An Environmental Justice Paradigm For Risk Assessment*

Abstract

ABSTRACT Environmental justice poses dramatic challenges to the field of risk assessment. Risk assessment techniques can either benefit or harm the cause for environmental justice, depending upon how they are deployed. If such techniques are used within the context of community leadership, with sensitivity to community needs and priorities, and with an understanding of the limitations of these techniques, then there are many practical and useful applications. In contrast, when risk assessment technologies are used by corporate and government elites that are not accountable to the communities in which risks are present or proposed, such techniques often exacerbate existing inequalities in the distribution of risks and benefits. This article explores the evidence behind these hypotheses, and their implications for the fields of risk assessment and environmental justice. * This commentary is derived from lectures presented at Duke University's 1995 Environmental Equity Seminar Series, Harvard Law School's 1995 Conference on Race, Class, and Pollution, and the Society for Risk Analysis's 1994 Annual Conference.