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Risk regulation and precaution in Europe and the United States: the case of bioinvasion

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Abstract

The precautionary nature of risk regulation in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) is an ongoing debate. Theoretical contentions over ‘who is more precautionary’ confirm that the degree of relative precaution may lead to different levels of protection, but also suggest that precaution needs to be evaluated against different parts of the regulatory process. This paper addresses a new case of transatlantic split which has occurred with the adoption of the EU regulation on alien invasive species. This regulation aims to drive important changes at the trade–environment nexus and reflects Europe’s integrated policy approach to environmental, health, and safety risks. We have carried out a comparative analysis by examining parts of the regulatory process. We argue that differences in legal and policy frameworks, risk assessment, and risk management structures have left the EU and the US wide apart as to their risk governance ambitions. The EU exhibits more precautionary approach with regard to these parts, as compared to the US. Our finding suggests that policy divergence, as reflected in this case, is true for both stringency and regulatory process, expanding literature discussions on precaution in these systems. Yet, with the EU’s regulation being relatively new, there are still implementation issues up for debate.

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Notes

  1. Regulation (EU) 1143/2014 of the European Parliament and the Council of 22 October 2014 on the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species. OJ L 317.

  2. It represents a precautionary approach because it applies to all the Union territory, including Member States that are not yet affected or are even unlikely to be affected (Article 10).

  3. Amended by E.O. 13,751 (December 2016).

  4. In addition to federal laws, a number of states have laws restricting transport or possession of certain IAS. State laws are not described in this paper.

  5. It should be noted that an even more precautionary listing approach would employ a ‘white list’, that is prohibiting the importation of a species unless it has been listed as allowed, or until the risk that it may become invasive has been evaluated (Simberloff 2006). A few nations, including New Zealand and Australia, have adopted this approach.

  6. Amended by EU 2019/1262.

  7. Proportionality means that measures based on the PP must be proportionate to the desired level of protection. In some cases, a total ban may not be a proportional response to a potential risk. In other cases, it may be the sole possible response to a potential risk (Communication from the Commission on the precautionary principle COM (2000) 1.).

  8. Under the principle of Subsidiarity, in areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Union shall act only if the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level (Art.5 of the Treaty of European Union).

  9. Besides the WTO/SPS, there are other international regulation and standard-setting organizations which might be relevant to risk assessment of bioinvasion by trade. Some of them include precaution in some form (explicitly or non-explicitly), such as the International Plant Protection Conventions (IPPC), and World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). However, there is a general lack of guidance on how precaution could be implemented into the risk assessment of biosecurity/bioinvasion. For a comprehensive discussion on inconsistent and insufficient guidance for incorporation of precaution in international instruments, see Dahlstrom et al. (2011).

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Acknowledgements

Ronit Justo-Hanani would like to thank Prof. David Vogel for reading previous draft and offering helpful comments. She also thanks Prof. Miranda Schreurs for insightful conversation. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Public Policy, and the Steinhardt Museum for Natural History, Tel Aviv University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Public Policy, Tel Aviv University, 6997801, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Ronit Justo-Hanani

  2. The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Israel National Center for Biodiversity Studies, Tel Aviv University, 6997801, Tel-Aviv, Israel

    Tamar Dayan

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Justo-Hanani, R., Dayan, T. Risk regulation and precaution in Europe and the United States: the case of bioinvasion. Policy Sci 54, 3–20 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-020-09409-9

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