Fight for Scotland's Nature

A Scottish Environment LINK campaign

Environmental legal principles

Four internationally recognised environmental legal principles guide EU policy making on the environment. They form an essential component of environmental law.

Scotland’s environment has been shaped by these principles, from action on genetically modified crops and fracking to the introduction of a deposit return scheme and measures to tackle climate change.

The Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign called for the four principles to be embedded in Scots law, so that they could continue to form the basis of Scotland’s environmental policy after the UK’s departure from the EU. Following two years of pressure from campaigners, the Scottish government’s EU Continuity Bill embedded the four key principles into Scots law and stipulated that Scottish ministers and policy makers must ‘have regard’ to them when developing new policies or legislation.

The precautionary principle: this principle triggers policy intervention in circumstances where there are reasonable grounds for concern that an activity is causing or could cause harm, but where there is uncertainty about the probability of the risk or the degree of harm.

The precautionary principle provides a clear path of action for governments and elected officials to intervene when an activity raises urgent concerns for human health or the environment, until the full cause and effect relationships are established. In Scotland, it has underpinned action against fracking, neonicotinoids and genetically modified crops, among other applications.

The polluter pays principle: this principle stems from the commonly accepted notion that those who produce pollution should bear the costs of managing it to prevent damage to human health or the environment.

In Scotland, this important legal obligation has helped drive up the quality of our drinking water and beaches.

The rectification at source principle: this principle states that environmental damage should, to the greatest extent possible, be resolved at source. In other words, policy should tackle the root cause of the problem rather than simply tackling its consequences. For example, it means that air pollution should be tackled directly by regulating emissions from cars and other sources.

The preventive action principle: this principle supports the need to take measures to address issues today rather than allow their consequences to fester leading to higher costs and increased risk in the future. For example, this principle is critical for tackling the impacts of climate change.

In addition, we were pleased that the principle of integration was also included in the bill, requiring consideration of the environment to be embedded across all areas of government.