decline of this principle is a syn-
ecdoche for the challenges facing “sus-
tainability science.” If future pathways
of both sustainability science and a re-
surgent precautionary principle can be
forged together, then there is a brighter
future for the entire precautionary and
risk-management process and, by ex-
tension, for humanity and its posterity.
The precautionary principle was in-
troduced to create a basis for thought-
ful and considered evaluation of policy,
technology, scientific discovery, and
innovative ways of providing foresight.
This enjoyed transatlantic recognition.
It also tied in with emerging safeguards
to public health and to avoidance of vul-
nerability to natural hazard via warn-
ings, evacuation, and zoning proce-
dures. It was conceived at a time when
environmental disruption, particularly
from toxic chemicals, was becoming a
matter of widespread public concern.
The UN Conference on the Human En-
vironment, held in Stockholm, Sweden,
in 1972, opened up the issue of cross-
border legal responsibilities for curtail-
ing damaging pollution at source and
strengthened the emerging national and
international environmental regulatory
regimes, particularly on the European
continent.
As these arrangements were being
put in place, it became clear that reliable
information and prognoses were limited
or imperfect. It was not possible to await
confirmation of harm and the source
of harm while environmental damage
from neighboring countries was palpa-
bly occurring. Thus, there was an ur-
gent need for a mechanism that did not
merely follow the path of normal scien-
tific methodology. Scientists are typi-
cally concerned above all to avoid false
positives, or “false alarms.” This bias ex-
plains why many scientists are relatively
cautious in their claims and public pro-
nouncements. If one is willing to take
the risk of obeying (what may turn out
to be) “false positives,” then one might
be shown to have been more pessimistic
than the circumstances warrant.
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Yet the risk of operating on the basis
of false negatives is arguably far worse.
Here we have in mind the avoidance
or ignorance of a (potentially) serious
unanticipated outcome. One’s shining
scientific reputation is of little moment,
compared to possible complicity in the
undermining of possible serious/irre-
versible avoidable harm. If one sticks
too tightly to the normal scientific habit
of awaiting the evidence and avoiding
false alarms, one may be complicit in
a situation where something genuinely
and massively alarming and dreadful
occurs—without one having warned
against it.
Before the introduction of the pre-
cautionary principle, the international
order did not have a way of facilitating
an appropriate methodology for scien-
tific deliberations of this nature. Thus, it
did not have political currency for care-
ful examination and assessment of what
are sometimes coyly called the “distri-
butional aspects” of technoscientific de-
velopments—the downsides of possible
and plausible longer term outcomes
from any potentially dangerous initiat-
ing actions. This was also true of within-
nation environmental damage notably
linked to large infrastructure schemes
such as pipelines and power stations.
Hence, precaution was established for
ensuring a more reflective and weighted
approach to preparing for uncertain
and potentially destabilizing global and
local futures for people and nature. Pre-
caution means that one no longer has
to wait for proof; one can take the risk
of engendering false positives, in order
to be confident of being able to avert
false negatives. In other words: in order
not to give a false sense of reassurance
that could then “legitimate” actions that
turned out to be harmful. Precaution
seeks to ensure that such harms do not
knowingly occur; it does so by reversing
the normal burden of proof.
The precautionary principle is also
notable for its consideration of social
and ecological resilience and well-being
across all forthcoming generations. It
places emphasis on political and moral
mechanisms for widening the basis for
assessing outcomes over generations to
come and for the health of the planet as
a whole. There is no other legal or regu-
latory framework for ensuring such a
critical feature of human empathy and
care. Precaution is a way of implement-
ing a deep future-care, of the kind called
for by so many, including notably Hans
Jonas8 and the present Pope.9
For Aristotle, courage is the moder-
ate position between fearfulness and
rashness or recklessness.10 Recklessness
Athabasca Glacier, Canada - June 20, 2011: A marker indicating the position of the Athabasca Glacier in 2000. The glacier is rapidly receding,
presumably as the result of global warming.
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is the absence of precaution—the ab-
sence of prudence. Recklessness is the
stance that we are seeking to critique in
this special issue. It characterizes much
of our fundamental lack of organized
care toward our ecosystems and the wel-
fare of future generations. We also argue
that at times a version of recklessness in
the context of technology and of certain
approaches to modeling can masquer-
ade under the banner of science itself.
