Peer Reviewed: Life-cycle assessment and the precautionary principle

The Precautionary Principle , Knowledge Uncertainty , and Environmental Assessment

Introduction It was only recently, about fifteen years ago, that the “precautionary principle” rose to international prominence in environmental policy making. Loosely formulated, the principle states that if there is an indication that a certain activity may be harmful to humans or the environment, that activity should be abandoned. The principle provides politicians with the possibility to in...

Uncertainty, imprecision, and the precautionary principle in climate change assessment.

Statistical decision theory can provide useful support for climate change decisions made under conditions of uncertainty. However, the probability distributions used to calculate expected costs in decision theory are themselves subject to uncertainty, disagreement, or ambiguity in their specification. This imprecision can be described using sets of probability measures, from which upper and low...

Standing and the Precautionary Principle

Implementing the precautionary principle.

The precautionary principle can be found in international treaties that protect human health and the environment from a variety of pollutants and perturbations. One of the earliest forms of the precautionary principle was used in the 1980s in Europe to protect the North Sea. In 1992, the Rio Declaration specifically included the precautionary principle in calling on nations to protect the envir...

Expanding the precautionary principle.