The “Principle of Prevention” in international environmental law

Abstract

The “principle of prevention” in respect of economic benefit and ecological aspect is a golden rule. The reasons for this are as follows: 1. because of legal and technological reasons, establishing a relationship between the harmful act with damages to the environment is so difficult, 2. due to special nature of the environment, the compensation for such damages is often impossible, and in case of possibility, it would require exorbitant cost as well as  long period of time. By considering the above facts, deployment of new environmental principles, especially ‘The precautionary principle’ for protecting the environment and strengthening deterrence policy has gained a  central importance. In this paper, an attempt has been made to explain this principle from different dimensions and its position in international environmental law.