Precaution and Risk Reduction

(Work Package 2)

The precautionary principle comes into force when there are possible serious risks with large scientific uncertainty. The precautionary principle is listed as Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration of 1992 among the principles of general rights and obligations of national authorities:

"In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach should 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".

Since 1992, the principle has been implemented in various environmental instruments for areas such as global climate change, ozone depleting substances and biodiversity conservation. It is action oriented meaning that persistent dissent among scientists can not be taken as an excuse not to take action. 

The principle is the subject for much deliberation and controversy when it comes to practical application. Often the battle goes on between industry wanting to introduce a new technology  and opposing groups using the precautionary principle as an argument for a moratorium until more is known about uncertain risks. Then there is a need for insight and transparency as a prerequisite for high quality decisions. On the factual side, we need to evaluate the scientific status of the area to see if the requirement of scientific uncertainty is fulfilled. On the value-laden side we need to evaluate the nature of the threat in order to decide if action shall be taken or not.

The  political system needs to communicate that it is not enough to have established the precautionary principle for environmental protection and public heath. Politicians have to take continued responsibility for the application of the principle in all policy areas, for the very reason that it is their responsibility to determine which are the relevant risks.

Another risk management principle, originating from radiation protection, is optimisation, also known as ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable). This means that the risk exposures resulting from a practice must be reduced to the lowest level possible considering the cost of such a measure.

The objectives of this work package are to: 

• support policy makers by structuring the "risk world" so that they can take continued responsibility for the application of the precautionary principle in various  policy areas. 
   
• provide support to authorities responsible for the implementation of  the precautionary principle and the ALARA principle, making them more able to  communicate between science  and public values

Contact:
Kjell Andersson: kjell.andersson@karita.se