Governance & Policy
Prior Informed Consent (PIC)
The principle that a party must be informed of and consent to an action affecting it before it proceeds — applied to hazardous trade, genetic resources and Indigenous rights.
Definition
Prior informed consent is a legal principle requiring that consent be obtained from an affected party before an activity proceeds, based on full disclosure of relevant information. It operates in several regimes: the Rotterdam Convention (importing countries must consent to listed hazardous chemical shipments), the Basel Convention (hazardous waste movements), the Nagoya Protocol (access to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge), and — in its strongest form, free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) — the rights of Indigenous peoples over actions affecting their lands.
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