Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
Many years ago, there was intense debate about what the Precautionary Principle (“PP”) is, or is not. More recently, as the battle lines in that debate have ossified, academic attention seems to have shifted to a focus on the somewhat more subtle question of how the term PP, whatever it may mean, is used by different actors in different contexts. David Vogel’s recent book, The Politics of Precaution: Regulating the Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States (2012) (hereafter “Politics”), is a good recent example of such commentary. Vogel's approach recognizes the diversity of relevant developments, he seeks to impose a coherent narrative framework on those developments.
1 Fanny Chenal (Marion Cotillard) in “A Good Year” (2006), <http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0056576/quotes> (last accessed on 06 March 2013).
2 Frederick Maurice Powicke, quoted in Chapter 5, Edward Hallett Carr, What Is History? (1961).
3 I feel compelled to disclose the limitations of my own qualifications to critique such an ambitious empiricist work as Reality. I have no advanced training in social science or statistics, only an undergraduate social science degree and a U.S. JD., hence my assessment is more impressionistic and lacks the rigor of Wiener’s own work.
4 Brendon Swedlow, Denise Kall, Zheng Zhou, James K. Hammitt, and Jonathan B. Wiener, A Qualitative Comparison of the Relative Precaution in the United States and Europe, 1970–2004, in Reality.
5 Jonathan B. Wiener, “The Rhetoric of Precaution” at 28, in Reality.
6 Jonathan B. Wiener, “The Rhetoric of Precaution” at 7–9, in Reality.
7 Brady Wagoner, “Notes on a Social Psychology of Thinking: A comparison of Bartlett and Moscovici”, 21 Papers on Social Representations 6.1-6.14 (2012), <http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/psr/PSR2012/2012_1_6.pdf> (last accessed on 29 May, 2013).v
8 Bartlett, Frederic C., Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932).Google Scholar
9 I have lived off and on in Europe (mostly France and England) starting 1975, and off and on in Asia, starting in 1985.
10 See, e.g., Jane K. Winn, “The Cape Town Convention's International Registry: Decoding the Secrets of Success in Global Electronic Commerce”, forthcoming, Cape Town Convention Journal (2012), University of Washington School of Law Research Paper No. 2012-11, <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2118963> (last accessed on 06 January 2013); Jane K. Winn and Angela Zhang, “China's Golden Tax Project: A Technological Strategy for Reducing VAT Fraud”, forthcoming, Peking University Law Journal (2012), <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1641379> (last accessed on 06 March 2013); Jane K. Winn, “Electronic Commerce Law: Direct Regulation, Co–Regulation and Self–Regulation”, forthcoming Cahiers du CRID (2012), <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1634832> (last accessed on 06 March 2013); Jane K. Winn and Nicolas Jondet, “A ‘New Deal’ for End Users? Lessons from a French Innovation in the Regulation of Interoperability”, 51 Will. & Mary L. Rev., pp. 547–576 (2009), <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1419750> (last accessed on 06 March 2013); Jane K. Winn and Nicolas Jondet, “A ‘New Approach’ to Standards and Consumer Protection”, 31 J. of Cons. Policy 459–472 (2008); Jane K. Winn, “Are ‘Better’ Security Breach Notification Laws Possible?”, 24(3) Berk. J. L. & Tech, pp. 1133–1166, <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1416222> (last accessed on 06 March 2013).v
11 Vogel, Politics, p. 278.
12 Swendlow, Brendon, Kall, Denise, Zhou, Zheng, Hammitt, James K., and Wiener, Jonathan B., “A Qualitative Comparison of the Relative Precaution in the United States and Europe, 1970–2004”, in Reality, p. 379.Google Scholar
13 Carr, What is History Chapter 1
14 Jonathan B. Wiener, The Rhetoric of Precaution, Reality at 5 and 26; Jonathan B. Wiener, The Real Pattern of Precaution, Reality at 520, 524, 554–555.v