NITRATES IN WATER - THE POLITICS OF THE POLLUTER PAYS PRINCIPLE

Environmental regulation in the European Community is supposedly informed by the 'Polluter-Pays-Principle' (PPP). This paper gives an outline of the career of the concept and its relationship to market mechanisms for pollution control recently advocated in the UK. The particular focus is on the problems associated with the PPP's application to the issue of nitrates in water in the UK. Farmers resist being characterized as 'polluters', and highlight instead the questionable limits set by the EC for nitrates in water, the scientific complexity of nitrate leaching and the agricultural intensification initiatives of post-war governments. All the signs are that the application of a principle will be a thoroughly political process.