The precautionary principle is a central, if controversial, feature of international legal argument. I explore this controversy through a pluralist lens. What makes the precautionary principle so controversial is that it prevents us from appreciating risk holistically, particularly when appraising responses to policy trilemmas. Instead, claims of precaution focus only on some risks to the exclusion of others. I argue that we can overcome this problem by treating precaution as an evidentiary principle. This approach translates competing precautionary claims into a holistic appreciation of risk in its full factual context. I analyse that existing evidentiary conceptions of precaution (precaution as burden shift and precaution as standard-lowering) do not adequately achieve this goal. I submit that these problems can be overcome when treating precaution as an evidentiary presumption and develop how to formulate it.

中文翻译：

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预防推定

预防原则是国际法律论点的一个核心特征，即使是有争议的特征。我通过多元化的视角来探索这场争论。预防原则之所以如此有争议，是因为它阻止我们从整体上评估风险，尤其是在评估对政策三难困境的反应时。相反，预防措施的主张只关注某些风险而排除了其他风险。我认为，我们可以通过将预防作为证据原则来克服这个问题。这种方法将相互竞争的预防性声明转化为在完整的事实背景下对风险的整体评估。我分析现有的预防证据概念（预防作为负担转移和预防作为降低标准）并不能充分实现这一目标。