Science for Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development: The Role of Law

Abstract

That science has a starring role in risk reduction and in sustainable development is surely not in question. Scientists are looked to for data by the decision makers whose task it is to determine the level of risk that is acceptable in any given situation or to set policy such that the growth that is a fundamental requirement of the capitalist economy is not achieved in ways that cannot be sustained. That law, on the other hand, has anything more than a supporting role, perhaps even a bit part, to play in these important fields remains just as surely to be established. The bit part or the supporting role can, however, be readily identified. Beginning with the question of risk reduction, law is clearly the means by which decisions based on science about the measures to be adopted to mitigate or to remove risk are implemented. Law provides instruments in the form, for example, of regulations by which this end is achieved and it equally provides mechanisms to determine liability and to allocate compensation when a risk crystallises. Moving then to the question of sustainable development, this is a multi-dimensional issue that is seen to require action at the international level, and while initially decisions will be a matter for political discussion, their implementation will again require the intervention of law, this time in its international orientation and with the instrument of treaties. But these brief examples simply seem to reiterate law’s supporting status vis-àvis the centrality of science, and even of politics.