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Playing With Nature: Regulating Free Trade in Risk Society
The course will present, contrast and evaluate the regulatory frameworks of risk regulation in the EU and at the international level. Is risk regulation a market-making or a market-breaking activity? How are risks conceptualized in economic theory and in social sciences? How can the law organize and supervise risk assessment and risk management? The European Union had to address these issues within its specific institutional structure. Three regulatory patterns emerged: self-regulation by non-governmental standardization bodies; the Comitology system (networks of national administrations under the guidance of the Commission); European agencies without regulatory competencies. The law in action and the law in the books differ in all cases. At the international level, transnational ('private') governance arrangements have been established. Their links with the World Trade Organization (WTO) are important. So are the conflicts between WTO and EU governance. Differences in regulatory philosophies will be examined and transatlantic conflicts assessed in that light.