This important piece of legislature is worth knowing about. It is a safety valve mechanism which allows us to challenge any developmental initiative on the lines of doubt of negative impacts the initiative may have.
Even though science is growing at an astronomical pace, there are many things that we don’t know and can’t prove. Any new technology or new chemical or new method will carry with it a baggage of unknowns. While there will be enthusiasm to put these new methods into use there will also be questions raised about the probable effects these things will have on health and the environment.
Of course it is not always possible to say with definitiveness what the effects may be. For example, if a safe limit for a chemical was to be established, it would probably take decades of studies to evaluate for disease outcomes in cohorts. These studies have their ethical issues also. Science has its limitations in seeing all outcomes. The realization of each outcome takes its own time.
There are so many confounding factors for health and environmental damage in the world right now that it becomes very difficult to study the impact of one technology or process in isolation. In such a situation the companies producing these new implements use this weakness to their advantage and go ahead with production.
Also, to promote economic growth, several times laws and regulations are relaxed. Companies usually put a lot of money into research and hence they want profits at the end of the research at whatever cost.
Precautionary principle is a legislature which can be called upon in case of a doubt on the safety of a new technology, chemical or method. It gives room for the consideration of ‘un-provable’ negatives aspects of innovations. If sufficient doubts can be aroused then the use of the new innovation can be stalled till such a time that these doubts can be cleared.
One example is can give is the verdict given by the High Court of Kerala, India where the spraying of a pesticide called Endosulphan was banned when adequate doubt was raised about the health effects it caused on the local communities.
