[en] The ICRP philosophy of radiation protection is described in the main Recommendations issued periodically. The paper reviews some issues of this philosophy on the bases of the new Recommendations expected to be approved by the end of the year. In these Recommendations, the Commission will not change the basic principles of its system of radiation protection, namely that practices causing exposures should be justified, the protection arrangements should be optimized, and the individual exposures should be restricted by dose limits, source-related dose constraints or prescribed limits, as appropriate. As an important conceptual development, the Commission will clearly differentiate in its recommendations between practices giving rise to radiation exposures, calling for the application of the system of protection, and situations where existing radiation exposures require decisions on remedial actions. In its review of radiobiology and epidemiology, the Commission concludes that new data and new interpretation of earlier information now indicate with reasonable certainty that the risks associated with ionizing radiation are about three times higher than they were estimated to be a decade ago. This increase calls for some quantitative changes in the Commission's recommendations. One such change to be recommended by the Commission is a reduction of the dose limit for occupational exposure. The current figure of 50 millisievert in a year will be reduced to 20 millisievert in a year, with some provisions to allow year-to-year flexibility. The current limit for the long-term dose for the public (1 millisievert per year averaged over a lifetime) will be retained, but increased protection will be provided by limiting the averaging period to five years and recommending the use of additional source-related constraints