Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Agreement
Substances Originally Listed
Substances Added
tetrabromodiphenyl ether and
pentabromodiphenyl ether (commercial
pentabromodiphenyl ether)
One of the concepts that appeared to gain acceptance at the 1992 Rio conference on sus-
tainable development was that of the precautionary principle. This basically means you
should not wait for absolute scientific certainty before taking action if you have reason-
able evidence to believe an activity or substance is going to cause harm (my definition).
In other words, it is better to anticipate problems than to wait for them to occur. The prin-
ciple is mentioned in a generic fashion in the CLRTAP and Stockholm agreements, but it
was an Olympian struggle to get them in and it is done in a way that provides no teeth.
The text does not oblige the parties to comply. However, the philosophy of the precaution-
ary principle did make its way into the process for adding new substances. This includes
the requirement in “doorway two” to demonstrate that a candidate substance meets certain
physical, chemical and toxicological criteria. If any one of these criteria is not met, one can
instead use monitoring data as a surrogate if it suggests that the substance is actually able
to perform the activities that should be predicted by the relative criterion. For example, if a
criterion for vapour pressure or fugacity that is intended to predict long-range transport is
not met by a candidate substance that is nevertheless showing up in such remote places as
the Arctic, clearly it has the ability to move long distances (even if we do not understand
how it is happening). The parties are required to take these criteria into account during the
process of approving new substances for use within their jurisdictions. If they do, then this
is truly giving the precautionary principle some anticipatory teeth. However, the wording
does not make it a fundamental legal obligation. The cruel fact remains that these agree-
mentsarenecessarybecausehistoricalarrangementstoassessthesafetyofmanychemicals
have failed. Present-day arrangements forchemical safety are probably better,butthey face
a plethora of new substances to review. Furthermore, the fundamental paradigm of hazard
and risk assessment has so far failed to meet the challenge posed by our present knowledge
Search WWH ::
Custom Search