IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/envlaw/v33y2021i2p283-308..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scientific and Legal Mechanisms for Addressing Model Uncertainties: Negotiating the Right Balance in Finnish Judicial Review?

Author

Listed:
  • Tiina Paloniitty
  • Niina Kotamäki

Abstract

Environmental models are ubiquitous in assessing the environmental impacts of planned projects. Modelling is an inferential process and includes various mechanisms to address the uncertainty of the outcome. In this article, we acknowledge the continuum of uncertainty assessments and identify the legal mechanisms with which Finnish judicial review—characterised by broad scope of review and in-house expert judges—has encountered model uncertainty. Closely examining 10 waters-related cases heard by the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland, we explain the porous yet substantial boundary between science and law revealed by the cases. The cases demonstrate the elegance with which courts can strike a balance between the contingent precautionary principle, gradually decreasing scientific uncertainty, and the procedural constraints under which they operate. We conclude by analysing the traces towards reciprocality and adaptivity the cases reveal, encouraged by the iterative modelling mechanism and challenged by the constitutional restrictions on the scope of review.

Suggested Citation

  • Tiina Paloniitty & Niina Kotamäki, 2021. "Scientific and Legal Mechanisms for Addressing Model Uncertainties: Negotiating the Right Balance in Finnish Judicial Review?," Journal of Environmental Law, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 283-308.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:envlaw:v:33:y:2021:i:2:p:283-308.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jel/eqab001
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:envlaw:v:33:y:2021:i:2:p:283-308.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/jel .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.