Introduction

This book discusses six major principles of relevance to environmental issues and uses them to evaluate a set of environmental policies. The principles chosen include three that are specific to environmental matters – ecological sustainability, the polluter pays principle and the precautionary principle – and three more that have wider social application – equity, human rights and public participation. While these six principles are by no means comprehensive, and different scholars, policy analysts and environmental groups have recommended others as also relevant to environmental policies, they were selected because they were developed over the past half century and have the broadest acceptance around the world. Each has, to varying degrees, been incorporated into international treaties and national law.