Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the business world and some governments to regard it with suspicion.
According to some interpretations, the principle requires an actor to prove
that an action will not harm the environment and ecosystems. Such a reversed
burden of proof is applied in some treaty regimes but most of them do not
apply it.
Dumping waste in the sea was not heavily regulated by the London Dumping
Convention of 1972. The Convention only prohibited the dumping of those
materials listed in the Annex I blacklist (such as mercury), while materials listed
in the Annex II grey list could be dumped with the permission of a competent
authority. High-level radioactive waste could not be dumped, while low-level
radioactive waste could. In 1985, the meeting of the parties adopted a resolution
banning the dumping of all radioactive waste.
When the Soviet Union dissolved, Russia announced that the Soviet Union
had dumped both high-level and low-level radioactive waste, primarily in the
Barents Sea. This provided the motivation for a further meeting of the par-
ties, which banned the dumping of radioactive waste completely. Annex I was
amended accordingly in 1993. The only state to withdraw from the amendment
was Russia; it could therefore legally continue to dump low-level radioactive
waste.
A protocol was negotiated to the London Dumping Convention in 1996
which refl ects the precautionary principle. Annex I now consists of a permissive
list: only materials specifi cally named on the list may be dumped; there is a ban
on all other materials. Actors who might want to see a waste material added to
Annex I have to perform a risk assessment and prove that the material will not
cause any harm to human health or the environment.
Another good example of the application of the precautionary principle can
be seen in the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM)'s approach to
consideration of mining in the continent.
The ATCM decided in the 1970s that mining would be prohibited until a
regulating agreement could be negotiated. The negotiations began, and the
parties accepted the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral
Resource Activities (CRAMRA) in 1988. Partly due to powerful pressure
from Greenpeace, both Australia and France announced that they would not
ratify the CRAMRA. The Convention could not enter into force unless it
was ratifi ed by all the original signatory states to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.
The parties soon came to a decision to regulate mining by banning it for
50 years from the entry into force of the environmental protection protocol
adopted in 1991.
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