DONALD BRUCE

FINDING A BALANCE OVER PRECAUTION

(Accepted in revised form June 1, 2001)

ABSTRACT. Three interpretations of the precautionary principle are identified, namely“soft,” “hard,” and outright rejection. The EC Communication of February 2000 is largely aresponse to the latter, to provide a legitimation in trade-related WTO disputes. This contextleads to an over stress on scientific closure. This is critiqued as idealistic in respect ofresolving long term uncertainties inherent in the GM food issue. While offering someuseful guidelines in risk management, the EC report seriously fails to take into accountthe ethical and societal dimension of risk. These are crucial both in determining whenprecautionary principle is invoked and the action to be taken. The EC view leans toomuch to a scientific rationalist risk perspective. However, the “Green” interpretation of theprecautionary principle as a reversal of the burden of proof is also criticized as inconsistentboth with the nature of technology and with the nature of reality as seen in a Christianperspective. Biblical insights on risk reveal a balance of intervention and conservation in aworld where risk is inherent. The notion of risk as a social contract reveals that ethical andsocietal issues have a crucial role to play in applying the precautionary principle.

KEY WORDS: Christianity, EC, Green, precautionary principle, risk assessment, socialcontract, WTO

1. INTRODUCTION

When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean(Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-glass”)

Humpty-Dumpty’s words aptly sum up much of the current debate aboutthe precautionary principle and genetically modified food. It has suffered,like “sustainable development,” from the post-modern redefinition, that aterm once coined in the context of risk analysis or environmental protectionbecomes something quite different in the hands of a different group ofpeople in society. As described at the Earth Summit in 1992, largely in thecontext of global warming, the precautionary principle was a procedure tobe adopted when there was still significant uncertainty about a potentialrisk that would have large consequences, were it to be realized.1 Just asthe free marketeers attempted to transform sustainable development into

1 UN, Declaration of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (Riode Janeiro, 1992).

Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 15: 7–16, 2002.© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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sustained economic growth, in the hands of the some of the environmentalNGO community the precautionary principle has turned into a view that, ifthere is even the least possibility of environmental damage, we must not goahead. These two examples illustrate that subversions of interpretation canoccur on both sides of the present divide over technological progress versusconservation. Both industry and the Greens show a comparable tendencyto use technical terms for their own ends. With no binding interpretation orcommon code to appeal to, whichever group puts the more plausible spinwill have its prior assumptions accepted. A concept like the precautionaryprinciple is thus apt to become whatever the most effective group in usingthe media succeeds in convincing people that it means.

This fluidity presents a problem for real risk assessment, when actualdecisions have to be made. It is further complicated by the prevailingassumption in some North American quarters that the precautionary prin-ciple is inappropriate, something of a European hang-up. It is asserted thatwe should stick to a scientific evaluation of risk, and not be misled intonon-technical arguments. In practice we can and will always find a calcu-lative answer.2 Busch has pointed out some rather ironic inconsistenciesin this transatlantic debate, both ways,3 but this broad generalization stillseems valid one.

At least three distinct communities of interpretation of the precau-tionary principle have emerged – the “soft,” nuanced view typified by theRio declaration, the “hard” Green approach, and US dismissal of both. Thefirst is largely pragmatic, a special case to be adopted when the normalcalculative approach to risk assessment falls short. The second is a philo-sophical statement about technological uncertainty, drawing on aspects ofthe social science evaluation of risk perception. The third expresses theopposite philosophical statement, one of confidence in scientific rationalityto solve all problems, known and unknown.

2 See for example, G. Charney and Elliot, “Risk versus Precaution: A False Dicho-tomy,” in M. P. Cottam, D. W. Harvey, R. P. Pape, and J. E. Tait (eds.), Foresight andPrecaution (Rotterdam, Balkema, 2000), p. 209.

3 Busch, L., “The Homiletics of Risk,” in EurSafe 2000, Proceedings of the SecondConference of the European Society for Agriculture and Food Ethics, 24–26 August,Centre for Bioethics and Risk Assessment, Copenhagen (Copenhage, 2000), p. 99.

