Drawing insight from cross-disciplinary sources, the author exposes a critical flaw in the dominant environmental law and policy paradigm of risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis. To compensate for the shortcomings he identifies, Kysar offers a novel defense of the precautionary principle and concludes by advocating a movement toward environmental constitutionalism in which the ability of life to flourish is always regarded as a luxury we can afford.
Douglas Kysar is Professor of Law at Yale Law School.