A report of TRUSTNET on risk governance--lessons learned

During the 1990s, the current regulatory frameworks and decision making processes in the European Union for hazardous activities such as nuclear and chemical waste management, hazardous industrial facilities, food production, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture and health care, were confronted at both national and local levels with significant difficulties in trying to meet the different concerns of the various categories of stakeholders involved. The TRUSTNET concerted action was established to assess these difficulties and their consequences and to propose more coherent, comprehensive and equitable approaches for evaluating, comparing and managing health and environmental risks. This paper presents the outcomes of this programme. A European network of some 80 participants was established comprising an interdisciplinary team of regulators, experts and stakeholders with experience of industrial, natural and medical risks. The participants identified the main challenges to the governance of hazardous activities on the basis of a detailed analysis of some 11 case studies, and determined criteria for assessing what can be considered as 'good' governance of hazardous activities. As a result of these investigations, an interdisciplinary model describing the available approaches to governance of hazardous activities is proposed in the form of two main paradigms: Top-Down Governance and Mutual Trust Governance. Using this model the difficulties encountered by current approaches to risk regulation are interpreted. The new perspective describes how the two paradigms can interact in the continuous social dynamic to allow the maintenance of social cohesion.