If we are correct in this interpretation,
then courage is called for in defending
foresight and care for the future.
The Power of Precaution in Its
Initial Formulation
The precautionary principle is an
heir to the German Vorsorgeprinzip.11
Though often interpreted as “foresight,”
Vorsorge applies to responsible and eq-
uitable appraisal of future action. “Fore-
care” is a useful literal translation.
Lying behind and manifested in the
evolution of this interpretation were
both a sense of provable responsibility
for public, civic, and private actions, and
a sharing of accountability between the
state, the change agent, and the elector-
ate. In this sense, precaution connects
with more recent trends in the delib-
erative approaches to uncertainty and
forecasting, as well as with the question
of methods of calculating (for example)
toxicity and biodiversity damage.
Today, there is a greater willingness
to accept regulatory voluntarism as an
expression of self-styled corporate so-
cial responsibility. This is despite con-
tinuing skepticism of such voluntarism
among justifiably wary public interest
groups. The early rise of precaution re-
lied more on formal rules of engagement
and consensus among business, unions,
and civil society, brokered by the state.
Nowadays the more formal strictures of
precaution are being undermined. The
deliberate involvement of business, es-
pecially in self-regulation, and the mov-
ing away from pure regulatory adversar-
ialism may lead to a weakening in the
actual force of precautionary reasoning
and law with regard to those who do not
engage in decent/sustainable practice.
It is particularly relevant that the re-
quirement to show no harm and to offer
compensation to those who suffer from
residual harm has softened in both legal
and regulatory terms. The accompany-
ing articles on liability and evidentiary
proof attest to this shift of emphasis.
In the United Kingdom the emer-
gence of the prestigious and multi-
disciplinary Royal Commission on En-
vironmental Pollution in 1970.12 In its
path-breaking reports on radioactive
waste, setting environmental standards,
restricting marine pollution, avoid-
ing possible toxic effects of pesticides
and incineration, removing lead from
gasoline, and exploring the scope of ge-
netically modified organisms, the com-
mission imaginatively explored the wid-
ening of the precautionary principle.
The thoughtful analyses by Susan
Owens13 of the evolution in thinking
and conceptualization by the Royal
Commission on Environmental Pollu-
tion provides a wonderful insight into
the changing context of interpreting
the precautionary principle. She begins
in the early years of the commission’s
work, in the 1970s, where there was a
robust debate over the assimilative ca-
pacities of air and water and the need to
control pollution at the emitting source
rather than through natural cleansing
processes. Both the changing character-
istics of pollutants promoting more in-
organic and synthetic components and
the need to stimulate the technologies of
removal brought the commission more
toward the continental approach of re-
stricting discharges at source. This shift
revealed the changes in both environ-
ment and the composition of effluents.
But it also opened up the commission to
a more moral view on avoidable harm,
as well as a greater degree of meaning-
ful participation in the environmental
management process.
This process accompanied the rise of
“citizen science” and the need to recog-
nize that public values underpinned all
environmental standard setting and not
just the views of the expert and the sci-
entific elite. As a consequence, the com-
mission broadened its perspective on
precaution to take into account the ethi-
cal aspects of acting and regulating un-
der conditions of imperfect knowledge.
It also reinforced its views on the need to
be mindful of the distributional aspects
of environmental harm on employees,
on the general public, and on particular
cultures (e.g., the introduction of lead-
based products in the cosmetic indus-
try with particular exposure to women
from the Indian subcontinent).
What we see here in this fascinat-
ing period of the 1980s and 1990s is a
subtle shift in the discourse over precau-
tion. Where there was a failure to take
anticipatory action, especially where
the scientific evidence was inconclusive
but sufficiently robust to show likely
harm (as in the case of bioaccumulative
chemicals), it became evident to regula-
tors that there was a strong ethical and
legally pragmatic case for urging restric-
tion. In this important sense this experi-
ence heralded the subtle shift toward the
highly contentious but precautionarily
commonsensical stance of shifting the
burden of proof onto the promoter of
novel technologies and substances.
