An OTA Cornerstone in Eliminating
Unnecessary Toxics Use
A new principle for guiding human activities, to prevent harm to the environment and to human health, has been emerging during the past 10 years. It is called the "principle of precautionary action" or the "precautionary principle" for short.
Oregon Toxics Alliance is committed to supporting and advancing the precautionary principle as a cornerstone in our work to eliminate unnecessary toxics use and contamination in Oregon.
An international group of scientists, government officials, lawyers, and labor and grass-roots environmental activists met at Wingspread in Racine, Wisconsin to define and discuss the precautionary principle. The group issued the following consensus statement:
Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle:
"The release and use of toxic substances, the exploitation of resources, and physical alterations of the environment have had substantial unintended consequences affecting human health and the environment. Some of these concerns are high rates of learning deficiencies, asthma, cancer, birth defects and species extinctions, along with global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and worldwide contamination with toxic substances and nuclear materials.
We believe existing environmental regulations and other decisions, particularly those based on risk assessment, have failed to protect adequately human health and the environment --the larger system of which humans are but a part.
We believe there is compelling evidence that damage to humans and the worldwide environment is of such magnitude and seriousness that new principles for conducting human activities are necessary.
While we realize that human activities may involve hazards, people must proceed more carefully than has been the case in recent history. Corporations, government entities, organizations, communities, scientists and other individuals must adopt a precautionary approach to all human endeavors.
Therefore, it is necessary to implement the Precautionary Principle: When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.
Thus, as formulated here, the principle of precautionary action has 4 parts:
People have a duty to take anticipatory action to prevent harm. (As one participant at the Wingspread meeting summarized the essence of the precautionary principle, "If you have a reasonable suspicion that something bad might be going to happen, you have an obligation to try to stop it.")
The burden of proof of harmlessness of a new technology, process, activity, or chemical lies with the proponents, not with the general public.
Before using a new technology, process, or chemical, or starting a new activity, people have an obligation to examine "a full range of alternatives" including the alternative of doing nothing.
Decisions applying the precautionary principle must be "open, informed, and democratic" and "must include affected parties."
Excerpted from "The Precautionary Principle," by Peter Montague, in Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly #586, February 19, 1998
Other References on the Precautionary Principle:
The New Uncertainty Principle, Scientific American, January 2001
The Precautionary Principle in Action: A Handbook First Edition, Written for the Science and Environmental Health Network by Joel Tickner, Carolyn Raffensperger and Nancy Myers
The Uses of Scientific Uncertainty, July 01, 1999, Rachel's Health and Environment Weekly #657
The Precautionary Principle, Prepared for the NGO Biotechnology Briefing for White House Officials, June 30, 1999
Defining Public Interest Research, SEHN et al., June 1999
A Paradigm Shift: Rethinking Environmental Decision Making and Risk Assessment, Paper presented Risk Analysis Policy Association Meeting, Virginia. March 6, 1997 by Carolyn Raffensperger and Peter deFur
The Precautionary Principle is Coherent, ISIS Paper October 31, 2000
Modern Environmental Protection -- Part 1, Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly #704, July 21, 2000
Science and the Precautionary Principle, Science, May 12 2000: 979-981
For more information contact:
OREGON TOXICS ALLIANCE
P. O. Box 1106, Eugene, OR 97440
Ph/Fax: 541-465-8860
Office: 1192 Lawrence Street
Email: info@oregontoxics.org
www.oregontoxics.org
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