SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: PRINCIPLES OF LAW COMPATIBLE WITH THE PRINCIPLE OF SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract

We maintain that international environmental law and Peruvian domestic law provide that the principle of sustainability is the most important in environmental law, and this principle orders that the exercise and protection of the rights to a healthy environment and sustainable development are based on balanced integration of social, environmental and economic aspects of national development; and that, when it is not possible to achieve this balanced integration, the social variable will have a greater specific weight. Therefore, all environmental regulations and any alleged legal principle, such as principle in dubio pro natura or the principle of non-regression, which seek to give greater weight to the environmental component, lack legal foundation. The precautionary principle, on the other hand, does not contradict the principle of sustainability since it acts based on a scientific hypothesis about a risk of serious or irreversible damage to health or the environment, a hypothesis that, if verified, would nullify the other two factors of sustainable development, that is, the social and economic aspects.