THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE PROJECT

ONLINE CONSULTATION

| E-Conference Homepage | Contents |

| Next comment | Previous comment | Previous comment in thread | Next comment in thread |

Guideline 1: is a principle a tool?

From: Martin Sharman
Affiliation: European Commission
Remote Name: psbru.cec.eu.int
Time: 14:28:12 +0100

Comments

Guideline 1 states that “the precautionary principle is a useful tool…, if appropriately and effectively implemented.” I have two problems with this statement. First, I do not think that a principle is a tool. A principle is a truth, belief or rule that greatly influences reasoning, attitudes, and behaviour. I would turn the sentence around: “this can be achieved by invoking the precautionary principle…”. I would make a similar remark about the sentence that starts “the precautionary principle can be a powerful policy tool…” in the observations after the title. My second problem is that neither “appropriate” nor “effective” are defined. As a result the reader is no wiser at the end of the sentence than at the beginning. All we learn is that the precautionary principle is not effective if inappropriately or ineffectively applied, which seems rather obvious.