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2. EC COMMUNICATION, ITS CONTEXT AND PROBLEMS

In this context, the European Commission’s discussion paper on theprecautionary principle4 has been a helpful contribution, at least inattempting to suggest some norms about the concept. It “seeks to estab-lish a common understanding of the factors leading to recourse to theprecautionary principle. . . .” For example, its lays down important state-ments of the procedure to be followed when the precautionary principleis cited. Measures to be followed should be proportionate, the applicationof the principle must be non-discriminatory regarding comparable areas ofrisk, and be subject to review. As a seminal position statement about theprecautionary principle, however, it falls far short in several vital respects.

It frames its analysis firmly in the calculative approach to risk and failsto discuss the role of the ethical factors that have had so much bearing onthe GM food debate. All the different players in that risk debate are drivenby powerful assumptions and ethical values, derived from certain world-views, and social, cultural, and national contexts. The EC Communicationis especially weak when it addresses the crucial question that Humpty-Dumpty’s point provokes. What value criteria do we use to define when arisk lies within the bounds of the precautionary principle, and whose valuesshould have precedence?5

The EC Communication makes the primary assumption of calculativeapproach to risk, and does not draw from the parallel tradition of societalevaluation of risk perception. This is an important distinction. It definesthe basic problem as a delayed quantification of risk, not one of ethicalvalues or societal perceptions. Precaution is a technique to apply if thecalculative method fails to quantify a risk adequately for the time being.This approach is set by the report’s primary context. This is to provide anintellectual basis for the Commission to defend itself at the World TradeOrganization in disputes about different interpretations of risk in the fieldof environment and biotechnology. The WTO’s animal hormone rulingis alluded to more than once. It also makes much of the internationallegitimation of the precautionary principle in treaties and instruments ofthe UN, the EC itself, and in the WTO agreements. Notably, it cites thefreedom provided for unilateral national action under the WTO’s Sanitaryand Phytosanitary measures (SPS) in circumstances when inadequate

4 EC, Communication from the Commission on the Precautionary Principle, COM(2000) 1 final (European Commission, Brussels, 2000).

5 Bruce, D. M. and J. T. Eldridge, “The Role of Values in Risk Perception in the GMDebate,” in M. P. Cottam, D. W. Harvey, R. P. Pape, and J. E. Tait (eds.), Foresight andPrecaution (Rotterdam, Balkema, 2000), p. 855.

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data exist. The EC interprets this as “sanctioning the use of the precau-tionary principle.” However, the SPS measures regard any such sanctionas temporary. “Members shall seek to obtain the additional informationnecessary for a more objective assessment of risk . . . within a reasonableperiod of time.” Citing SPS presumes an eventual science-based closureby the removal of the uncertainty. Inevitably, therefore, the need to defendagainst potential challenges from the US model of risk slants the EC’sapproach towards a very “soft” version of the precautionary principle.Indeed the report displays a strong aversion to a risk of being accusedat the WTO of protectionism, which it seems to wish to avoid at all costs.

The presumption of scientific closure poses two problems. Firstly, it isan idealized picture. It may indeed be valid in some areas where the reasonfor the uncertainty is a simple lack of data, and where the necessary infor-mation is relatively easy to obtain. It falls down, however, where the dataare inherently more complex or long term, where substantial uncertaintywould remain, or in areas where there may be fundamental conflicts inthe scientific world. This is the case for some of the most critical areas ofpublic contention, like safety and environmental impact of GM crops, andanimal genetics. Examples of scientific uncertainty include new and poten-tially fatal combinations of allergenic proteins, the transfer of antibioticresistance to human gut bacteria, whether gene transfer confers a selec-tion advantage on unintended species, delayed disruption of gene functionwithin the modified species, the transfer of pig retroviruses to the humanpopulation from xenotransplantation, and the effects of nuclear transfercloning on farm animal body function. In several of these examples,the prospects of scientific data that would produce a simple quantitativeanswer about the risk is remote.

