Polluter pays principle

The Polluter Pays Principle is a principle in international environmental law where the polluting party pays for the damage done to the natural environment. It is regarded as a regional custom because of the strong support it has received in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Community (EC) countries. International environmental law itself mentions little about the principle.

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Polluter Pays is also known as Extended Polluter Responsibility (EPR). This is a concept that was probably first described by the Swedish Government in 1975. EPR seeks to shift the responsibility dealing with waste from governments to the entities producing it. In effect, it internalises the cost of waste disposal into the cost of the product, theoretically meaning that the producers will improve the waste profile of their products, thus decreasing waste and increasing possibilities for reuse and recycling.

OECD defines EPR as: "a policy in which the producer’s financial and/or physical responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of the product’s life cycle. It specifically focuses on reducing the environmental impacts of a product at the post-consumer phase. There are two key features to an EPR policy: - the responsibility for a product at its post consumption phase is shifted upstream in the production-consumption chain, to the producer; and - it provides incentives to producers to incorporate environmental considerations into the design of their products"

Ecotaxes (as the Gas Guzzler Tax) are promoted as a way to implement the polluter pays principle. There are also "polluter pays" fines, i.e. in US Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE).

References

• 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). http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press/npapers/np15/NewportPaperNo15.pdf
• Doswald-Beck, ICRC Review (1997), No. 316, 35–55; Greenwood, ibid., 65–75.

See also

• Feebate