IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/hal-00242979.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Revisiting the precautionary principle under the light of 2002-2003 French and international events

Author

Listed:
  • Olivier Godard

    (CECO - Laboratoire d'économétrie de l'École polytechnique - X - École polytechnique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Revisiting a selection of national (the Charter of the Environment in France) and international (the preventive war launched by the United States against Iraq) 2002-2003 events, the paper reminds the sustained confusion between two concepts: the Precautionary Principle and the Abstention Rule. It then supports the idea that there is no basic antagonism in practical rationalities of risk management across the Atlantic Ocean. But there is a fundamental opposition in each region between two basic usages of the Principle either to promote a progress in settling coordinated action for common concerns or to justify unilateral actions departing from an existing agreed common regime.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivier Godard, 2003. "Revisiting the precautionary principle under the light of 2002-2003 French and international events," Working Papers hal-00242979, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00242979
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00242979
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-00242979/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gollier, Christian & Jullien, Bruno & Treich, Nicolas, 2000. "Scientific progress and irreversibility: an economic interpretation of the 'Precautionary Principle'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 229-253, February.
    2. Erwann Michel-Kerjan, 2003. "New Challenges in Critical Infrastructures : A US Perspective," Working Papers hal-00242947, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jessica Stern & Jonathan B. Wiener, 2006. "Precaution Against Terrorism," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 393-447, June.
    2. Ragnar E. Lofstedt, 2007. "The 'Plateau-ing' of the European Better Regulation Agenda: An Analysis of Activities Carried out by the Barroso Commission1," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 423-447, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baker, Erin, 2005. "Uncertainty and learning in a strategic environment: global climate change," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 19-40, January.
    2. Michael Finus & Pedro Pintassilgo & Alistair Ulph, 2014. "International Environmental Agreements with Uncertainty, Learning and Risk Aversion," Department of Economics Working Papers 19/14, University of Bath, Department of Economics.
    3. Edouard Civel & Marc Baudry, 2018. "The Fate of Inventions. What can we learn from Bayesian learning in strategic options model of adoption ?," EconomiX Working Papers 2018-47, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    4. Pindyck, Robert S., 2012. "Uncertain outcomes and climate change policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 289-303.
    5. Guillouet, Louise & Martimort, David, 2023. "Acting in the Darkness: Towards some Foundations for the Precautionary Principle," TSE Working Papers 23-1411, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised 05 Jan 2024.
    6. Jaime DE MELO, 2016. "Moving on Towards a Workable Climate Regime," Working Papers P171, FERDI.
    7. Salanie, Francois & Treich, Nicolas, 2006. "Over-savings and hyperbolic discounting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1557-1570, August.
    8. Millner, Antony & Ollivier, Hélène & Simon, Leo, 2014. "Policy experimentation, political competition, and heterogeneous beliefs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 84-96.
    9. Bramoullé, Yann & Orset, Caroline, 2018. "Manufacturing doubt," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 119-133.
    10. Danau, Daniel, 2020. "Prudence and preference for flexibility gain," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(2), pages 776-785.
    11. Meglena Jeleva & Stéphane Rossignol, 2019. "Optimists, Pessimists, and the Precautionary Principle," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(1), pages 367-396, September.
    12. Nicolas Treich, 2000. "Décision séquentielle et Principe de Précaution," Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 55, pages 5-24.
    13. Lontzek, Thomas S. & Narita, Daiju, 2009. "The effect of uncertainty on decision making about climate change mitigation: a numerical approach of stochastic control," Kiel Working Papers 1539, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    14. Takao Asano, 2010. "Precautionary Principle and the Optimal Timing of Environmental Policy Under Ambiguity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 47(2), pages 173-196, October.
    15. Ingham, Alan & Ma, Jie & Ulph, Alistair, 2007. "Climate change, mitigation and adaptation with uncertainty and learning," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 5354-5369, November.
    16. Giovanni Immordino, 2001. "Choosing between traditional and innovative technologies: the case of scientific uncertainty," CSEF Working Papers 74, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    17. Geoffrey Heal & Bengt Kriström, 2002. "Uncertainty and Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 22(1), pages 3-39, June.
    18. Narain, Urvashi & Hanemann, Michael & Fisher, Anthony C., 2002. "Uncertainty, Learning, and the Irreversibility Effect," CUDARE Working Papers 198691, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    19. Jules Selles, 2018. "Fisheries management: what uncertainties matter?," Working Papers hal-01824238, HAL.
    20. Caroline Orset, 2014. "Innovation and the precautionary principle," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(8), pages 780-801, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00242979. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.