A/HRC/36/41 64. The cost to public resources and individuals of failing to restrict and ban hazardous substances can be staggering, and can impede efforts to lift people out of poverty and make meaningful progress on development. 56 The economic benefits of stronger measures to protect health against the effects of toxic pollution and contamination have been shown in several instances to be greater than the cost of implementing such measures. 65. Recent initiatives have highlighted the utility of cost-recovery mechanisms in helping government regulators to ensure appropriate health and environmental protection. In this way, the costs of monitoring and inspection, of technical capacity for risk assessments and of other necessary regulatory and enforcement activities can be defrayed. In cases where safer alternatives are unavailable or inaccessible, the internalization of the public health costs within businesses implicated can help incentivize the development and adoption of safer products and processes. In 2015, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published guidance to support States in establishing measures to finance necessary administration activities in the management of toxic chemical products, which has been tested in four countries. 57 66. International cooperation, including financial and technical assistance, has also been provided to assist low-income countries in developing the capacities needed to protect human rights implicated by toxic chemicals. International policy frameworks have also encouraged the mainstreaming of the management of toxic chemical and waste in development strategies to help unlock resources. 58 E. Create effective institutions Translate evidence into action 67. States must translate evidence of potential impacts on the enjoyment of human rights into timely and effective measures to respect, protect and fulfil each right implicated. The ability to protect the human rights to life and to health and to realize the right to access to the benefits of scientific progress and its applications hinges upon the ability to translate evidence into protective laws and policies. As discussed above, States must make expeditious progress in the realization of the rights to life and to health, taking all possible measures to protect those rights. 68. However, despite evidence of risks and impacts, there have been instances where the procedures of some States have enabled private interests to use scientific uncertainties as a basis for delaying action to reduce risks. This has led to extreme delays, some lasting decades, in translating evidence of hazard and risk into measures necessary to protect workers, children and others most at risk.59 This is an unfortunate exploitation of scientific uncertainty by private interests. Scientific uncertainty will always exist. Several States have adopted the principle of precaution to help ensure that action is taken despite those uncertainties. 60 The principle of precaution is essential to the progressive realization of numerous human rights implicated by hazardous substances and wastes. 56 57 58 59 60 14 UNEP, Costs of Inaction on the Sound Management of Chemicals (2013). Available at www.unep.org/chemicalsandwaste/what-we-do/policy-and-governance/reports-andpublications/costs-inaction-initiative. UNEP Guidance on the Development of Legal and Institutional Infrastructures and Measures for Recovering Costs of National Administration for Sound Management of Chemicals, available at www.unep.org/chemicalsandwaste/what-we-do/policy-and-governance/reports-and-publications/liraguidance. For example, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, in particular the overall orientation and guidance for achieving the 2020 goal of sound management of chemicals (SAICM/ICCM.4/6). See, for example, Jennifer Sass and Daniel Rosenberg, The Delay Game: How the Chemical Industry Ducks Regulation of the Most Toxic Substances (Natural Resources Defense Council, 2011). See, for example, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, principle 15, and the Treaty of Lisbon, art. 191.