HOW THE EU HANDLES UNCERTAIN RISKS: UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE

ABSTRACT

The European Union (EU) has adopted the precautionary principle (PP) as a legal principle for dealing with uncertain risks; that is situations in which the relationship between activities and their potential hazard cannot be established. While the PP's application has been defined by the European Commission and EU case law, political considerations ultimately determine whether and how it is invoked. This article reviews the literature on the PP's application in EU policy making by addressing three research questions: When do EU policy makers invoke the PP? How are EU precautionary policies made? Is the making of EU precautionary policies different from the making of regulatory policies addressing certain risks? While the conceptual literature provides some insights regarding all three questions, the empirical literature is particularly instructive regarding the first two questions. Future studies have the task of merging the two literatures in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of EU precautionary policy making.

KEY WORDS:

• European Union
• precautionary principle
• regulation
• risk
• scientific evidence
• uncertainty

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank Dovilė Rimkutė and Kai Schulze for critical remarks on earlier drafts, as well as Berthold Rittberger and three anonymous reviewers for many helpful comments and suggestions. Jennifer Shore deserves credit for language editing.

Additional information

Biographical note:

Jale Tosun is a Research Fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research at the University of Mannheim and a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Heidelberg.