In a key statement, the EC asserts that precautionary measures “shall bemaintained, as long as the scientific data remain incomplete, imprecise orinconclusive and as long as the risk is considered too high to be imposedupon society” (6.3). In this respect, it rightly challenges the SPS that thecriterion for closure should be the development of scientific knowledge andnot a specific time limit. Even this may be optimistic, however. The aboveexamples pose a key question by the precautionary principle, namely whatto do when there is no current prospect of scientific resolution. How arewe to make a decision on data that are still inadequate, and are likely toremain so for the foreseeable future?

This leads to the second problem. A requirement for science-basedclosure is flawed in addressing issues where ethical and value aspects playa large part in what data are to be sought, how they are constructed, andhow their meaning is evaluated. These are major areas of contention for

FINDING A BALANCE OVER PRECAUTION 11

a case like GM food. The decision to invoke the precautionary principlejudges that the risk is “too high to be imposed on society.” This is ulti-mately an ethical evaluation. Yet the report makes no discussion of thisdimension, nor on what ethical criteria such evaluation should be made.

Once having made this decision, the report lays down some usefulprinciples about the risk management measures to be taken – for examplethat they must not be disproportionate to the risk, must take long termeffects into account, and must be consistent with measures taken or nottaken about other risks. These are important, but once again these evalu-ations all involve a strong ethical dimension. The only acknowledgementof this comes in a statement made in passing that research needs toinclude a “greater integration of all pertinent factors, e.g., socio-economicinformation.” No further elaboration is made.

This absence marks a major failing of the EC report. It is furthercompounded by the construction of the issue of risk in the opening para-graphs of the report, as “fears generated by perceptions . . . before scientificresearch has been able to fully illuminate the problems.” Surprisingly, itlays this at the door of “advances in communications technology.” Thisseems to imply that the public are nowadays aware earlier that they used tobe of things that, not being scientists, they do not properly understand, andtherefore they become prematurely afraid. This does not take into accountthe considerable social science research and anecdotal evidence that thepublic may well understand a risk quite well, but evaluate it differently –on the basis of personal values, social contexts, and relational issues to dowith trust and control. It also fails to appreciate that the “fears” may beintrinsic ethical concerns about the nature of the technology in question.Alternatively, they may arise out of a more critical cultural attitude to thedegree of trust that is appropriate to give to those managing innovativetechnologies, in the wake of health and environmental failures of recentyears, such as the BSE crisis, global warming, and the ozone hole.

The EC demonstrates a cultural gulf between the reactive and precau-tionary approaches to risk.

3. VALUE JUDGEMENTS BEHIND RISK ASSESSMENT ANDMANAGEMENT

Reactive, Rationalist Viewpoint

The traditional approach to risk has been to see technology as a fundamen-tally desirable thing, which should in general be given its head. Its expectedbenefits to society as a whole – like economics, employment, quality of

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life – are deemed greater than the risks incurred overall, or the higher risksthat certain individuals and groups may suffer. It is thus a largely utilitarianview. The greater good of the many justifies the risks that the few may bear.The driving force borrows much from the Enlightenment project of humanmastery over nature through our ability to reason, and the optimistic notionof progress through scientific and technological advancement. Precautionis a bar to progress. Mistakes can be corrected by human ingenuity.

Precautionary Viewpoint

The precautionary principle is also derived from experience, but it inter-prets it in a different way. It focuses on the fact that past events teach usthat we can never be certain of the outcome of technology. Things nearlyalways go wrong that no one anticipated at the start. It reasons that wehave only a limited right to subject society to these unknown, or at leastill-defined, risks. If these are big enough, we should anticipate them inlegislation. In the limit, we should not take those risks at all unless anduntil we judge that we are able to. We should not wait until somethinghas gone wrong for which we then have real “scientific” data, becausesomeone would have already suffered unnecessarily if we could have seenwhat precautions to take first.

