The "precautionary principle"—the idea that society should guard against potentially harmful activities even if some cause and effect relationships have not been fully established—has often been attacked for being unscientific. However leading scientists studying the issue have begun to make the case that the precautionary principle is in fact science based, and that it creates a need for more rigorous and transparent science in examining complex and uncertain environmental risks.Precaution, Environmental Science, and Preventive Public Policy is the first book to explore the role of science in developing a more precautionary approach to environmental and public health policy. The book brings together leading scientists, legal experts, philosophers, environmental health professionals, and environmentalists to offer a multi-disciplinary perspective on the controversial debate over science and precaution. The book:discusses the critical need for science in promoting sustainabilityoutlines the ethical imperative of a more precautionary science and the philosophical foundations of that new approachconsiders some of the ways in which the current conduct of environmental science works against precautionary policiesexamines how the role and use of science differs across cultures and political systemsprovides the components of an approach to environmental science that more effectively supports precautionary decisionsThe book also offers case studies that consider various types of uncertainty and sets forth a framework for evaluating and addressing uncertainty in decision-making.Contributors include Juan Almendares, Katherine Barrett, Kamaljit Bawa, Finn Bro-Rasmussen, Donald Brown, Theofanis Christoforou, Terry Collins, Barry Commoner, Carl Cranor, Stephen Dovers, David Gee, Elizabeth Guillette, Cato ten Hallers-Tjabbes, James Huff, Matthias Kaiser, Richard Levins, Mary O'Brien, Carolyn Raffensperger, Jerry Ravetz, Vandana Shiva, Boyce Thorne-Miller, Joe Thornton, Reginald Victor, and Alistair Woodward.Precaution, Environmental Science, and Preventive Public Policy presents a broad overview of the role of science in implementing the precautionary principle and makes a compelling case that science should be used not just to study problems but to develop solutions.

The second edition of this leading reference work provides a comprehensive discussion of the dynamic and important field of international law concerned with environmental protection. It is edited by globally-recognised international environmental law scholars, Professor Lavanya Rajamani and Professor Jacqueline Peel, and features 67 chapters authored by 76 renowned experts in their fields. The Handbook discusses the key principles underpinning international environmental law, its relevant actors and tools, and rules applying in its substantive sub-fields such as climate law, oceans law, wildlife and biodiversity law, and hazardous substances regulation. It also explores the intersection of international environmental law with other areas of international law, such as those concerned with trade, investment, disaster, migration, armed conflict, intellectual property, energy, and human rights. The Handbook sets its discussion of international environmental law in the broader interdisciplinary context of developments in science, ethics, politics and economics, which inform the way in which environmental rules are made, implemented, and enforced. It provides an introduction to the foundations of international environmental law while also engaging with questions at the frontiers of research, teaching, and practice in the field, including the role of Global South perspectives, the contribution made by Earth jurisprudence, and the growing role of a diverse range of actors from indigenous peoples to business and industry. Like the first edition, this second edition of the Handbook is an essential reference text for all engaged with environmental issues at the international level and the applicable governance and regulatory structures.

This book presents and defends an interpretation of the precautionary principle from the perspective of philosophy of science.

The international community has long grappled with the issue of safeguarding the environment and encouraging sustainable development, often with little result. The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development was an emphatic attempt to address this issue, setting down 27 key principles for the international community to follow. These principles define the rights of people to sustainable development, and the responsibilities of states to safeguard the common environment. The Rio Declaration established that long term economic progress required a connection to environmental protection. It was designed as an authoritative and comprehensive statement of the principles of sustainable development law, an instrument to take stock of the past international and domestic practice, a guide for the design of new multilateral environmental regimes, and as a reference for litigation. This commentary provides an authoritative and comprehensive overview of the principles of the Declaration, written by over thirty inter-disciplinary contributors, including both leading practitioners and academics. Each principle is analysed in light of its origins and rationale. The book investigates each principle's travaux préparatoires setting out the main points of controversy and the position of different countries or groups. It analyses the scope and dimensions of each principle, providing an in-depth understanding of its legal effects, including whether it can be relied before a domestic or international court. It also assesses the impact of the principles on subsequent soft law and treaty development, as well as domestic and international jurisprudence. The authors demonstrate the ways in which the principles interact with each other, and finally provide a detailed analysis of the shortcomings and future potential of each principle. This book will be of vital importance to practitioners, scholars, and students of international environomental law and sustainable development.

