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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
Private scientific organizations exert a great deal of influence in the regulation of some technological risks. The high level of expertise of their members is arguably a good reason for them to participate in making and monitoring risk regulations, in order to adjust these to scientific progress. Nevertheless, there are also sound reasons why governments shouldn’t uncritically follow the views expressed by such organizations. Taking the role played by the International Commission on Non–Ionizing Radiation Protection in the regulation of electromagnetic fields as an illustrative example, this paper shows that private scientific organizations such as these are structurally less well suited than democratic authorities when it comes to managing those risks.
1 See, e.g., Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the Effects of high–voltage electricity transmission networks, OJ 1999 C 293/16, at p. 18.
2 Ibid., at p. 18.
3 See, for example, Gabriel Doménech, “La contaminación electromagnética en el Derecho alemán”, 220 Revista de Derecho Urbanístico y Medio Ambiente (2005), pp. 131 et seq.; Antonio E. Embid, Precaución y Derecho. El caso de los campos electromagnéticos (Madrid: Iustel, 2010), at pp. 333 et seq.
4 See, for the sake of illustration, Verwaltungsgericht Koblenz decision of 14 October 1986 (NVwZ 1987, pp. 149–150), Verwaltungsgerichtshof Kassel decisions of 13 March 1990 (2 R 3757/89) and 22 March 1993 (NVwZ 1994, pp. 391–395), Oberverwaltungsgericht Lüneburg decision of 21 April 1992 (NVwZ 1992, pp. 993–994), Verwaltungsgericht Ansbach decision of 29 September 1992 (CR 1994, 48–50), and Verwaltungsgerichthof München decisions of 15 September 1992 (14 CS 92.3208) and 25 October 1994 (NVwZ 1995, pp. 919–921).
5 See, for example, Bundesverwaltungsgericht decisions of 2 August 1994 (NVwZ 1994, pp. 1000–1002) and 9 February 1996 (DVBl 1996, pp. 682–684), Verwaltungsgericht München decisions of 27 January 1993 (NVwZ 1993, pp. 1121–1123), Oberverwaltungsgericht Schleswig–Holstein decisions of 22 February 1995 (4 M 113/94) and 29 August 1995 (BImSchG–Rsps. 22, 104), and Verwaltungsgerichthof Manheim decisions of 14 may 1996 (DÖV 1996, pp. 1005– 1007), 2 January 1997 (NVwZ 1997, pp. 704–705) and 15 April 1997 (NVwZ 1998, pp. 416–418). The ICNIRP Guidelines had also been endorsed by the German Commission on Radiological Protection (Strahlenschutzkommission), whose recommendations in that regard were taken into account by those judicial decisions.
6 74(4) Health Physics (1998), pp. 494–522.
7 See Implementation report on the Council Recommendation limiting the public exposure to electromagnetic fields (0 Hz to 300 GHz), 2002. Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Republic of Lithuania, Poland and United Kingdom set down the same limits proposed by ICNIRP. In Belgium the exposure limits were set at one half of those recommended by ICNIRP. In Austria, the limits for the frequency range for GSM–Networks were slightly higher than those contained in the abovementioned guidelines. Switzerland applied these guidelines under normal conditions, but with stricter levels at “sensitive locations” and for mobile phone masts, only allowing 1 % of the levels of emission recommended by ICNIRP. Luxembourg also applied stricter limits for mobile phone base stations. Greece applied stricter limits for mobile phone masts, setting 80 % of those set down by ICNIRP. Slovenia established lower thresholds for almost all the frequencies. The aforementioned report did not provide detailed information on the limits laid down in the Netherlands and Italy.
8 Ibid., at p. 51.
9 See the Charter of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), approved by the General Assembly of the International Radiation Protection Association in Montreal, 20 May 1992, available on the Internet at <http://www.icnirp.de/documents/charter.pdf> (last accessed on 04 January 2013).
10 Statutes of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), approved at the Commission Meeting, 13–14 October 2008, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, available on the Internet at <http://www.icnirp.de/documents/statutes.pdf> (last accessed on 04 January 2013).
11 § 1 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
12 Preamble of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
13 § 2.1 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
14 § 4 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
15 See, for example, <http://www.who.int/peh-emf/project/en/> (last accessed on 04 January 2013).
16 §§ 6.1 and 8.1 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
17 §§ 6.7 and 9.10 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
18 § 6.3 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
19 § 6.3 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
20 § 6.2 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
21 For information on the background of ICNIRP members and consulting experts, see <http://www.icnirp.de/> (last accessed on 04 January 2013).
22 § 6.4 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
23 § 9.6 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
24 § 10.1 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
25 74 (4) Health Physics (1998), pp. 494–522.
26 Ibid., at p. 495.
27 Ibid.at p. 495.
28 Ibid., at pp. 508 et sqq.
29 Ibid., at p. 508.
30 Ibid., at p. 495.
31 ICNIRP Statement on the “Guidelines for limiting exposure to Timevarying electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields (up to 300 GHz)”, 97:3 Health Physics (2009), pp. 257–258, at p. 257.
32 Ibid., at p. 257.
33 99:6 Health Physics (2010), pp. 818–836.
