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Footer, Mary E. --- "A Tale of Two Commons: Plant Genetic Resources and Agricultural Trade Reform" [2007] ELECD 120; in Somsen, Han (ed), "The Regulatory Challenge of Biotechnology" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: The Regulatory Challenge of Biotechnology

Editor(s): Somsen, Han

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845424893

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: A Tale of Two Commons: Plant Genetic Resources and Agricultural Trade Reform

Author(s): Footer, Mary E.

Number of pages: 27

Extract:

6. Legal framework and political
strategy in dealing with the risks
of new technology: the two faces
of the precautionary principle
Wolfgang van den Daele

1 INTRODUCTION: ESCALATING RISK
PERCEPTIONS

Conflicts over the risks of new technologies are endemic in modern soci-
eties. This does not, however, prove that we are living in a `risk society' in
which the risks of technology are out of control (Beck 1992). Independent
of whether the risks grow, perceptions of risk are growing because the
development of technology is out of control.
One of the problems with regulating modern technology in general and
biotechnology in particular, is that regulation does not reflect the issues that
are at stake in the political battles waged over these technologies. What is
at issue is the structure and the process of modernization and, more pre-
cisely, the democratic control over the forces of social change. These issues
are not on the regulatory agenda, however. Instead, regulation is predom-
inantly confined to the containment of risks. The procedures designed to
resolve conflicts over new technology hence fail to address the major
themes that drive these conflicts.
Modern societies are structurally biased in favour of technological
innovation for at least three reasons:

1. they have institutionalized a type of science that pursues objective
knowledge and therefore accumulates truths that can easily be con-
verted into technology;
2. they have adopted capitalist market economies that are based on imper-
atives of growth and innovation and provide, so to speak, a permanent
...