The Precautionary Principle and the Social Standard
Scientific progress offers tremendous potential benefits to society but also presents risks. While research focuses on how to manifest the benefits of any new technology, the outside community fears the consequences that technology may inadvertentl...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/886341468275363519/The-precautionary-principle-and-the-social-standard http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27358 |
| Summary: | Scientific progress offers tremendous
potential benefits to society but also presents risks. While
research focuses on how to manifest the benefits of any new
technology, the outside community fears the consequences
that technology may inadvertently have on social goods such
as the environment, public health and security. To balance
the benefits of the progress of science against the risks
associated with its application is one of the major public
policy challenges of the 21st century. In this paper, the
author argues that the precautionary principle is an
extension of the scientific method in the popperian
tradition and has precedent in hypothesis testing. Under
this framework, we then explore an approach that captures
the essence of the weaker precautionary principle but also
accounts for the 'unacceptable' outcome through
the use of a social standard or threshold of harm. Under
this methodology, a social standard is established and
accounted for in the cost-benefit analysis. The existence of
the social standard creates an additional cost or benefit to
the assessment of a project. The report illustrates the
methodology with a discussion of two cases: the 'mad
cow' disease and the regulation on carbon emission. |
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