What was also occurring during this
period was a changing notion of the role
of the environmental scientist. The re-
markable story of the removal of lead in
gasoline in the early 1980s14 was a classic
example of challenging the received wis-
dom of much decorated health scien-
tists. They became regarded as too close
to the automotive and oil industries. In
addition, there were the extremely spir-
ited campaigns of the antilead activists15
and more general feeling that playing
with the possible decline of intelligence
in children (particularly those living in
poor areas with high levels of car-borne
air pollution) was plain wrong. Here we
see the vital connection between sci-
entific assessments and a deep sense of
ethical responsibility.
This case may well be one of many
examples where an innovation enjoined
by precaution (i.e., removing lead from
fuel) has led to systemic spin-off ben-
efits. There is some evidence that the
decrease in crime over recent decades is
due to the removal of lead from fuel.16
If this is true, the benefits of removing
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lead will have been far greater than was
thought at the time.
Recent work by researchers at Lan-
caster University found carbonaceous
metal particles from exhaust emissions
in brains and concluded that this might
be causal in developing Alzheimer’s
disease.17 A recent study in Canada
suggested that risk of Alzheimer’s was
greater for people living near busy
roads.18 Of course, these studies are not
decisive. The point is that they provide
further precautionary reasons for bring-
ing down the level of atmospheric pol-
lution coming from motor vehicles, and
for various associated policy responses
(restricting and even eliminating the
diesel engine, reducing the need to
travel, adjusting idling to the point of
automatic shutoff, and locating schools
further from main roads).
The Royal Commission’s investiga-
tions are highlighted here as they reveal
more generally the changing context
of precaution over the past 25 years. In
terms of sustainability science, the life-
blood of this magazine, the rise of knowl-
edge brokering as more of a participatory
conversation, the emergence of the sci-
entist as a learner as much as a practi-
tioner, and the more recent emphasis on
empathy as a key ingredient in sustain-
ability decision making are taking place
as part of the evolution of the precaution-
ary concept. We observe the emergence
of deliberative procedures in relation to
such areas as geoengineering, genetic
modification, nanotechnology, and the
medical ethics surrounding such delicate
matters as stem-cell research and triple
donors of sperm and eggs through a pro-
cess covered in an accompanying article
by Steinbrecher and Paul, “gene drives.”
In all of this we see a fascinating re-
lationship of precaution holding on, but
doing so in a setting of much more wide-
spread social and scientific change. Part
of our message here is that the synergy
of the two sets of progressions, namely,
precaution clinging on rather tenuously,
and sustainability science emerging a
little more strongly, provides a healthy
introduction to but not a reliable basis
for any successful progress for sustain-
ability science.
In all of this flurry of mid-1980s
legislation, the precautionary principle
was invoked to ensure that the integrity
of ecosystems functioning was pro-
tected, that primary biodiversity was
enhanced, and that human health and
well-being were given attention, espe-
cially where minority rights of class,
ethnicity, gender, and culture and the
welfare of future generations were con-
cerned. In its early formulation(s), pre-
caution championed the interests of the
two unseen and unheard components
of the planet: future generations, espe-
cially of the poor and politically disad-
vantaged, and ecological assemblages
and interconnections, which combine
to retain life and habitability on this ar-
guably unique planet.
We turn to contemporary environ-
mental governance and politics to see
just how well these early achievements
have fared and why they are faltering.
Midlife Crisis
The original ideals for precaution,
especially shifting the burden of proof
onto the promoter, together with strong
and social-justice-driven regulatory ar-
rangements, have been weakening, ar-
guably at the very time when they need
strengthening. This is in part a direct
result of deregulatory pressure. In the
case of toxic pesticides, for example,
the evidence is instructive. A group of
pesticides known as neonicotinoids,
closely associated with damage to in-
sect pollinators, especially bees, should
have been banned on the basis of pre-
caution.19 Instead, after extensive lob-
bying by the farming and agrochemical
industries, the European Commission
sensibly announced a 3-year temporary
ban to explore the outcomes of the trial
removal. It is impossible for ecological
science to prove one way or another that
such a “fallow period” would show the
effects on bee populations, which are
under attack from many sources.
