UPSC Express

Polluter Pays Principle

• According to this principle, those who pollute the environment must be made to pay not just for the costs of remedial action, but also for compensating victims of environmental damage.
• This principle is now almost universally acknowledged in environmental jurisprudence.
• Some trace the Polluter Pays Principle’s origin to the Stockholm Declaration made at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972.

Stockholm Declaration

• The declaration asked signatory countries to develop international laws regarding liability and compensation of the victims of pollution and other environmental damage.

Brundtland Commission

• The Polluter Pays Principle emerged more strongly in the 1987 report of the Brundtland Commission, called Our Common Future.
• The Brundtland Commission or the World Commission on Environment and Development was established in 1983.
• The main purpose of the commission was to examine environmental issues resulting from rapid industrialisation.
• For the first time sustainable development was defined and alongside the Polluter Pays Principle was emphasised.
• The 1987 report greatly influenced the Rio Earth Summit of 1992 which for the first time explicitly enshrined the Polluter Pays Principle.
• After Rio summit, the Polluter Pays Principle began to be applied explicitly in environmental jurisdictions.

Polluter pay principle in India

• The courts in India have applied the Polluter Pays Principle in many cases.
• In Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum vs. Union of India and Others (1996), the Supreme Court held that the Polluter Pays Principle was part of the environmental law of the country.
• The Principle came onto the statute books in 2010 when the National Green Tribunal Act was enacted.
• But there is no prescribed method yet to calculate compensation.
• In some cases, expert committees calculate the amount while in other cases the courts calculate some discretionary amount.
• Courts have also used it to impose penalties on polluters, as a deterrent.