Governing Intersystemic Systemic Risks: Lessons from Covid and Climate Change
| Published date | 01 July 2022 |
| Author | Veerle Heyvaert |
| Date | 01 July 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12720 |
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Modern Law Review
DOI:10.1111/1468-2230.12720
Governing Intersystemic Systemic Risks: Lessons from
Covid and Climate Change
Veerle Heyvaert∗
This article argues that contemporary regulation of climate change risks and zoonotic disease
risks – two seminal risks of our era – is decient because it fails to account for the most distinctive
characteristics of their risk proles. These risks are part of a special category of intersystemic
systemic risks, which are ‘compound’ in nature: they possess the potential to cascade across
dierent systems and entail a liability to exponential growth across numbers of linked systems.
Moreover, climate change and zoonotic disease risks are globalised,ubiquitous and entrenched.
Eective governance of intersystemic systemic risks demands proactive regulatory intervention
at the early stages of risk creation, and relianceon a more balanced basket of regulatory measures
than is currently available.For climate change as well as zoonotic disease risk control, this calls
for greater investment in assessment requirements,a less per missive approach to planning and
development consent,and a commitment to phase out unsustainable production processes.
INTRODUCTION
This article argues that existing regulatory regimes fail to control the seminal
risks of our era. This is because regulatory decision making overlooks the most
distinctive characteristics of today’s key risks, which include climate change
and zoonotic disease risks. In order to devise responsive regulatory strategies,
regulators need to engage with the reality that zoonotic disease and climate
change risks are part of a special category of r isks. They are both exemplars
of intersystemic systemic risks. What is special about such risks is that they
are ‘compound’ in nature; they possess the potential to cascade across dierent
systems and, hence, entail a liability to exponential growth across numbers of
linked systems. Moreover, climate change and zoonotic disease risks are glob-
alised, ubiquitous and entrenched r isks. Together, this package of character istics
dramatically reduces the likelihood that conventional risk regulatory responses
will be successful in managing the risks they target. To govern intersystemic sys-
temic risks eectively, we need more proactive regulatory intervention at the
early stages of risk creation, and relianceon a more balanced basket of regulatory
∗Professor of Law, LSE. I am indebted to Eduardo Baistrocchi, Robert Baldwin, Jonathan Golub,
Mona Pinchis-Paulsen and two anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback. Earlier incarnations of
this article were presented at various workshops and seminars between June2020 and March 2021. I
am grateful to the participants for their input and support. All mistakes are mine.All URLs last visited
18 January 2022.
© 2022 The Authors. The Moder n Law Review publishedby John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Modern Law Review Limited.
(2022)85(4) MLR 938–967
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License,which per mits
use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited,the use is non-commercial and no modications or
adaptations are made.
Veerle Heyvaert
measures than is currently available.For example, to govern climate change risk,
we need to become more selective about which new developments are given
the go-ahead at the planning stage, rather than persist with a permissive ap-
proach coupled with the assumption that any negative eects of development
can be curtailed or oset as and when they transpire.
In putting forward the argument that the special characteristics of zoonotic
disease and climate change risks warrant a rethinking of regulatory strategies,
this ar ticle aims to make two contr ibutions. First, within the discipline of risk
regulation the article contributes to burgeoning scholarship on the governance
of systemic risks. Understanding of the distinctive characteristics of systemic
versus ordinary risks has developed rapidly in the past decade, and risk schol-
arship reects a growing awareness that the particular features of systemic risks
demand new governance strategies.Insightful recent studies emphasise the need
for new risk assessment practices and for proactive systemic risk regulation.1
However, few contributions to date go beyond general recommendations to
analyse in depth how the various attributes of systemic risks aect and alter
assumptions about regulatory eectiveness. That is what this article seeks to
deliver. Based on a detailed risk prole of climate change and zoonotic dis-
ease risks, the article identies the intersystemic potential of systemic risks as
the key game-changer for the design of regulatory responses. It explains why
the intersystemic dimension of systemic risks can and should steer regulators
towards stronger investment in preventative regulatory strategies. The article
makes the argument with respect to climate change and zoonotic disease risks,
but the case could equally be made for challenges such as cybersecurity and
biodiversity depletion.
Secondly, a recalibration towards early-stage intervention for intersystemic
systemic r isks requires signicant legal and regulatory reform. On this score,the
article contributes to the eld of environmental and public law as it identies
the potential impact of a preventative re-orientation of climate change and
zoonotic disease regulation in areas including environmental impact assessment
law, planning law,habitats protection, and industr ial permitting provisions.2
The article proceeds as follows. The next section develops a risk prole on
the basis of the shared features of zoonotic disease and climate change risks,
covering, among other aspects, their systemic and inter systemic dimension and
their rootedness in globalisation.The third section presents a model for rational
1 See for example K. Lucas, O. Renn and C. Jaeger,‘Systemic Risks: Theory and Mathematical
Modeling’ (2018) 1 Advanced Theory and Simulation 5 and 8; United Nations Oce for Disaster
Risk Reduction, Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (Geneva: United Nations
Oce for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2019) 170, 292-296; M. Kranke and D.Yarrow,‘The Global
Governance of Systemic Risk: How Measurement Practices Tame Macroprudential Politics’
(2019) 24 New Political Economy 816;O. Renn et al, ‘Systemic Risks from Dierent Perspectives’
(2020) Risk Analysis 1; A. Haas et al, ‘A Proposal for Integrating Theories of Complexity for
Better Understanding Global Systemic Risks’ (2020) Risk Analysis 1; OECD et al., ‘Strategies
to Govern Systemic Risks in W.Hynes, M. Lees and J. Müller (eds), Systemic Thinking for Policy
Making: The Potential of Systems Analysisfor Addressing Global Policy Challenges in the 21st Century
(Paris: OECD Publishing, 2020); P.J.Schweizer, ‘Systemic Risks. Concepts and Challenges for
Risk Governance’ (2021) 24 Jour nal of Risk Research 78.
2 Broader public policy ramications for industrial and trade policy, too, are considered, but not
discussed in detail.
© 2022 The Authors. The Moder n Law Review published byJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Modern Law Review Limited.
(2022) 85(4) MLR 938–967 939
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