Precautionary Risk Regulation in European Governance

This paper develops a sequential model of precautionary risk regulation that contributes substantively and procedurally to the European Commission's position on precaution. At first, four concepts of precautionary policy are distinguished which are taken into account in the conceptualisation of the precautionary risk regulation. The paper then expounds the four key challenges of characterising, evaluating and managing risks: these are seriousness, uncertainty, complexity, and socio-political ambiguity. Subsequently, the architecture of the model of precautionary risk regulation is set out, which is characterised by the following three key stages: screening, appraisal, and management. It additionally includes a design, development and oversight function which ensures that the overall process is robust to changes in circumstances and to the perspective of all interested and affected parties. Afterwards five approaches to risk analysis are elaborated which are integrated in the formal decision analytic concept. They provide tools for assessing, evaluating, and managing serious, uncertain, complex and/or ambiguous risks and include different methods for selecting objectives, assessing and handling data, and finding the most appropriate procedure for balancing pros and cons.