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Dovers, Stephen --- "Precautionary Policy Assessment for Sustainability" [2006] ELECD 388; in Fisher, Elizabeth; Jones, Judith; von Schomberg, René (eds), "Implementing the Precautionary Principle" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Implementing the Precautionary Principle

Editor(s): Fisher, Elizabeth; Jones, Judith; von Schomberg, René

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845427023

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Precautionary Policy Assessment for Sustainability

Author(s): Dovers, Stephen

Number of pages: 23

Extract:

5. Precautionary policy assessment for
sustainability
Stephen Dovers

INTRODUCTION

The precautionary principle (PP) is one of several principles expressed in
policy and legal statements of sustainability (or sustainable develop-
ment internationally, or ecologically sustainable development (ESD) in
Australia). It is the most tractable in the sense of policy and legal interpre-
tation and has received the most focused attention. However, sustainability
is an integrated agenda, and the PP should not be taken in isolation from
other principles. In this chapter, the PP is not the sole focus but is consid-
ered in terms of its interpretation and implementation in policy-making
contexts alongside other principles and imperatives. The sustainability
agenda is significantly different, and more difficult, than the more trad-
itional environmental policy agenda, and the past decade has been charac-
terized by halting steps to address sustainability, but also by a growing
acceptance that environmental issues can only be properly resolved through
proactive, long-term strategies that address social and economic dimen-
sions as well as environmental.
The standard Australian version of sustainability principles, enunciated
in its 1992 National Strategy for ESD, are representative, with the excep-
tion of the peculiar weighting in Guiding Principles 4 and 6 toward neo-
liberal economic policy approaches (Australia 1992), and the expression of
the PP (in italics) as Principle 2 is typical enough:

Goal: Development that improves the total quality of life, both now and in the
future, in a way that maintains the ecological processes on which life depends.

Core objectives:
...