Uncertain safety: allocating responsibilities for safety

178 Pages·2010·2.581 MB·English

by  Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid (Netherlands)

Uncertain Safety
This report is a translation of wrr-report 82 Onzekere Veiligheid. Verantwoor -
delijkheden rond fysieke veiligheid, submitted on October 1, 2008, to the Dutch
government and published by Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.
Translation: T. Brouwers
SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL FOR GOVERNMENT POLICY
Uncertain Safety
allocating responsibilities for safety
Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2009
Cover illustration: © John Wilkes / corbis
Cover design: Studio Daniëls, The Hague
Layout: Het Steen Typografie, Maarssen
isbn 978 90 8964 181 6
e-isbn 978 90 4851 150 1
nur 754
© wrr/ Amsterdam University Press, The Hague / Amsterdam 2009
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part
of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author
of the book.
“The State, that’s the dikes.”
C.W. van der Pot and A.M. Donner 1977

9
contents
Executive summary 11
Preface 19
1 Introduction 21
1.1 Concerns about safety 21
1.2 Problem formulation 24
1.3 Limitations and structure of this report 26
2 Safety issues: A survey of the domain 29
2.1 Hazardous substances 30
2.2 Flood prevention 31
2.3 Infectious diseases 34
2.4 ictand the internet 35
2.5 Food safety 37
2.6 Nanotechnology 39
2.7 Common denominators in safety concerns 41
3 The classical risk approach and the allocation of responsibilities 45
3.1 The classical risk approach 45
3.2 Risk assessment and risk management 46
3.2.1 Risk assessment 46
3.2.2 Risk management 47
3.3 Responsibility and risks 50
3.4 Government instruments and administrative problems 53
3.4.1 Legislation and regulation 54
3.4.2 Protective provisions 57
3.4.3 Risk communication 59
3.4.4 Supervision 60
3.4.5 Administrative problems of the classical risk approach 62
3.5 Measures taken by companies 65
3.5.1 Risk management and corporate security 65
3.5.2 Self-regulation 67
3.5.3 Inspection and enforcement 68
3.6 Initiatives of citizens and civil society 69
3.6.1 Activities of citizens and civil society 69
3.6.2 Government and individual responsibility 71
3.7 Limited room for reallocating responsibilities 72
8 uncertain safety
4 The classical risk approach under pressure 75
4.1 Intrinsic problems of the classical risk approach 76
4.1.1 Separating risk assessment and risk management 76
4.1.2 The role of hidden normative assumptions 77
4.1.3 The limits of expertise 81
4.1.4 Known risks are not necessarily manageable risks 82
4.2 Changing external conditions: new challenges 83
4.2.1 New risks 83
4.2.2 Changing position of experts 85
4.2.3 High expectations, media and the perception of citizens 88
4.3 The emergence of a new risk approach 89
4.4 Foundations of the new risk approach 93
4.4.1 Risks are constructions 95
4.4.2 Uncertainty and risk 97
4.4.3 Safety and danger are connected 99
4.5 Four types of risk problems 100
4.5.1 Simple risk problems 101
4.5.2 Complex risk problems 101
4.5.3 Uncertain risk problems 102
4.5.4 Ambiguous risk problems 104
4.5.5 Additional comments 105
4.6 Conclusion: the limits of the social engineering perspective 107
5 Normative aspects of the new risk approach 111
5.1 Politics beyond the classical risk approach 111
5.1.1 Precaution: a simultaneously widely accepted and contested principle 112
5.1.2 Public participation 116
5.2 The need for a new normative perspective 119
5.3 Normative foundations of the new risk approach 122
5.3.1 The scope of the precautionary principle 126
5.3.2 Precaution concretized 127
5.4 The precautionary principle and the allocation of responsibilities 130
5.5 Precaution requires political organization 134
6 Conclusions and recommendations 139
6.1 Towards a future-proof safety policy 139
6.2 The new risk approach and the precautionary principle as a starting
point for policy 142
6.3 Organizing precaution: the new risk approach 144
6.4 Legal instruments 146
6.4.1 Public-law measures 146
6.4.2 Private law measures 149
6.4.3 Independent judiciary 152
contents 9
6.5 Institutional conditions: the role of politics, science and citizens 153
6.5.1 Science 154
6.5.2 Public participation 157
6.6 Precaution as constitutional task 161
References 165
Websites cited 177