ABSTRACT
Precaution emerged as a central tenet of European environmental policy in the mid-1970s. Its regulatory companions were carefully juxtaposed: stimulation of the best available technology for prevention and efficiency of resource use, safeguarding of nurturing environmental space, proportionality of action in relation to gains and losses, sharing the burden of regulatory responsibilities, ensuring the interests of forthcoming lives of people and biota, making the polluter pay, and placing the burden of proof of additionality to sustainability on those proposing to introduce new products, technology or developments. This chapter charts the emergence of the principle, its paths through the environmental policy maze of the European Union and its influence on regulation, citizen science and moral concern for the wellbeing of future generations of humans and biota. It concludes with the possible demise of the concept in the light of nationalist politics, short term desperation over jobs and investment, and the weakening morals of worrying about the rights to secure living for the planet.
