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Slide 1

Presentation is on two other key principles of Environmental Law

Slide 2
The following presentation gives a general overview on the background, the
functions and the implementation of the preventive and the precautionary
principle in international, EU and national law. The difference between the two
principles will also be explained.

Slide 3
The historical case (Trial smelter the name goes back to the village named
Trial where the case took place), decided by the International (Arbitral) Court in
1941, can be considered as a first reference dealing with transboundary

Slide 4
The slides summarizes the facts of the case. The village Trail is located in British
Columbia, Canada, near the border to the United States, at the Columbia River.
At this place a smelter is located where zinc and lead are smelted in large
quantities since 1896. At the time when the decision was taken, about 5.000 to
7.000 tons of Sulphur dioxide were emitted monthly, causing serious damage to
agriculture, forests and private property in the USA.

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The core sentence of the decision taken by the Court is that there is a principle of
international law, that there is state responsibility for environmental damage
caused to other states, but under the condition of serious consequences and
clear and convincing evidence prevention.

Slide 6
The principle laid down by the Arbitral Tribunal in the Trial Smelter case is
reproduced in Principle 21 of the Stockholm declaration ..

. And literally adopted by principle 2 of the Rio Declaration

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Prevention has since then been introduced in a number of international
Conventions and also in EU law (we will talk about this later other law);
sometimes the application of the principle is restricted to cases where significant
damage may occur.

Slide 9
Art. 192 of the TFEU mentions the principles without defining though its
modalities of application.
Numerous secondary legislation is based on the preventive approach, such as
the Seveso Directive.

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In Germany the preventive approach is laid down in pollution control law since

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The plant operator has to proof, that his plant complies with all the relevant
conditions to prevent negative effects and accidents. In the permitting procedure,
the burden of proof lies with the plant operator.

Slide 12
The principle is also enshrined in the French Environmental Code. Generally it
seems, the the application of the Preventive principle is largely agreed in national
environmental policy and law, nonetheless, its dimension may differ from one
legal order to the other.

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The main point is, that the preventive approach tries to anticipate possible
(probable) negative effects and uses instruments to avoid that damage will occur.
We may differentiate measures to prevent pollution/harm and to reduce/minimize
the consequences if damage has nevertheless occurred.

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Basically, the instruments to implement the preventive principle do not differ so
much from the instruments we already discussed to implement the PPP. But the
main focus is of course on the instruments that prevent damage instead of
curative measures. But even liability law has a preventive dimension, because
the potential polluter will consider the economic loss when hold liable.

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Who is addressee of the principle? Legislator in the first place, authorities and the
courts in the second place.
One may have different opinions on the appropriate instruments. In my opinion,
still command and control law is the most important instrument to implement the
Preventive approach. Secondly, what we call procedural law plays an important
role ( Arhus Convention), because the public and stakeholders are involved to
enforce better compliance. Marked based instruments and voluntary approaches
/ agreements (soft law) may also contribute to successfully reduce environmental

Slide 16
The second part of the presentation is dealing with the precautionary principle,
certainly the most controversial one of the principles we are talking about.
The slide just illustrates some corner stones of the historical evolution of the
principle. It is not necessary to go into detail here. On the international level, the
Stockholm declaration 1972 did not yet mention the principle, but the Rio
Declaration 1992 did. See next slide.

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The Rio declaration tries to define the principle and describes its function.

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The typical situation where the principle applies is, lack of full scientific certainty
(= scientific uncertainty.).
The framework convention on climate change takes this up explicitly .

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The wording may be different, like in the Paris Convention 1992, but usually the
principle is limited in International law to situations where there is Threat of
serious damage or reasonable grounds for concern.

An interesting question is, if the precautionary principle is accepted already as a

general principle of international law in terms of Art. 38 of the statute of the Court
of La Hague or as customary international law.

Slide 20
A major step in this direction is the advisory opinion of the International Tribunal
for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) of 1 February 2011 RESPONSIBILITIES AND
precautionary principle could be considered today as part of customary
international law. (page 41, para 135).

