Emerging Science and Technologies: New Challenges

“History suggests that not every new technology leads to new hazards and not every new hazard is associated with a new technology” - Andrew Maynard (2012). Introduction The main goal is: To Promote the Responsible Development of BCGIN S/T – enabled materials, processes, and products, with an approach for helping to ensure that researchers, manufacturers, regulators and others have the necessary information on potential risks and how to prevent, avoid, or mitigate them. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1992)has diagnosed contemporary society as showing “organized irresponsibility”: modern technological society allows scientists, engineers and industry to develop and introduce all sorts of new technologies (chemical, nuclear, genetic modification) while it structurally lacks means to hold anyone accountable. The first generation of environmental problems was met in the US, EU and most developed countries largely through a regulatory strategy (government develops standards for achieving society\u27s environmental goals, applies those standards to categories of pollution sources, establishes mechanisms for overseeing conformance with those standards and then applies punitive sanctions in case of non-conformance). Since the 1980s, Member States governments also have drawn increasingly on information as a strategy (environmental and health agencies began to use risks communication as a way of informing people about risks), i.e. soft law (communications, action plans and programs, green and white papers, etc.) well developed in the EU Environmental policy and law. The environmental and health risks that may be associated with BCGIN S/T are one of Third-generation problem; First, industrial facilities pollution, and Second, patterns of land use and development, degradation of the global commons. So, BCGIN S/T present complex and distinctive challenges to the public and private institutions responsible for managing environmental and healthy risks in society. Environmental Law (EL) is a collection of principles, rules and regulations dealing with the interaction of human society and nature. The field of EL focuses on the interpretation of these principles related to preventing damage to the land, water, air, living creatures and property, including socio-economic, health and cultural impacts. The field also extends to the rights claimed over and on behalf of land, water, minerals, plants, and animals, determining who gets what and what remains. The EL system is an organized way of using all of the laws in our legal system to minimize, prevent, punish or remedy the consequences of actions which damage or threaten the environment, public health and safety. The field ranges from government regulations to case law and generally accepted principles relating to liability for the release of substances into the environment, intentionally or negligently, which related in harm. Proposal My proposal is based on the two recent cases developed in the EU Environmental law and policy: First is the European Court of Justice (ECJ) Cases: C-58/10 until 68/10, Monsanto SAS and others 22/03/2011. It is about Preliminary ruling on GMO crop emergency measures in France. This reference for a preliminary ruling was made out of eleven (11) joined procedures at the French Council of State and concerned a ban issued by France on cultivation of the GMO corn crop MONO810. Advocate General (AG) Mengozzi found that the procedure for emergency measures under Article 23 of Directive 2001/18/EC relating to the deliberate release into the environment of GMOs was not applicable. Instead, Regulation EC 1829/2003 on Genetically Modified Food and Feed applied in his view. The AG further found that as a consequence, emergency protective measures could only be taken under Article 34 of Regulation. The later provision stipulates that emergency measures can be taken where “it is evident that product (...) are likely to constitute a serious risk to human health, animal health or the environment”. By comparison, Article 23 of Directive would have allowed for emergency measures if a Member State had “detailed grounds for considering that a GMO (...) constitutes risk to human health or the environment”. After considering that both provision form an expression of the precautionary principle, and considering the explanation given to that principle by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and in EU Legislation, the AG concluded that emergency measures, whatever based on the Directive or Regulation (and despite their differences in wording), can only be taken in cases where the risk is considerable. The precautionary principle however tells that precautionary measures can be taken in case where science is not (yet) able to assess the probability risk at hand. Second is about actual GMOs issue in the EU, i.e. EU Parliament backs national right to cultivation bans. EU Member States should have the flexibility to ban or restrict the cultivation of genetically modified crops and should be able to cite environmental motives for doing so, according to MEPs voting on draft legislation (1st reading in co-decision procedure; adopted with 548 votes in favor, 84 against and 31 abstentions). “I\u27m pleased that the EU Parliament has reached on agreement on difficult issue of GMOs, which has been an issue of public concern for years. If the Council manages to find common position, this balanced agreement will allow countries and regions the right to not grow GMOs if they so choose.” The Commission had proposed to grant EU Member States the right to ban crops on all but health or environmental grounds, which were to be solely assessed by the European Food Safety Authority. Committed to ensuring a firmer legal basis in the context of international trade rules, EP insisted that MS should not be prevented from stating additional environmental grounds. An EU-level safety check and authorization will continue to be a precondition to a green light for growing GMOs, and its guidelines need updating. Only a strain of GM maize and one modified potato are currently authorized for cultivation in the EU and most MS do not currently grow either crop commercially. Austria, France, Greece, Hungary, Germany and Luxembourg have activated a “safeguard clause” in the current EU Directive 2001/18/EC to expressly prohibit cultivation of certain GMOs. Nevertheless, there is one array of increasingly sophisticated materials that are emerging from advances in science, technology, and engineering that do demand careful consideration of the new risks they might pose