Precautionary principle

Essay:

“Precautionary principle”











Elaborated by Andreas Randicsek













Galway, 7th of August 2003









I. Introduction: reasons for need of precautionary principle

Many pessimistic prognoses originated in the past (see for example Thomas Malthus and/or Albert Schweitzer) have foretold the depletion of natural resources, the extermination of nature and environments as a result of the blunt human activity. However pessimistic they were, the one thing they managed to reflect in a proper way – without maintaining the capacity to foresee and direct the actions accordingly, man will end up destroying the earth.
The problem of being wise before it is too late is not of an easy kind, especially when the environmental or health impacts may be far into the future and the real (or expected) costs of implementing them are large and should be taken immediately. In order to prevent disasters from happening, one has to react ...