Slide 21
EU Law, Self explaining

Slide 22
The principle in French law. Wording is very similar to the definition in
international law (see Rio, and Climate Change convention).

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A bit different in German law. The precautionary approach has been implemented
already in 1974 (!) in the federal emission control act (BImSchG). It is used to
reduce risks further, even if preventive measures have already been taken.

Slide 24
The slide shows the application of the principle in German nuclear energy law. In
the Wyhl-case the plant was never built for political reasons, although the
Courts decided finally in favor of the plant operators - the Federal Administrative
Court issued a fare reaching and still fundamental decision concerning risk-
assessment before delivering a permit. Under the precautionary principle also
hypothetical risks (Besorgnispotentiale in German) have to be considered. The
relevant section in the German Nuclear Energy Act is interpreted by the Court as
a law providing for preventive and for precautionary measures.

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Generally, the function of the precautionary principle is very close to the function
of the preventive principle. But it goes further in terms of risk-reduction, if
knowledge is not sufficiently available.

It is a open question, if the precautionary approach should only apply to serious

risks. I would argue more in line with the Commissions communication: If the
chosen level of protection is at risk, precautionary measures should apply. The
level of protection has do be decided by the relevant authorities/parliament and is
ultimately a political question (we will come back to this point later).

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Instrument prevention.
As the precautionary approach is typically determined by a situation of lack of
scientific certainty, instruments which aim at improve scientific knowledge should
be considered much more.
Also the law should be construed in such a way that new knowledge could be
easily introduced even after a decision has been taken (reflexives Recht). GMO
law is a good example with limited permits (10 years for the market-permit),
monitoring obligations etc.

Slide 27
The Commission published a Communication on the Precautionary principle in
The communication mentions some essential points for the application of the
The next two slides make some concretization of these points, but this
could be also left aside, if there is a time problem! Participants can read the
Communication on their own!

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Conditions for the application of the precautionary principle.
Again (as on PPP) proportionality is a MUST.

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Conditions on its application II
Bear in mind that scientific development influences potential application of the
principle ( re-examination and modification of measures taken)

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The main difference between prevention and precaution is that the calculation of
the risk is much more difficult in the precautionary situation because of the lack of
scientific knowledge. As a consequence, it is also more difficult to define
regulatory standards (possible is, of course, Minimization clauses etc.).

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The slide shows the different situation when taking a decision (for instance as a
competent authority). If there is scientific uncertainty, it is difficult to predict if
damage will occur or not. Precautionary measures could nevertheless been
taken. If there is knowledge based evidence, a measure must be taken under the
preventive approach.

Slide 32
The slide shows the overlapping between the preventive and the precautionary
principle. Even if the risk is known and preventive measures are taken, further
measures might be necessary to reduce the probability of the risk if important
damage may occur. These further risk reducing measures may be justified under
the precautionary approach.

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As the principles are in particular the precautionary principle only vaguely
defined or concretized in European law, the judge ultimately has to decide on the
application of the principle.
In particular the question arise, who has the burden of proof.
We may differentiate two situations in the application of the principle: The
licensing situation and the control situation: If a dangerous activity need a
license, the operator has to show, that all preventive and precautionary measures
have been taken. If the authority controls an existing operation, and wants the
operator to take further measures after the operation had been licensed, it is with
the authority to justify the necessity of the measure.

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It seems to be clear, that ultimately there is a political dimension of the principle.
The Commission explains this very well.
It is interesting to note, that also the Courts seem to be aware of this. The
German Federal Administrative Tribunal accepted a decision of the lower Court of
Mnster, that argued in this way. The procedural situation in this case was, that a
neighbour complaint after the accident in Chernobyl and requested to shut down
the nuclear power plant of Wrgassen. The competent authority decided not to
shut down the plant as there would be no danger to the public or the
neighbourhood. The problem in such cases is, that the power plant may still
comply with the standards originally requested, but that meanwhile these
standards have evolved. There are no general binding rules about the
acceptability of the delta between the originally requested state of the Art and
the today existing state of the art.

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Useful literature sources (English literature only)