Polluter pays principle
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Historical basis
According to the French
In modern times, the continued adherence to the polluter pays principle is supported scientifically by economics. One condition that must be satisfied in order to maximise
Applications in environmental law
The polluter pays principle underpins environmental policy such as an
Australia
The state of New South Wales in Australia has included the polluter pay principle with the other principles of ecologically sustainable development in the objectives of the Environment Protection Authority.[7]
Canada
The Canadian Energy Regulator mandates that oil companies must pay for any environmental impacts from a spill. This mandate requires oil companies to pay for damages, regardless of whether or not the spill is their fault.[8]
European Union
The polluter pays principle is set out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union[9] and Directive 2004/35/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage is based on this principle. The directive entered into force on 30 April 2004; member states were allowed three years to transpose the directive into their domestic law and by July 2010 all member states had completed this.[2]
France
In France, the Charter for the Environment contains a formulation of the polluter pays principle (article 4):
Everyone shall be required, in the conditions provided for by law, to contribute to the making good of any damage he or she may have caused to the environment.[10]
Ghana
In Ghana, the polluter pays principle was adopted in 2011.[11]
Sweden
The polluter pays principle is also known as extended producer responsibility (EPR). This is a concept that was probably first described by Thomas Lindhqvist for the
The
a concept where manufacturers and importers of products should bear a significant degree of responsibility for the environmental impacts of their products throughout the product life-cycle, including upstream impacts inherent in the selection of materials for the products, impacts from manufacturers’ production process itself, and downstream impacts from the use and disposal of the products. Producers accept their responsibility when designing their products to minimise life-cycle environmental impacts, and when accepting legal, physical or socio-economic responsibility for environmental impacts that cannot be eliminated by design.[13]
United Kingdom
Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 established the operation of the polluter pays principle. This was further built upon by The Environmental Damage (Prevention and Remediation) Regulations 2009 (for England) and the Environmental Damage (Prevention and Remediation) (Wales) Regulations 2009 (for Wales).[14]
United States
The principle is employed in all of the major US pollution control laws: Clean Air Act,[15][16] Clean Water Act,[17] Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (solid waste and hazardous waste management),[3] and Superfund (cleanup of abandoned waste sites).[3]
Some eco-taxes underpinned by the polluter pays principle include:
- the Gas Guzzler Taxfor motor vehicles
- Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE), a "polluter pays" fine.
- the Superfund law requires polluters to pay for cleanup of hazardous waste sites, when the polluters can be identified.[18]
Limitations of polluter pays principle
The US
Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwe Environmental Management Act of 2002 [20][full citation needed] prohibits the discharge of pollutants into the environment. In line with the "Polluter Pays" principle, the Act requires a polluter to meet the cost of decontaminating the polluted environment.[21]
In international environmental law
In
Exception for excusable ignorance
The polluter pays principle (PPP) has been doubted in cases where no one recognized that a type of pollution posed any danger until after the pollution began. An example occurs in the history of climate change science which shows that considerable carbon dioxide was emitted into the atmosphere by industrialized countries before there was scientific awareness or consensus that it could be dangerous.[23]
See also
- Carbon tax
- Ecotax
- Environmental Principles and Policies
- Externality
- Feebate
- Pigovian tax
- Pollutant release and transfer register
- Polluter pays amendment in Florida
- Pollution control
- Pottery Barn rule
- Public good
- Severance tax
References
- ^ ISBN 9789264113374.
- ^ a b European Commission, Environmental Liability, accessed 29 October 2017
- ^ a b c "Waste, Chemical, and Cleanup Enforcement". EPA. 2016-01-07.
- ^ Le temps, 18 October 2016 (page visited on 22 October 2016).
- S2CID 13875804.
- ^ Callan, S.J & Thomas, J.M. (2007). 'Modelling the Market Process: A Review of the Basics', Chapter 2 in Environmental Economics and Management: Theory, Politics and Applications, 4th ed., Thompson Southwestern, Mason, OH, USA
- ^ Protection of the Environment Administration Act 1991, section 6(2)(d)(i)[1].
- ^ Government of Canada, Canada Energy Regulator (2023-03-14). "CER – Emergency Management and the Polluter Pay Principle". www.cer-rec.gc.ca. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
- ^ Article 191(2) TFEU
- ^ Charter for the Environment, Constitutional Council (page visited on 28 August 2016).
- ^ Ghana Business News, Cabinet approves Polluter Pays Principle, 8 December 2011, accessed 29 October 2017
- ^ The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, Sweden (2000)."Extended Producer Responsibility in Cleaner Production" Archived 2014-05-13 at the Wayback Machine Doctoral Dissertation (2000)
- ^ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Environment Directorate, Paris, France (2006)."Extended Producer Responsibility." Project Fact Sheet.
- ^ The Environmental Damage Regulations: Preventing and Remedying Environmental Damage, accessed 29 October 2017
- ^ Billings, Leon G. (2005-03-09). "Cleaning America's Air: Progress and Challenges". Bethany Beach, DE: Edmund S. Muskie Foundation. Speech at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
- ^ "Air Enforcement". Washington, D.C.: US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 2015-12-01.
- ^ "Water Enforcement". EPA. 2015-12-14.
- ^ The Buck Stops Here: Polluters are Paying for Most Hazardous Waste Cleanups. Superfund Today (Newsletter) (Report). EPA. June 1996. EPA-540-K-96/004.
- ^ Water and Wastewater Pricing: An Informational Overview (PDF) (Report). EPA. 2003. EPA-832-F-03-027.
- ^ Chapter 20:27
- ^ The Herald (Harare), Polluter pays as environmental management principle, 18 May 2016, accessed 6 November 2017
- ^ Nations, United. "United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3-14 June 1992". United Nations. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
- International Journal of Philosophy1 (39):7-24 (2020).
Further reading
- International Law and Naval War: The Effect of Marine Safety and Pollution Conventions during International Armed Conflict, by Dr. Sonja Ann Jozef Boelaert-Suominen (December 2000).
- Doswald-Beck, ICRC Review (1997), No. 316, 35–55; Greenwood, ibid., 65–75.