Book Review: Development and Environment Poul Harremoës, David Gee, Malcolm MacGarvin, Andy Stirling, Jane Keys, Brian Wynne, and Sofia Guedes Vaz (eds.), The Precautionary Principle in the 20th Century: Late Lessons From Early Warnings (London: Earthscan Publications, 2002, 268 pp., £17.95 pbk.)
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298040330010912 |
| Author | Paula Cerni |
| Published date | 01 January 2004 |
| Date | 01 January 2004 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
196
Millennium
consequentialist ethics he writes: ‘we can never make light of overriding
first-order intuitions, especially if they are powerful. If an account can be
found which accommodates them, this should be counted as a strong
reason for its acceptance’ (p. 13). And yet there seems precious little of
this respect for our moral intuitions once attention turns from
consequentialism towards the rights of communities to use armed force
to protect themselves. The attempt at a reflective equilibrium seems
dangerously unbalanced. The existence of such a wide normative
consensus on national defensive rights should lead us to reject a theory
which can not sustain them, not to alter our firmly held moral outlook.
Though we may treat some of the conclusions with scepticism, as an
attempt to penetrate a moral haze War and Self-Defense is admirable, and
deserves to be engaged by a wide readership.
ADAM HEAL
Adam Heal is a Masters Student in the Department of International
Relations at the London School of Economics
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DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT
Poul Harremoës, David Gee, Malcolm MacGarvin, Andy Stirling, Jane
Keys, Brian Wynne, and Sofia Guedes Vaz (eds.), The Precautionary
Principle in the 20th Century: Late Lessons From Early Warnings (London:
Earthscan Publications, 2002, 268 pp., £17.95 pbk.).
The 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European Union adopted the
precautionary principle that it is best when dealing with environmental
hazards, to err on the side of caution. Now the European Environment
Agency (EEA), an EU body, has commissioned this volume to show how
this approach could have prevented many of history’s misfortunes. It is
illustrated by 14 case studies, written by 23 authors in all, on a wide
variety of topics: fisheries, radiation, benzene, asbestos, polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs), halocarbons, diethylstilboestrol (DES), antimicrobial
growth promoters, sulphur dioxide, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in
petrol, chemical contamination of the Great Lakes, tributyltin (TBT)
antifoulants, hormones as growth promoters, and ‘mad cow disease’.
Each chapter examines the timing of and response to ‘early warnings’, as
well as the circumstances, costs, benefits and lessons of subsequent
regulatory action. The authors, all technical experts with extensive
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