A new study20 conducted in three
countries, found that neonicotinoids
were associated with declines in the
reproduction of both honey bees and
wild bees. Yet a companion study,21 car-
ried out only in Germany, claimed that
some bee populations seemed to be un-
affected. Such apparently contradictory
findings evoke our comments on scien-
tists’ sometimes-excessive wariness of
false positives just as the EU is consider-
ing completely to ban this widely used
and in agricultural circles very popular
pesticide.
This wariness, and a wariness of pro-
active bans that, while not permanent
(for that would be excessive, on the basis
of precaution alone) are long enough for
proper, fairly-definitive research, seems
to us a matter for regret—not least, be-
cause global overheat (i.e., temperature
shifts) and rising levels of pathogens
(also linked to this human-caused cli-
mate change) are affecting the habitats
and genetics of bees. Pollinating plants
are shifting in composition and loca-
tion, while changes in vegetation are
confusing bees’ foraging practices. The
kinds of discussion initiated by the
Royal Commission and by the House of
Commons’ Environmental Audit Com-
mittee show that inconclusive evidence
can and should provide a spur for the ap-
plication of precaution, especially where
that evidence is unusual or untested, as
is the case with climate change-relevant
effects. In simple terms: when it comes
to something as important as bees, then
most definitely the dictum ought to be
better safe than sorry.22
A “Case Study”: Genetically
Modified Organisms
On the key battlefront of geneti-
cally modified organisms (GMOs), the
role of precaution has coincided with
widespread public disquiet throughout
Europe (but not so much in North or
South America and Asia) over the intro-
duction of nonnatural genes into living
organisms, especially food crops. Here
the application of precaution coincided
with, and hence helped to buttress and
articulately expressed, preexisting op-
position by consumers. In the United
Kingdom a 3-year public listening pro-
cess over the viability and safeguards
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over GM crops and foods resulted in
persistent and continued outrage23 (see
also Steinbrecher and Paul in this is-
sue). Such opposition is pragmatically
accepted by many major European food
producers and retailers, so there is no
effective commercial lobby in favor of
GMOs except by the plant scientists
and agricultural intensifiers. We see in
this example how it is possible for pre-
caution still to have a role. But such a
role probably has to be subsumed into
a wider and more potent political anger
supported in turn by the faltering emer-
gence of “caring capitalism.” Acting on
its own, precaution is nowadays a weak-
ened scientific and political weapon. But
working supportively in resonant politi-
cal or economic contexts, reference to
the precautionary principle, especially
when the timing for novel decisions is
right, can tip the balance.
GMOs form one of the main ex-
amples both in the EU and elsewhere
where the precautionary principle is
being efficaciously employed to pre-
vent something potentially dangerous
that companies might otherwise have
risked pursuing. This is taking place in
response to a supposed “scientific con-
sensus” that GMOs are safe. Even if such
a consensus were in existence, there is
still a risk asymmetry. A 99% consensus
that a plane is safe is not acceptable: The
U.S. Federal Aviation Authority stan-
dard is for an operational safety of more
than 99.99%. On the other hand, a mere
20% consensus that human-triggered
climate change is real is already more
than sufficient for us to worry deeply.
An equivalent attitude to risk means
that we should also take the dangers of
GM technology very seriously indeed.
The point is that if we seek to weigh the
proportionate consequences of the ben-
efits of pursuing GMO crops or food,
compared with the costs of not doing
so, the “balance” cannot be struck if the
downside is sufficiently bad.24 A suffi-
ciently negative exposure in a “tail-risk,”
even if the risk is adjudged as unlikely
to be realized, outweighs any potential
benefit.25
Establishing these thought processes,
putting them to the test, is precaution
in action. A safety-first approach would
not accept the meme that GM crops,
having been tested for 20 years, are safe.
Twenty years is no time at all on an eco-
logical let-alone an evolutionary time
San Francisco, California - May 25, 2013: Crowd of protestors with posters against Monsanto and Genetically Modified Food walking on
Market Street in San Francisco.
iStock/anouchka
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scale. Without careful controlled and
independent long-term study at organ-
ism and ecological scales (and it is hard
to see that such study, at our current
state of technology, could be safely un-
dertaken at all), it is incorrect to claim
the GMOs have in general been shown
to be safe. And precaution requires us to
put safety first.
