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Brownsword, Roger --- "The Age of Regulatory Governance and Nanotechnologies" [2010] ELECD 712; in Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew (eds), "International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies

Editor(s): Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446731

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: The Age of Regulatory Governance and Nanotechnologies

Author(s): Brownsword, Roger

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

4 The age of regulatory governance and
nanotechnologies
Roger Brownsword


4.1 INTRODUCTION

In their introductory overview, Graeme A. Hodge, Diana M. Bowman
and Andrew D. Maynard (2010) have highlighted seven particular regula-
tory challenges that they expect to be presented by the development and
application of nanotechnologies. If we are to rise to these multifarious
challenges, we need the right kind of regulatory environment ­ an environ-
ment that incentivizes the scientific and technical communities to improve
their understanding and handling of nanomaterials, an environment that
is properly geared to assess and manage risk as well as to ensure that the
benefits of nanotechnologies are shared, and perhaps above all an envi-
ronment that engenders public trust and confidence (Brownsword and
Somsen, 2009).
Hodge, Bowman and Maynard also flag the point that there is more to
meeting a regulatory challenge than resorting to a hard law instrument ­ or,
at any rate, to command and control forms of legal intervention. There is a
sense in which regulation is broader than law. Yet, what exactly do we mean
by `the regulatory environment'? And, once we know a regulatory environ-
ment when we see one, what is it that makes it the `right kind' of regulatory
environment for the development and application of nanotechnologies?
These are the two principal questions to be addressed in this chapter.


4.2 WHAT IS A `REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT'?

The age in which we live has attracted many descriptions ­ from the risk
society, to the surveillance society, building (or, ...