This study examines how the European Union has used the precautionary principle in legal decisions.

Presents recent breakthroughs in the theory, methods, and applications of safety and risk analysis for safety engineers, risk analysts, and policy makers Safety principles are paramount to addressing structured handling of safety concerns in all technological systems. This handbook captures and discusses the multitude of safety principles in a practical and applicable manner. It is organized by five overarching categories of safety principles: Safety Reserves; Information and Control; Demonstrability; Optimization; and Organizational Principles and Practices. With a focus on the structured treatment of a large number of safety principles relevant to all related fields, each chapter defines the principle in question and discusses its application as well as how it relates to other principles and terms. This treatment includes the history, the underlying theory, and the limitations and criticism of the principle. Several chapters also problematize and critically discuss the very concept of a safety principle. The book treats issues such as: What are safety principles and what roles do they have? What kinds of safety principles are there? When, if ever, should rules and principles be disobeyed? How do safety principles relate to the law; what is the status of principles in different domains? The book also features: • Insights from leading international experts on safety and reliability • Real-world applications and case studies including systems usability, verification and validation, human reliability, and safety barriers • Different taxonomies for how safety principles are categorized • Breakthroughs in safety and risk science that can significantly change, improve, and inform important practical decisions • A structured treatment of safety principles relevant to numerous disciplines and application areas in industry and other sectors of society • Comprehensive and practical coverage of the multitude of safety principles including maintenance optimization, substitution, safety automation, risk communication, precautionary approaches, non-quantitative safety analysis, safety culture, and many others The Handbook of Safety Principles is an ideal reference and resource for professionals engaged in risk and safety analysis and research. This book is also appropriate as a graduate and PhD-level textbook for courses in risk and safety analysis, reliability, safety engineering, and risk management offered within mathematics, operations research, and engineering departments. NIKLAS MÖLLER, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. The author of approximately 20 international journal articles, Dr. Möller's research interests include the philosophy of risk, metaethics, philosophy of science, and epistemology. SVEN OVE HANSSON, PhD, is Professor of Philosophy at the Royal Institute of Technology. He has authored over 300 articles in international journals and is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Dr. Hansson is also a Topical Editor for the Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science. JAN-ERIK HOLMBERG, PhD, is Senior Consultant at Risk Pilot AB and Adjunct Professor of Probabilistic Riskand Safety Analysis at the Royal Institute of Technology. Dr. Holmberg received his PhD in Applied Mathematics from Helsinki University of Technology in 1997. CARL ROLLENHAGEN, PhD, is Adjunct Professor of Risk and Safety at the Royal Institute of Technology. Dr. Rollenhagen has performed extensive research in the field of human factors and MTO (Man, Technology, and Organization) with a specific emphasis on safety culture and climate, event investigation methods, and organizational safety assessment.

