International acceptance

The PPP is now an accepted principle underlying the environmental policies of many countries including OECD countries. In Canada the pol­luter pays principle is 'enshrined in the preamble to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999' and is 'firmly entrenched' in its environmental laws at both federal and provincial levels (Canadian Supreme Court quoted in Buttigieg & Fernando 2003: 2).

The PPP was first included in European agreements in 1973 as part of the European Community Action Programme on the Environment, which stated that the 'cost of preventing and eliminating nuisances must in principle be borne by the polluter'. It was incorporated into the Treaty Establishing the European Community in 1987 and the Maastricht Treaty. In its latest Environmental Action Programme, Environment 2010: Our Future, Our Choice, the EC commits to the PPP (Coffey & Newcombe 2001: 1-4).

The PPP has also been incorporated into the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21 and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development Plan of Implementation, as well as various international agreements including:

• 1985 ASEAN Agreement on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

• 1990 Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Cooperation (OPRC)

• 1992 Helsinki Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents

• 1996 London Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine

Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter

• 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Some agreements, including the OECD agreements, are non-binding but others, including the Porto Agreement creating a European Economic Area and the Oslo and Paris Conventions on marine pollution, make implementation of the PPP compulsory for all nations which are party to the agreements (Smets 1994: 132).

It was observed in the 1990s that there was no evidence that the implementation of the PPP over its first 20 years had had any negative impact on economic growth, inflation, international trade or balance of payments.

In fact, 'in countries with strict environmental standards, low sub­sidies and a high degree of dependence on international trade, techno­logical progress in pollution control was rapid and profitable', as could be seen in the case of the Japanese motor vehicle industry (Juhasz 1993: 42-3).