Research On The Establishment Of Precautionary Principle In Chinese Environmental Protection Legislation

As one of important environmental principles, the Precautionary Principle has rapidly evolved into international community, which makes an attempt to reach a balance between human health environmental protection and social progress. The human's improvement depends on the protection of environment, the interaction between human and environment must bring much affection to our environment. However, it is the basic for all the people's activities to live with a good environment. Therefore, in order to resolve the increasingly serious and complex environmental problems, countries all over the world are actively taking various measures to deal with this global issue. This principle was born and develops in this specific history. Currently, many countries and districts in the world which focus on environmental protection have established the "Precautionary Principle" by promulgating and amending statutes or other ways over environmental risks. Various conventions in the international community advocate that maximizing the benefit of environment should be regard as the primary consideration when there are environmental problems to be resolved. Our government has attached a great attention to keep pleasant environment all the time, in order to meet the article 26 of Chinese Constitution:"The State protects and improves the living environment and ecological environment, prevents pollution and other hazards", to enforce the environmental rules of law and to protect our environment, it is imperative to establish the "Precautionary Principle" in our country.The author believes that nations around the world concern about the global risks of environment. What's more, the developed countries have expanded the scope of precautionary principle, which has brought a double impact to the development of economy and society in our country. Currently, our country has not put the precautionary principle as a basic principle into the environmental legislation system. Nowadays, especially facing various problems of globalization and the development of external trade, our country is always at a disadvantage owing to the absence of definite laws or legal regulations when we face new issues, such as technical barriers to trade and so on. Therefore, our country must establish the legal status of precautionary principle from several aspects and establish its important position, including the whole legislative, executive and judicial fields. This article first states the development process and basic characteristics of the precautionary principle in the form of an overview, and elaborates its concept and operational terms. Then, the article focuses on the necessity and feasibility of its establishment and how to establish it in China. Finally, the article addresses the suggestions arising from its establishment which our legislation should pay considerable attention to. The deterioration of environment is continued, the consequence of deterioration is irreversible and lagged, and so many fields have recognized the importance of precautionary principle and actively explored effective approaches of applying this principle. Therefore, the establishment and application of this principle in Chinese environmental protection legislation is of the same significance and far-reaching.