Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

190 Chapter 10
scientific and technical aspects into account when making decisions with
significant economic, employment, and social consequences for states. From
this perspective, the 1985 resolution calling for studies of wider legal, social,
economic, and political aspects, as well as scientific and technical issues,
was a potentially useful step that might have paved the way for an improvement
of the existing way of making decisions.
GESAMP and ACMP have stressed that overall regulatory priorities are
in need of improvement and, on the administrative and regulatory level,
that the aim is to spend the financial resources available for marine environmental
protection cost-effectively. They have suggested the principle of
justification and have emphasized that regulatory decisions concerning
ocean dumping should maximize net benefits to society at large: “A justified
practice will be one for which the combined benefits to the whole of
society are considered to outweigh the combined deficits or detriment, environmental
effects being only part of the latter.” (Report of ICES Advisory
Committee on Marine Pollution (Cooperative Research Report 167, ICES,
Copenhagen, 1989), p. 124) In selecting the best option, therefore, many
issues need to be addressed, including economic, social, political, and scientific
considerations as well as the nature and extent of damage.
Insufficient knowledge about various practices’ potential for environmental
damage and effects on humans, difficulties involved in estimating the
societal and economic value of environmental quality, and other such issues
could make use of this approach difficult. However, it addresses several of
the shortcomings of the existing approach.
It will be a major challenge to develop a more comprehensive, holistic,
and effective strategy for protection of the marine environment. A crucial
point will be education of the public, politicians, and other decision makers
about the health of the marine environment and risks to the marine environment
and humans. The mass media should be used to educate the public
and politicians when substances are not as hazardous as we previously
thought. Though ecological disaster and threats to human health make
good copy, new knowledge giving a more complete picture is being reported
on in the mass media.
A major step in this direction may be taken by civil servants and government
agencies educating the public, politicians, and the private sector
about the choices that must be made between environmental protection and