ISSN 2712-0554 Heritage and Sustainable Development Review Article Vol. 3, No. 1, May 2021, pp.71-77 https://doi.org/10.37868/hsd.v3i1.58 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ) that allows others to share and adapt the material for any purpose (even commercially), in any medium with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal. 71 The polluter should... pay? Funda Yetgin Baykal 1* 1 Ministry of Environment and Urbanization (MoEU) 1 , Turkey *Corresponding author: funda.yetgin@csb.gov.tr © The Author(s) 2021. Published by ARDA. Abstract The Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) is among the core international instruments for environmental protection. It appears to be excessively economy-focused at initial sight. To evaluate the moral validity of this, I visited four different justification possibilities: 1. Economically preferable equals environmentally preferable; 2. Economic development is a satisfactory aim; 3. Environmental problems arise from economic goals; 4. The economy represents the power needed for solutions. After evaluating each of these, I confirmed that the focus of the PPP on the economy does not allow for sufficient protection of Nature, as also expressed in the literature. Keywords: Polluter Pays Principle, Nature, Market, Economy, Environmental ethics 1. Introduction This study aims at analyzing and discussing the “Polluter Pays Principle” (PPP). The OECD is reported to be the first to explicitly mention the PPP in 1972 [1]. In its Recommendation ([2], Annex A.a.4), it was written that the PPP is there “to encourage rational use of scarce environmental resources and to avoid distortions in international trade and investment”, that it covers the expenses for the measures “to ensure that the environment is in an acceptable state”. The PPP was also adopted as Principle 16 of the United Nation's Rio Declaration [3], which mentions that “the polluter should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution”, again “without distorting international trade and investment.” The Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) is the EU's major legal tool based on the PPP, which mentions ([4], Article 1.3.3 of Annex II) that complete remediation is not compulsory if the environmental benefit is not worth the economic costs. Moreover; the ELD reveals that protected species and natural habitats, water and lands are considered as “natural resources”. Article 2.16 of ELD cites the following cost items within the PPP: “the costs of assessing environmental damage, an imminent threat of such damage, alternatives for action as well as the administrative, legal, and enforcement costs, the costs of data collection and other general costs, monitoring and supervision costs”. An expected function of the PPP's payments is deterrence or induction. The main principle of ELD is mentioned as: “that an operator whose activity has caused the environmental damage or the imminent threat of such damage is to be held financially liable, in order to induce operators to adopt measures and develop practices to minimize the risks of environmental damage so that their exposure to financial liabilities is reduced.” On the other hand, Hulme and Short [5] and Tekayak [6] argue that PPP fines are not deterrent for companies. They defend that financial means are not satisfactory for environmental protection and propose a strict international law which would regard environmental damages as criminal activity instead. The expressions about the PPP 1 Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Ministry.