New transgenic techniques (see
Steinbrecher and Paul’s article in this
issue) are allegedly a more precise ex-
tension of other breeding techniques.
But it would be a false opposition to
paint opponents of GM as necessarily
supporters of all “conventional” breed-
ing techniques, such as mutation by ra-
diation. What the precautionary princi-
ple enjoins is the requirement to search
for solutions that are not potentially
ruinous. Such solutions as agroecology,
seed saving, and permaculture do ex-
ist. To help arrive at the best decisions/
solutions is where the deliberative roles
of the proportionality test come in.
We note in this series of four articles
a number of common themes that bear
on our discussion to this point. Anne
Chapman looks at the role of evidence
both from an ethical perspective and
in relation to synthetic chemicals. She
seeks to place both libertarianism and
utilitarianism in the context of com-
munity based common harm. There
are all manner of toxic substances and
processes that may afflict the vulner-
able or the next generation, where evi-
dence alone is not a sufficient moral or
scientific guide. Chapman persuasively
argues that higher standards of risk as-
sessment should apply where individu-
als cannot escape the general harm and
especially where vital but threatened
ecological niches and processes are en-
dangered. Here is where there should
be higher standards of participation
and more requirement of precautionary
progress with clear liability on the gen-
erator of novel products.
Iancu Daramus extends this line by
showing that there are two corporate-
based arenas where liability and higher
standards of precaution can and should
be accommodated. One is the fiduciary
duty placed on trustees and directors
regarding the safeguards of well-be-
ing over generations. Here, he argues,
higher standards of evidentiary proof
should be required. Like Chapman
and Steinbrecher and Paul, he makes
a strong case for a more participatory
sustainability science. Daramus also as-
sesses the changing role of the financial
and prudential regulators over corpo-
rate governance. It is becoming possible
for the courts to demand that corpora-
tions take into account long-term and
uncertain climate change outcomes in
the design and financial justification
of their business strategies. In essence,
there is an emerging world of “stress
testing” for climate impact sensitivity.
Andrew Boswell takes these argu-
ments into the international climate
governance regimes. He seeks a more
precautionary-based approach to emerg-
ing climate regimes based on human
rights, principles of fairness, and disas-
ter prevention. He examines interna-
tional law to show that rights-based and
justice-linked approaches to handling
precaution are now in the cards. But Bo-
swell would like to go further. He seeks
an extension of the body of law to en-
case the latest science of anthropogenic
climate change and adaptation as the
basis for future legally binding agree-
ments. Ideally, he would even change
the fundamental basis of international
law toward the strongest precautionary
action on the basis that any further de-
lay in emissions reduction would now
likely be catastrophic.26 We examine this
particular issue in the following. Suffice
it to say here that such calls, supported
by climate science, are the very kind of
reason why the precautionary principle
is being so critically scrutinized.
Updating the Precautionary
Principle
It is in the “pro-growth” atmosphere
of contemporary politics that the pre-
cautionary principle has been aggres-
sively targeted by those who seem deter-
mined to prevent anything preventing
the free rein of the “free market”.27 There
is an intriguing alliance of science and
free-enterprise ideology in the contem-
porary attack on precaution. Free-enter-
prise advocates argue that unless there
is strong evidence of harm, precaution is
merely a pointless bar on innovation and
profit making. Steinbrecher and Paul
point to the growing enthusiasm for the
“innovation principle” among the pow-
erful pharmaceutical companies. Here
the call is for the benefits of innovation
to be weighed against known harm.
This is a fundamental undermining of
the original concepts of the precaution-
ary principle. There is now a standoff
between this position and that of advo-
cates of precaution who do not find suf-
ficient support from scientists who are,
as outlined in the preceding, extremely
hesitant about potentially being respon-
sible for false alarms, and who tend to
rely upon a narrower evidence-based
methodology.