The precautionary principle has resonances with postmodernism inrejecting any single integrating vision like progress. It draws on Chris-tian ethical insights in encompassing a sense of humility, in recognizingboth the finiteness and fallibility of humanity, in contrast to the hubris thathas sometimes disfigured the human progress motif. It also highlights theplight of the groups most vulnerable to the particular risks, setting a greaterstore than a utilitarian position over the need to protect them against thebroader benefits to society. This reflects a problem at the heart of classicalutilitarianism, which does not address adequately how to provide justicefor the few. It also sets more value in the longer future than in the shortterm present. In many of these respects it also coheres with feminist andecological perspectives, focusing on connectedness and an ethic of co-operation rather than of intervening in order to dominate. In this latterrespect it also comes into tension with a Christian understanding, as weshall see.

Reversal of the Burden of Proof

The prevailing Green perspective on the precautionary principle, the so-called “hard” interpretation, is not so much as a variation on the existingmethods of risk assessment, as a presentation of an alternative paradigmaround which to evaluate risk. It claims that the precautionary principle

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represents a reversal of the burden of proof about risks. It challengesthe presumption of reactive risk assessment that we should proceed withtechnology unless someone provides significant evidence of a risk. Thisinterpretation of the precautionary principle means, for example, that weshould not release GMOs to the environment unless the absence of risk hasbeen proved. The “reversal” is somewhat misleading because it is heavilyasymmetric. The burden upon the proponent is very much greater than theopponent. Instead of not showing an effect, the proponent would now haveto show that there is no effect. Scientifically it is very much more difficult– in many cases impossible – to prove the absence of effect. For example incases of small local populations, epidemiology is often powerless to showwhether a postulated correlation – say between an incinerator emission anda local “cluster” of occurrences of a particular cancer – has a real cause andeffect relationship, or is just a coincidence. In such cases, to presume guiltbecause innocence cannot be proved presents the technology concernedwith a virtually impossible task.

If applied generally this would entail a paradigm shift from a presump-tion of “Yes, we will have technology, provided . . .” to one of “notechnology, unless . . .” Under this regime, many technologies we havecome to rely on and which seem to have proved reasonably safe might wellnever have been adopted. When railway travel was first mooted, concernswere expressed about the effects on the human body of travelling at speedsin excess of thirty miles per hour. There was only one way of findingout. With a reversal of the burden of proof, the hard interpretation of theprecautionary principle would probably not have sanctioned rail travel, stillless air travel. For those of a more radical environmental perspective, thisis exactly the point. Although we cannot turn back the clock, technologyis seen to have gone too far. The hard precautionary principle representsa radical rule change to make any future technology very much harder toapply.

4. A CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING OF PRECAUTION

A Christian vision of technology and risk would critique the underlyingEnlightenment assumptions of a rationalism view of risk. Its sanguineview of the fallibility and perversity of human nature exposes an inherentnaiveté in the symbolism of scientific progress. It would see the autonomyof humanity to determine its own technological destiny, independent ofGod, as simple idolatry. Yet, while it would share the green criticism of anunrestrained overcoming of nature, a Christian understanding recoils fromthe “hard” interpretation of the precautionary principle.

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The world is seen not as mere nature but as God’s creation, complex andconstantly evolving, but ultimately owing its very existence and sustenanceto God. Human beings are described as being made in God’s image, witha special status. In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, humans arecalled to rule over the rest of God’s creation, to “subdue it and fill it,”implying intervention. The second chapter pictures humankind lookingafter a garden, in a more relational metaphor, implying both work andconservation. This balance between intervention and conservation conflictsequally with notions of unbridled technological mastery or the radicalGreen vision, which are seen as unacceptable extremes.

