Principle 15 of the 1992 Rio Declaration laid out the premise of the precautionary rule in international environmental law. It states:
In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
This is the basis for the most recent decision promulgated by the [Philippines’] Fourth Division of the Court of Appeals (CA), which […] ordered the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (Philrice) to stop the commercial propagation of Golden Rice and BT eggplant, both of which are considered genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Golden Rice is a variety enriched with beta-carotene sourced from corn and from two types of bacteria, Pantoria ananatis and Escherichia coli. On the other hand, Bt eggplant contains genetic material from Bacillus thuringensis, which is another type of bacteria.
Under this environmental legal principle, the benefits that are offered by GMOs, as supported by empirical data from research, are not the controlling consideration. The mere offering of potential harm, if shown to be plausible even if uncertain, would be enough to stop the commercial propagation of GMOs, as it did to Golden Rice and Bt eggplant.