When viewed in the proper context
of philosophy/methodology of science
and statistics, this so-called evidence-
based stance is found wanting. Cru-
cially, much of what is called evidence
by those who want to downgrade the
precautionary principle, in the name of
science and in support of free enterprise,
is not statistically significant, especially
in relation to the potential for more or
less catastrophic events.28 Such events
are by definition rare, so usually barely
evidenced. Where substantial evidence
in the true sense of the word is lacking,
the precautionary principle ought to fill
the breach.29 In practice, it will only do
so by a deliberate act of political or legal
will, for the most part spurred on by the
public interest lobbies.
Serious irreversible harms are often
determinative. This means that they
far outweigh variations in the more
normal run of events. Viewed in a suit-
ably long-term perspective, the kinds of
vast potential harms that precaution is
invoked to prevent, when they occur,
matter far more than smaller harms and
indeed than the kinds of small or even
large benefits that scientists/technolo-
gists and free-marketeers may be keen
to create. Irreversible events play a key,
hard-to-overstate role in determining
the course of human history.
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Brexit and the Precautionary
Principle
A particular threat to the precaution-
ary principle in the United Kingdom is
connected to the United Kingdom leav-
ing the EU in the next few years.30 The
precautionary principle is present in UK
law primarily through its being present
in EU law. Prompted by one of the au-
thors of this article, Caroline Lucas MP
recently inquired in the UK Parliament
about the status of the precautionary
principle in the “Brexit” process. The
response from the government minister
was:
Article 191 of the Treaty on the
Functioning of the European
Union requires that EU legislation
on the environment be based on
the precautionary principle. The
Prime Minister has announced a
Repeal Bill to convert EU law into
domestic British law, to provide
certainty for consumers, workers
and businesses by maintaining ex-
isting laws.
For the time being, the precautionary
principle is unchanged in UK law. It will
be ‘imported’ into UK law along with
everything else in EU law, as part of
the Great Repeal process. Nevertheless,
it will then be potentially vulnerable
to removal or amendment by a simple
UK parliamentary majority without full
scrutiny. Much will depend on the legal
and political procedures still to emerge.
Unless the precautionary principle is
specifically incorporated into a pre-
amble of any new UK law, or appears as
part of formal UK policy in the form of
being incorporated into a White Paper
(a legal guide to policy setting) then its
current role will end.31 That could open
the door to much weakened forms of
regulation over the topics covered in
our accompanying articles such as syn-
thetic biology, GMOs, geo-engineering
experimentation, and emissions path-
ways. This appears to have been one of
the motives for the Brexiteers wanting
to leave the EU. 32
New Frontiers for Precaution
In fields such as endocrine disrup-
tion and radiation, it is now clear that
“the dose does not always make the poi-
son.” Lower doses can be more harmful
than higher doses.33 This sounds para-
doxical. In order to see that it is possi-
ble, consider as an exemplar what a high
dose of radiation may do to a cell: kill
it. That is harmful, but potentially less
harmful than what a lower dose may do
to a cell: turn it cancerous.
It is increasingly unclear whether
there is any safest low dose of some
forms of some toxic substances. This
challenges the so-called de minimis
principle of risk-regulation, very in-
fluential in the United States, which
seeks to impose minimum percentage
levels (e.g., 1 part in 1 million) below
which substances can be assumed to in-
volve no risk. The prima facie question
mark against the old notion that “the
dose makes the poison” yields a revo-
lutionary new argument favoring the
strengthening and wider deployment
of the precautionary principle. Until
we are presented with strong empiri-
cal grounds for believing otherwise, we
need to consider (and act on) the pos-
sibility in any new field or novel tech-
nology that lower doses might be more
harmful than higher doses. Absence of
evidence of harm at high doses not only
does not imply evidence of absence of
any harm. It also no longer implies ab-
sence of harm even at lower doses.
There has been some recognition
of this kind of point.34 But as far as we
can tell there has not been any serious
philosophical/statistical/risk-analytical
discussion of the phenomenon and its
implications.
Our suggestion here is that an ex-
tended argument for precaution can be
applied to any new arena of contentious
Ethical Considerations
We should recognize, as did Socrates, that often the wisest path is to admit that we are more ignorant than we like
to believe. We should accept that we live in a world that in many ways we do not fully understand. We should learn
to live in a world of varying levels of ignorance and uncertainty, rather than harboring hubristic, dangerous ambi-
tions for “total” explanation and mastery. It is precisely for living in such a world that the precautionary principle
is designed.