There are also important insights on risk. The image of God implies thathumans are to be creative under God, but dependent and finite. Our finitudemeans that we cannot know the outcomes of our creative actions. Humancreativity always carries a measure of risk from unintended consequences,in arts and sciences alike. Moreover, from our point of view, God createdthe world with risk as an inherent part of life. Human beings are onlydesigned to exist within a narrow range of temperature, physical para-meters, inputs, and environmental stresses. The human body requires foodand water, cannot go under water indefinitely and cannot fly. Thus rivers,oceans, cliffs, deserts, and areas of glaciation present various objectivedangers to our existence. The reversal of the burden of proof, therefore,does not cohere with the world or the human condition as God has madeit. To prescribe that humans should not go ahead with a technology unlessit has been demonstrated there is no risk is a counsel of unattainableperfection. Indeed, in the limit it becomes idolatry because human securityis sought in creating an environment free of all physical risk, when oursecurity is meant to be found in God within an objectively risky world.

On the other hand, this does not imply a license to take irresponsibletechnological risks. It means that the mere positing of remote and specu-lative risks without any sense of probability does not constitute a truebasis for precaution, given that risk is a baseline condition for humanity.The precautionary principle can only be applied truly where there is goodreason, and in recognition of significant harms that are reasonably likely tooccur. It is also applied, knowing that such judgments will sometimes bewrong. This is sometimes because in our finitude we simply had no wayof knowing in advance. It may also be because, according to a Christianunderstanding, our fallen human nature has an inherent capacity to deceiveitself. We can equally exaggerate risks we ought not to have feared, orignore risks we ought to have taken serious account of. There are ethicallimits to precaution as well as to technology.

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5. PRECAUTION AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT

A Christian perspective also underlines the importance of wider ethicaland societal values in risk assessment and management. It is a generalfeature of technology that the full range of outcomes are seldom knownin advance. Risk thus involves an invisible social contract. Society isprepared to embrace technology to deliver certain benefits, and will accepta certain degree of risk and adaptation, provided certain basic factors arenot infringed.6 These include our familiarity with the technology and itsbasis (or not) in the structures of the society, our sense of control overthe forces involved, our trust in those in control, threats to basic values, acomparison with similar risks, the frequency, magnitude, and distributionof risk, and the likely benefits. Quite apart from scientific uncertainty, theprecautionary principle should also be invoked when a significant numberof these conditions are challenged, as was the case with GM food. Precau-tionary risk evaluations must be taken in the context of these wider ethicalissues relating to the technology in question, including the benefits.

This has been discussed more widely in the context of genetically modi-fied food, where two opposing conclusions about whether we need “GM”to feed the world make an interesting illustration.7 The Nuffield Council onBioethics saw the key issue as one of global food security. It applied theprecautionary principle and judged that genetic modification could havean important role to play. Christian Aid, on the other hand saw the keycriterion as the oppression of the world’s poor by the forces of corporateglobal capitalism. In rejecting GM food, however, it was not applying theprecautionary principle, but actually relied on a conventional reactive riskassessment. It argued that there is no uncertainty because we know whatwill happen on past evidence. Since the risks of corporate abuse are wellknown, we can be fairly sure that the use of GM food will worsen the lotof the poor.

In both cases, the choice to apply the precautionary principle or not, andwhich aspect of the issue to apply it to, were value judgments. They led toopposite conclusions of far reaching consequence. Perceptions are shapedby particular underlying values about intervening in nature, variouslyreflecting environmental, organic, commercial, scientific, overseas devel-opment, and other perspectives. The essence of the precautionary principleis not only a question of scientific uncertainty but societal and ethicalvalues. By not addressing such questions of value, the EC Communication

6 Bruce, D. M., “Playing Dice with Creation,” in B. Szerszynski and C. Deane-Drummond (eds.), Reordering Nature (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 2001).

7 Bruce, D. M. and J. T. Eldridge, op. cit. (2000).

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leaves a major part of the precautionary principle unanswered. Over GMfood risks, Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall in anarchy. If “all the king’shorses and all the king’s men” want to find out how to reassemble thepieces, it can only be done if the EC learns how we take ethical factors ofrisk and precaution into account rather better than it has done to date.

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