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"Precautionary principle."
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Microplastics in the Environment: Much Ado about Nothing? A Debate
This article documents a debate between the two authors on the issue of microplastics in the environment. It is sparked by a viewpoint published by G. Allen Burton, who argues that the risk of microplastics is overrated. The authors have started debating this notion on Twitter, but the format has quickly turned out to be too cumbersome to exchange arguments. It is thus decided to continue the conversation by exchanging letters published as preprints in roughly four‐week intervals. In these contributions, a broad range of relevant issues are touched upon, including the differences in risk conceptions, risk communication in the attention economy, risk assessment in situations of scientific uncertainty, the need to test proper hypotheses, the problem of prioritizing environmental issues, the costs of action and inaction, the application of the precautionary principle or a strictly evidence‐based approach for policy‐making and, eventually, larger issues related to the Anthropocene. In hindsight, it is felt that this debate is rewarding because it made possible expressing and reflecting on the values and opinions in ways otherwise impossible in social media and standard scientific articles. Borne out of an argument over the environmental risks of microplastics on Twitter, the authors exchange their views on risk conceptions and communication in the attention economy, risk assessment and scientific uncertainty, hypothesis testing, prioritizing environmental issues, the costs of (in)action, the precautionary principle in decision‐making and, eventually, larger Anthropocene issues.
Journal Article
The Invocation of the Precautionary Principle within the Investor–State Dispute Settlement Mechanism: Not Seizing the Occasion
The principal purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the precautionary principle can be included in the investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) deliberative process by providing a legal solution that would permit the invocation and implementation of this concept within the ISDS operational framework. The precautionary principle has been widely applied in the environmental management field, yet its role within the ISDS framework has remained relatively underutilised. To analyse this issue, this paper first explores the operational justification of the precautionary principle and how decision-makers should endorse it in order to fully recognise and address environmental concerns on a legal level. Next, the article proceeds to examine recent ISDS cases in which the precautionary principle was invoked and compares various risk assessment techniques to illustrate how it may be incorporated into the deliberative process and harmonised with other standards. The paper suggests that the forward-looking nature of the precautionary principle has paramount importance in disputes involving oil and gas, particularly in cases where oil and gas activities are believed to contribute to greenhouse gas emissions that could worsen global warming. This paper advances the argument that a wider application of the principle could better equip ISDS tribunals to address the limitations of scientific knowledge, especially under circumstances where significant or irreversible environmental damage may occur.
Journal Article
Medidas Cautelares Innominadas
\"Medidas Cautelares Innominadas: una Comparativa entre América Latina y Europa Continental\" ofrece un análisis detallado de las medidas cautelares en sistemas jurídicos de América Latina y Europa.
eBook
The ethics of precaution : uncertain environmental health threats and duties of due care
\"There are thousands of substances manufactured in the U.S., to which the public is routinely exposed and for which toxicity data is limited or absent. Some insist that uncertainty about the severity of potential harm justifies implementing precautionary regulations, while others claim that uncertainty justifies the absence of regulations until sufficient evidence confirms a strong probability of severe harm. In this book, Levente Szentkirâalyi overcomes this impasse in his defense of precautionary environmental risk regulation by shifting the focus from how to manage uncertainty to what it is we owe each other morally. He argues that actions that create uncertain threats wrongfully gamble with the welfare of those who are exposed, and neglect the reciprocity that our equal moral standing demands. If we take the moral equality and rights of others seriously, we have a duty to exercise due care to strive to prevent putting them in possible harm's way. The Ethics of Precaution will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students, and practitioners working in the fields of environmental political theory, ethics of risk, and environmental policy\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Precaution and Fairness: A Framework for Distributing Costs of Protection from Environmental Risks
While there is an extensive literature on how the precautionary principle should be interpreted and when precautions should be taken, relatively little discussion exists about the fair distribution of costs of taking precautions. We address this issue by proposing a general framework for deciding how costs of precautions should be shared, which consists of a series of default principles that are triggered according to desert, rights, and ability to pay. The framework is developed with close attention to the pragmatics of how distributions will affect actual behaviours. It is intended to help decision-makers think more systematically about distributional consequences of taking precautionary measures, thereby to improve decision-making. Two case studies—one about a ban on turtle fishing in Costa Rica, and one about a deep-sea mining project in Papua New Guinea—are given to show how the framework can be applied.
Journal Article
Microplastic contamination of drinking water: A systematic review
Microplastics (MPs) are omnipresent in the environment, including the human food chain; a likely important contributor to human exposure is drinking water. To undertake a systematic review of MP contamination of drinking water and estimate quantitative exposures. The protocol for the systematic review employed has been published in PROSPERO (PROSPERO 2019, Registration number: CRD42019145290). MEDLINE, EMBASE and Web of Science were searched from launch to the 3rd of June 2020, selecting studies that used procedural blank samples and a validated method for particle composition analysis. Studies were reviewed within a narrative analysis. A bespoke risk of bias (RoB) assessment tool was used. 12 studies were included in the review: six of tap water (TW) and six of bottled water (BW). Meta-analysis was not appropriate due to high statistical heterogeneity (I.sup.2 >95%). Seven studies were rated low RoB and all confirmed MP contamination of drinking water. The most common polymers identified in samples were polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polypropylene (PP), Methodological variability was observed throughout the experimental protocols. For example, the minimum size of particles extracted and analysed, which varied from 1 to 100 [mu]m, was seen to be critical in the data reported. The maximum reported MP contamination was 628 MPs/L for TW and 4889 MPs/L for BW, detected in European samples. Based on typical consumption data, this may be extrapolated to a maximum yearly human adult uptake of 458,000 MPs for TW and 3,569,000 MPs for BW. This is the first systematic review that appraises the quality of existing evidence on MP contamination of drinking water and estimates human exposures. The precautionary principle should be adopted to address concerns on possible human health effects from consumption of MPs. Future research should aim to standardise experimental protocols to aid comparison and elevate quality.
Journal Article
Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet
The planetary boundary (PB) concept, introduced in 2009, aimed to define the environmental limits within which humanity can safely operate. This approach has proved influential in global sustainability policy development. Steffen et al. provide an updated and extended analysis of the PB framework. Of the original nine proposed boundaries, they identify three (including climate change) that might push the Earth system into a new state if crossed and that also have a pervasive influence on the remaining boundaries. They also develop the PB framework so that it can be applied usefully in a regional context. Science , this issue 10.1126/science.1259855 Developments in the planetary boundaries concept provide a framework to support global sustainability. The planetary boundaries framework defines a safe operating space for humanity based on the intrinsic biophysical processes that regulate the stability of the Earth system. Here, we revise and update the planetary boundary framework, with a focus on the underpinning biophysical science, based on targeted input from expert research communities and on more general scientific advances over the past 5 years. Several of the boundaries now have a two-tier approach, reflecting the importance of cross-scale interactions and the regional-level heterogeneity of the processes that underpin the boundaries. Two core boundaries—climate change and biosphere integrity—have been identified, each of which has the potential on its own to drive the Earth system into a new state should they be substantially and persistently transgressed.
Journal Article