The Application Of The Precautionary Principle In The Marine Environmental Protection Law

Marine environmental pollution and destruction have far-reaching influence, and their impact on marine habitats, biodiversity, human health and the global economy will bring serious harm consequences. Compared to environmental issues of other areas, marine environmental issue has its own characteristics:The first is the cross-border nature. The marine pollution of a coastal State will affect the waters of neighboring coastal countries; the second is its broad range of impact. There are rich biological and mineral resources in ocean,and ocean carrys90%of the international transport, so once the ocean is seriously contaminated, a far-reaching impact will come. With the high-tech research and application, marine environment pollution have the following changes:the locality-based pollution evolved into a regional-based pollution; the dominant pollution evolved into hidden-based pollution. With the development of marine science and technology and the progress of ocean development activities, appeared the risk of contamination, which science is difficult to determine. Once this risk turn into reality, it may cause serious pollution damage or irreversible damage results. The precautionary principle emerged. At first, the core of the principle is that community should by careful advance planning and to prevent potentially harmful behavior to seek to avoid damage to the environment. Many legal documents on the protection of the marine environment have the precautionary principle, but China’s Marine Environmental Protection Law has not absorbed the relevant provisions. China is a maritime country, the view of the characteristics of the marine environment and marine pollution at the present stage, China needs the precautionary principle, along with the principle of appropriate measures and systems.In this paper, after researched the foreign marine environmental protection legislation and judicial practice in the precautionary principle, we try to explore the principles of risk prevention countermeasures for marine environmental protection in our country. Expanding the systems and measures of the precautionary principle applies to the protection of the marine environment, in order to find the precautionary principle for China’s marine environmental protection. Expect to find the space, in which the precautionary principle applies to China’s marine environmental protection, and expect to rich systems and measures of the precautionary principle, which applies to marine environment protection. Overall this article is divided into three parts. The first part is about the basis of the precautionary principle, which applies to the protection of the marine environment. Including the meaning and development of the precautionary principle, and also describes the basis of the precautionary principle in the protection of the marine environment. The second part is about the legislation and judicial practice of the precautionary principle in the Marine Environmental Protection Law of foreign. The third part is about the countermeasures of the precautionary principle applying to China’s Marine Environmental Protection Law. This part is the key part of this article, which focus on the legislative situation of marine environmental protection of our country at this stage, the system measures and drawbacks, as well as the countermeasures of the precautionary principle for marine environmental protection in China, which expect to make up the blank of China’s Marine Environmental Protection Law.