This new fifth edition of Information Resources in Toxicology offers a consolidated entry portal for the study, research, and practice of toxicology. Both volumes represents a unique, wide-ranging, curated, international, annotated bibliography, and directory of major resources in toxicology and allied fields such as environmental and occupational health, chemical safety, and risk assessment. The editors and authors are among the leaders of the profession sharing their cumulative wisdom in toxicology's subdisciplines. This edition keeps pace with the digital world in directing and linking readers to relevant websites and other online tools.Due to the increasing size of the hardcopy publication, the current edition has been divided into two volumes to make it easier to handle and consult. Volume 1: Background, Resources, and Tools, arranged in 5 parts, begins with chapters on the science of toxicology, its history, and informatics framework in Part 1. Part 2 continues with chapters organized by more specific subject such as cancer, clinical toxicology, genetic toxicology, etc. The categorization of chapters by resource format, for example, journals and newsletters, technical reports, organizations constitutes Part 3. Part 4 further considers toxicology's presence via the Internet, databases, and software tools. Among the miscellaneous topics in the concluding Part 5 are laws and regulations, professional education, grants and funding, and patents. Volume 2: The Global Arena offers contributed chapters focusing on the toxicology contributions of over 40 countries, followed by a glossary of toxicological terms and an appendix of popular quotations related to the field.The book, offered in both print and electronic formats, is carefully structured, indexed, and cross-referenced to enable users to easily find answers to their questions or serendipitously locate useful knowledge they were not originally aware they needed. Among the many timely topics receiving increased emphasis are disaster preparedness, nanotechnology, -omics, risk assessment, societal implications such as ethics and the precautionary principle, climate change, and children's environmental health. - Introductory chapters provide a backdrop to the science of toxicology, its history, the origin and status of toxicoinformatics, and starting points for identifying resources - Offers an extensive array of chapters organized by subject, each highlighting resources such as journals, databases,organizations, and review articles - Includes chapters with an emphasis on format such as government reports, general interest publications, blogs, and audiovisuals - Explores recent internet trends, web-based databases, and software tools in a section on the online environment - Concludes with a miscellany of special topics such as laws and regulations, chemical hazard communication resources, careers and professional education, K-12 resources, funding, poison control centers, and patents - Paired with Volume Two, which focuses on global resources, this set offers the most comprehensive compendium of print, digital, and organizational resources in the toxicological sciences with over 120 chapters contributions by experts and leaders in the field

From fisheries to persistent organic pollutants to climate change itself, no other environmental principle in environmental law has produced as much controversy as the precautionary principle. Unlike a preventive approach in which action is taken provided that the threats to the environment are tangible, with a precautionary approach, authorities are prepared to tackle risks for which there is no definitive proof that the damage will materialize. The ramifications of this increasingly apparent approach are profound and cut across all areas of risk assessment and management, environmental law, policy and regulation in every major sector. However, to date little thought has been dedicated to the implementation of the precautionary principle in a wide array of environmental circumstances. This authoritative handbook addresses the legal aspects of how the precautionary principle is implemented in different sectors, and examines its successes, failures, strengths and weaknesses. Sectors and subjects covered include chemicals, GMOs, marine pollution, fisheries and nature conservation, and the book draws on cases in the EU, in the USA, and Nordic countries, where the use of precaution has been gathering momentum. Ultimately, the book provides an indispensable appraisal of the question - increasingly important in the era of human-induced climate change - of whether the precautionary principle is relevant, indeed essential, to avert major environmental and health risks, and how and when it can be used successfully. Published with MARIE CURIE ACTIONS

Environmental Principles and Policies uses environmental and social principles to analyse the latest wave of economic-based and market-orientated environmental policies currently being adopted around the world. This book provides an in-depth examination of six key principles that have been incorporated into international treaties and the national laws of many countries: * ecological sustainability * the polluter pays principle * the precautionary principle * equity * human rights * public participation These principles are then used to evaluate a range of policies including pollution charges, emissions, trading, water markets, biodiversity banks and tradable fishing rights. Environmental Principles and Policies is easily accessible, using non-technical language throughout, and - in what sets it apart from other books on environmental policy-making - it takes a critical and interdisciplinary approach. It does not set out policies in a descriptive or prescriptive way, but analyses and evaluates policy options from a variety of perspectives. This enables readers to gain a thorough grasp of important principles and current policies, as well as demonstrating how principles can be used to critically assess environmental policies.

This book traces the evolution of environmental principles from their origins as vague political slogans reflecting fears about environmental hazards to their embodiment in enforceable laws. Environmental law has always responded to risks posed by industrial society but the new generation of risks have required a new set of environmental principles, emerging from a combination of public fears, science, ethics, and established legal practice. This book shows how three of the most important principles of modern environmental law grew out of this new age of ecological risk: the polluter pays principle, the preventive principle, and the precautionary principle. Since the first edition was published, the principles of polluter-pays, prevention, and precaution have been encapsulated in a swathe of legislation at domestic and international level. Courts have been invoking environmental law principles in a broad range of cases, on issues including GMOs, conservation, investment, waste, and climate change. As a result, more States are paying heed to these principles as catalysts for improving their environmental laws and regulations. This edition will integrate to a greater extent the relationship between environmental principles and human rights. The book analyses new developments including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which has continuously carved out environmental duties from a number of rights enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights, and the implementation of the UNECE Convention on Access to Information.