Rip, Arie --- "The Tension between Fiction and Precaution in Nanotechnology" [2006] ELECD 396; in Fisher, Elizabeth; Jones, Judith; von Schomberg, René (eds), "Implementing the Precautionary Principle" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Implementing the Precautionary Principle

Editor(s): Fisher, Elizabeth; Jones, Judith; von Schomberg, René

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845427023

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: The Tension between Fiction and Precaution in Nanotechnology

Author(s): Rip, Arie

Number of pages: 14

Extract:

13. The tension between fiction and
precaution in nanotechnology
Arie Rip1

The precautionary principle stands midway between a general philosophy
of precaution and prudential approaches, and specific legal and regulatory
provisions and their implementation. The European Union has taken
the lead in articulating such a principle (Commission of the European
Communities 2000), and von Schomberg (see chapter 2 in this volume) has
offered a comprehensive formulation:

Where, following an assessment of available scientific information, there are rea-
sonable grounds for concern for the possibility of adverse effects but scientific
uncertainty persists, provisional risk management measures based on a broad
cost-benefit analysis whereby priority will be given to human health and the
environment, necessary to ensure the chosen high level of protection in the
Community and proportionate to this level of protection, may be adopted,
pending further scientific information for a more comprehensive risk assess-
ment, without having to wait until the reality and seriousness of those adverse
effects become fully apparent [my italics].

Such a precautionary principle is not immediately applicable to nanotech-
nology. Firstly, nanotechnology is an umbrella term for a range of
enabling technologies, rather than a coherent set of processes and products
which can be assessed in terms of adverse effects. In this respect, it differs
from biotechnology and genomics, with which it tends to be compared in
terms of societal impact and public responses. Secondly, it is still quite
uncertain which options will be developed and which applications can and
will materialize. Nanotechnology is mostly ...