The precautionary principle is presently one of the main philosophies of environmental regulation in the world. It is inserted in national law in many countries and also in most environmental international treaties and conventions (on climate change, chemicals, mobile phones, food security, etc.). Besides the conventional legal focus on formulation and definition matters, the role of the precautionary principle in the implementation of science-based decision processes in contexts of scientific uncertainty and conflicting value interests is a recurrent theme in recent literature. Yet, despite its potential role in improving environmental decision-making economics and management is not being thoroughly used in current precautionary practice. In order to highlight the possible contribution of this area of study, we briefly present a critical survey of the main theoretical approaches (namely result-oriented rationality and procedural rationality) and models that have been proposed for the economic interpretation and application of the precautionary principle.

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