We should acknowledge when there are or might be insufficiencies with our models and evidence, as presented
in the accompanying articles. When we then create plans of action we should also consult those familiar with
philosophy and statistics.
Where the stakes are high, we should err decisively on the side of caution. We should reject claims of high de-
grees of safety when the evidence on which those claims are based is not solidly statistically grounded. We must
recognize when such evidence does not encompass drastic possible outliers that could distort the whole graph,
particularly when the long view should be awarded full credence.
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toxicity, as examined by Anne Chap-
man. Until one has reliable epidemio-
logical good reason to believe that a low
dose actually is safe, one should pre-
cautiously assume that it is not. Thus,
in contrast to what is widely assumed,
there is good reason here to believe that
there may be no safe dose of any novel
product or process that is not yet fully
tested.35 This leaves open the theme of
how one safely or ethically conducts
such tests.36
The fields of philosophy and sustain-
ability science need to deepen their un-
derstanding of these matters. Sustain-
ability science needs to move beyond
the lingering fixation upon evidence
alone, and upon relatively short time
scales that have left even this approach
to science at times comparatively open
to unwanted alliances with those who
want to restrict further the precaution-
ary principle. Sustainability science in
alliance with ethics, philosophy, and
statistics, and with activism, can reshape
the image and governance role of those
areas of science that matter most, pub-
licly and consequentially, for the age of
the Anthropocene.
Reformulating sustainability science
into a more ethics-based framework
would help to put precaution back in
its rightful place: a place where it might
yet help prevent the economic forces
intent on stripping out our common
protections from succeeding. Those
forces are gaining ground just as we
so clearly—indeed, desperately—need
safeguards against our species’ own ex-
cesses and unknown future harms. We
commendthis issue of Environment to
you, and hope that you will join us in
thinking through—and acting on—the
reasons why the precautionary principle
can manifest exactly such a safeguard.
Rupert Read is a reader in philosophy at the University
of East Anglia, and is a former Green Party of England
& Wales councillor, spokesperson, European parliamen-
tary candidate, and national parliamentary candidate.
He is also chair of the United Kingdom-based think tank
Green House. Tim O’Riordan is a retired professor of
environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia
in Norwich, England.
NOTES
1. See https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/media-room/
eu-referendum/ttip-and-eu
2. See http://esharp.eu/debates/innovation/the-in-
novation-principle.
3. See http://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Food-
Safety/Food-safety-precautionar y-principle-must -con
tinue-post-Brexit.
4. Boehmer-Christiansen, S. “The Precaution-
ary Principle in Germany – Enabling Government”, T.
O’Riordan and J. Cameron, eds. Interpreting the Precau-
tionary Principle (London, Cameron May 1994) 31-60;
Jordan, A. “The Precautionary Principle in the European
Union”, in T. O’Riordan, J. Cameron and A. Jordan eds.
Reinterpreting the Precautionary Principle London, (Cam-
eron May, 2001), 143-161;Gee, D. ed. Late Lessons from
Early Warnings: Science, Precaution, Innovation, (Copen-
hagen, European Environment Agency, 2013).
5. We note that the term “serious or irreversible”
is probably slightly unfortunate because it may imply
that irreversible but trivial harms need to be guarded
against—whereas presumably they don’t. Thus. a for-
mulation like “serious, especially if irreversible” would
probably be a happier formulation. Then again, the “seri-
ous or irreversible” formulation could be precautionarily
defended, on the grounds that it can be doubted whether
any truly irreversible change is truly trivial.
6. This point is present powerfully in the work of
Hannah Arendt; see particularly The Human Condition.
See also Christopher Groves’s work in recent years, and
Anne Chapman’s article in this issue.
7. Anne Chapman’s article in this issue of Environ-
ment develops this point. See also her http://www.green
housethinktank.org/uploads/4/8/3/2/48324387/greens_
and_science_inside_2.pdf.
8. The Imperative of Responsibility: The Search for an
Ethics for a Technological Age (Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1979).
