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The polluter pays principle is a moral and sometimes legal principle in which the cost of curtailing and remediating environmental damages is assessed against those who have (knowingly or not) engaged in environmentally destructive actions. Legally, the polluter pays principle is an application of the doctrine of strict liability. This stands in contrast with remediation approaches in which a governmental entity remediates, or subsidizes remediation of, an environmental harm using tax revenues.

The polluter pays principle likely has ancient roots, as it is simply an aspect of personal responsibility applied to damages done to the environment and to others affected by environmental damage.

Plato constructed one version of the principle involving water pollution in his Nomoi (Laws, 1804) codified from 428 to 348 BC: And let this be the law--if any one intentionally pollutes the water of another, whether the water of a spring, or collected in reservoirs, either by poisonous substances, or by digging or by theft, let the injured party bring the cause before the wardens of the city, and claim in writing the value of the loss; if the accused be found guilty of injuring the water by deleterious substances, let him not only pay damages, but purify the stream or the cistern which contains the water, in such manner as the laws of the interpreters order the purification to be made by the offender in each case.

Somewhat more recently, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) enshrined the polluter pays principle in its 1972 Guiding Principles Concerning International Economic Aspects of Environmental Policies. In its original form, the modern polluter pays principle called only for polluters to bear the cost of instituting control measures, not of remediating existing damages. The principle gradually expanded after 1972 to place on polluters not only the costs of pollution controls but also the costs of remediating past pollution and of compensating those damaged by previous polluting behavior. This has led some to describe the current version as the "extended polluter pays principle."

The polluter pays principle is either explicitly endorsed or referenced in a broad swath of international agreements, including the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area; the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response, and Cooperation; the Agreement on the European Economic Area; the Protocol on Water and Health; the Declaration on Environment and Development (the Rio Declaration); and others. It is also considered an element of sustainable development, as that concept has evolved from its beginnings in the Brundtland Report. The polluter pays principle is also recognized in the preamble of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

The polluter pays principle is applied haphazardly in U.S. environmental regulations, and the principle is a far less widely recognized element of U.S. policy. The most prominent application of the polluter pays principle in the United States is as part of Superfund, a massive governmental effort to clean up hazardous waste sites (Beder, 2006). But even when, as in Superfund, the underlying law is strict, the polluter pays principle is more jargon than reality: Costs are not assessed based on a polluter's contribution to the problem, but on the ability of any polluter to pay, regardless of the damages they caused. Several challenges have been raised with regard to the polluter pays principle. For example, it has been argued that those in lower economic brackets cannot always afford to remedy harms done in the course of fulfilling their basic needs (Buchner, 2005). In places where older vehicle emissions contribute the majority of an air pollutant to a given region, applying the polluter pays principle would place the cost of avoidance and mitigation on those who cannot afford to pay. A related challenge is assessing the costs of pollution control and remediation on economically marginal (but socially beneficial) businesses that cannot pass on costs without losing economic competitiveness.

Still another challenge to the polluter pays principle is ensuring economic efficiency: Determinations of harm are often the result of judgments by juries, rather than hard forensic evidence. Subjective social values are also a part of this process that has often led to settlements in which the polluter pays substantially more than the true cost of damages inflicted by a polluting activity. The involvement of the polluter pays principle in climate change policy debate is complex and inconsistent. At the global level, many governmental and nongovernmental organizations assert that the principle dictates that developed countries should pay to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigate harms to developing countries before those countries should have to essay GHG controls of their own. Some governments, such as that of the United States, reject this application of the principle, asserting that the economic costs would be unsustainable. They argue from a long-term perspective that the principle would lead to an undue burden of controls falling on the countries that became significant polluters first, rather than on the countries that are the most significant polluters in the present.

References

1. Beder, Sharon. "The Polluter Pays Principle." Chapter 2 in Environmental Principles and Policies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction. Sterling, Va.: Earthscan, 2006.

2. Buchner, Barbara, and Janna Lehmann. "The Polluter Pays Principle and Its Relationship to the Concept of Common but Differentiated Responsibility." Section 2.3 in Climate Change Policy, edited by Michael Bothe and Eckard Rehbinder. Netherlands: Eleven, 2005.

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