9. See his remarkable “Laudato Si” encyclical: http://
w2.v atican.v a/content/fra ncesco/ en/ency clicals /docu
ments/p apa-francesco_ 2015052 4_enciclica-laudato-si.
html.
10. See Nicomachean Ethics 1107a30–1107b4, p. 118
in the Broadie and Rowe edition.
11. Boehmer-Christiansen, 1994: 33–43
12. Owens, S. Knowledge Policy and Expertise: The
UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, 1970–
2011, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015).
13. Owens, 2015, 76–102.
14. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,
Lead in the Environment, (London, Stationary Office,
1983).
15. Wilson, D. The Lead Scandal (Heinemann,
1983).
16. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-2706
7615
17. See https://www.newscientist.com/article/2104
654-air-pollution-is-sending-t iny-mag netic-particles-
into-your-brain.
18. See http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/
s c i e n t i s t s - l i n k - d e m e n t i a - r i s k - l i v i n g - bu s y -
roads-170105103825153.html.
19. Environment Audit Committee, National Polli-
nator Strategy, (London, Stationary Office, 2016).
20. Woodcock, W.A. et al. Country specific effects
of neonicotinoids on honey bees and wild bees. Science
(2017), 356, 6345, 1393-1395.
21. Stockstad, E., et al. European bee study fuels de-
bate over pesticide ban. Science (2017), 356 (6345), 1321.
22. We return to this point in the following, in ex-
ploring the typically determinative importance of mas-
sive, previously unseen/unknown events such as sud-
den “jumps” or feedbacks in the climate system, when it
passes novel thresholds.
23. Horlick-Jones, T., Walls, J., Rowe, G., Pidgeon, T.
Poortinga, W., Murdock, G. and O’Riordan, T. The GM
Debate: Risks, Politics and Public Engagement. (London,
Routledge, 2007).
24. See http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/pp2.
pdf. (Our deep thanks to Nassim Taleb for direct inspira-
tion for with regard to this section of the present article.)
25. We pick this point up in “New Frontiers for Pre-
caution” in the following.
26. UN World Meteorological Association Status
Report on the Global Climate, (New York, World Meteo-
rological Organization, 2016, 2017).
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27. American Enterprise Institute, http://www.pol
luterwatch.com/ (Washington, American Enterprise In-
stitute via Greenpeace).
28. Taleb, N.N. The Black Swan. (Penguin, 2007);
Taleb, Read et al. “The precautionary principle (with ref-
erence to the genetic modification of organisms)” (http://
www.fooledbyrandomness.com/pp2.pdf 2014).
29. Anne Chapman provides a robust moral and sci-
entific support for this position.
30. Here is a recent example of the threat: http://
www.cityam.com /253506/shelve-eus -anti-innovation-
precautionary-principle.
31. Haigh, N. EU Environmental Policy: Its Journey
to Centre Stage. (Earthscan, London 2015).
32. See http://www.endsreport.com/article/54076/
paterson- calls-for-shift-away-from-precautionar y-prin
ciple. See also http://www.endsreport.com/article/55026/
leadsom-to-roll-back-eu-environmental-farm-rules).
33. Here is a useful example from the literature (see
the first couple of paragraphs): https://www.ncbi.nlm.
nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4429934.
34. See, for example, this impressive European
Parliament resolution: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-/ /ep//text+report+a7-2013-
0027+0+doc+xml+v0//en.
35. The word “novel” here is crucial. There are
plenty of things that we know are safe because we have
used them since time immemorial, and indeed have co-
evolved with them. The precautionary principle’s “natural
home” is in relation to novelty that threatens disaster,
the form of genuine novelty found in (for instance) the
synthesization of new chemicals, not the less threatening
novelty involved in simply innovating within the context
of what is familiar, natural, or known as safe.
36. The point here is similar to that that implied ear-
lier concerning what a really safe testing regime would
be for GM crops/food. The point is this: If one lacks a
technology that would enable really safe testing, then
precaution enjoins that one should wait, and not test, let
alone roll out the technology, until one has the ability to
conduct such testing safely. Otherwise, the “testing” is
itself reckless.
Polluted water analysis.
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