34 Ibid., at p. 818.
35 Ibid., at p. 818.
36 Ibid., at p. 824.
37 Ibid., at p. 821.
38 Ibid., at p. 821.
39 Ibid., at p. 822.
40 Ibid., at p. 822.
41 Ibid., at p. 822.
42 Ibid., at p. 822.
43 Ahlbom, A., Day, N., Feychting, M. et al., “A pooled analysis of magnetic fields and childhood leukaemia”, 83 British Journal of Cancer (2000), pp. 692 et sqq.;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed Greenland, Sander, Sheppard, Asher R., Kaune, William T. et al., “A pooled analysis of magnetic fields, wire codes, and childhood leukemia”, 11 Epidemiology (2000), pp. 624 et sqq.;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed Malagoli, Carlotta, Fabbi, Sara, Teggi, Sergio et al., “Risk of hematological malignancies associated with magnetic fields exposure from power lines: a case–control study in two municipalities of northern Italy”, 9:16 Environmental Health (2010), pp. 1 et sqq.;Google ScholarPubMed Draper, Gerald, Vincent, Tim, Kroll, Mary E. et al., “ Childhood cancer in relation to distance from high voltage power lines in England and Wales: a case–control study”, 330 British Medical Journal (4 June 2005), pp. 1 et sqq.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
44 Foliart, D. E., Pollock, B.H., Mezei, G. et al., “Magnetic field exposure and long–term survival among children with leukaemia”, 94 British Journal of Cancer (2006), pp. 161 et sqq.;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed Svendsen, Anne L., Weihkopf, T., Kaatsch, P. et al., “Exposure to magnetic fields and survival after diagnosis of childhood leukemia: a German cohort study”, 16:6 Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention(2007), pp. 1167 et sqq.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
45 99:6 Health Physics (2010), at p. 823.
46 Ibid., at p. 830.
47 Ibid., at pp. 825 et sqq.
48 Ibid., at p. 825.
49 Ibid., at p. 824.
50 Ibid., at p. 830.
51 See Report from the Commission on the application of Council Recommendation of 12 July 1999 (1999/519/EC) on the limitation of the exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields (0 Hz to 300 GHz), Second Implementation Report 2002–2007, 1.9.2008, COM(2008)532 final. Spain is to be included in this list of 11 European States. Although the exposure limits provided for in the Royal Decree 1066/2001, of 28 September, are exactly the same than those proposed by the 1998 ICNIRP Guidelines, many Spanish Regions and Municipalities have established lower thresholds. For more details, see Embid, Precaución y Derecho, supra note 3, at pp. 448 et seq.
52 See Mercer, David, “Weighty Knowledge: Hyper Expertise and the Vertical Integration of Expertise (HEVIE)”, Yearbook 2006 of the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society, pp. 337 et sqq.Google Scholar
53 See European Parliament and Council Directive 2003/4/EC on public access to environmental information and repealing Council Directive 90/313/EEC, OJ 2003 L 41/26.
54 See Brandei, Louis D., Other People's Money. And How the Bankers Use It(New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1914), at p. 92.Google Scholar
55 Paul Slovic et. al., The Perception of Risk (London: Earthscan, 2000), at p. 321.
56 See, for instance, Gabriel Doménech, “New European Legislation on Pharmacovigilance”, 13 Pharmaceuticals Policy and Law (2011), at pp. 17 et seq.
57 See, for instance, Elizabeth Fisher, “Drowning by Numbers: Standard Setting in Risk Regulation and the Pursuit of Accountable Public Administration”, 20:1 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2000), pp. 109–130.
58 Paul K. Feyerabend, Against Method, 3rd ed. (London: Verso, 1993), at p. 22.
59 Robert J. MacCoun, “Biases in the Interpretation and Use of Research Results”, 49 Annual Review of Psychology (1998), at p. 279.
60 See Sunstein, Cass, “Deliberative Trouble? Why Groups Go to Extremes”, 110 Yale Law Journal (2000), pp. 71 et sqq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
61 Communication from the Commission on the collection and use of expertise by the Commission: Principles and guidelines. “Improving the knowledge base for better policies”, of 11 December 2002, COM(2002) 713 final, at p. 9.
62 Ibid., at pp. 11–12.
63 Art. 61a.1 of Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down Community procedures for the authorisation and supervision of medicinal products for human and veterinary use and establishing a European Medicines Agency, as amended by Regulation (EU) No 1235/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council, OJ 2010 L 348/1.
64 Ibid., art. 61b.3.
65 Scientists and public authorities suffer from other biases as well, but we are not going to consider them here, insofar as they are not particularly relevant for those individuals to properly to adjust such regulations. See, for example, MacCoun, “Biases”, supra note 59, at pp. 259 et seq.
66 See, e.g., Tversky, Amos & Kanehman, Daniel, “Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases”, 185 Science (27 September 1974), pp. 1124–1131;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed Ariely, Dan, Loewenstein, George & Prelec, Drazen, “’Coherent Arbitrariness’: Stable Demand Curves without Stable Preferences”, 118 Quarterly Journal of Economics (2003), pp. 73–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
67 See, e.g., Northcraft–Neale, Gregory B. & Neale, Margaret A., “Experts, Amateurs, and Real Estate: An Anchoring–and–Adjustment Perspective on Property Pricing Decisions”, 39 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (1987), pp. 84–97;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Birte Englich, , “Blind or Biased? Justitia's Susceptibility to Anchoring Effects in the Courtroom Based on Given Numerical Representations”, 28:4 Law and Policy (2006), pp. 495 et sqq.Google Scholar
68 See Samuelson, William and Richard Zeckhauser, “Status Quo Bias in Decision Making”, 1:7 Journal of Risk and Uncertainty (1988), pp. 7–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
69 See Anderson, Christopher J., “The Psychology of Doing Nothing: Forms of Decision Avoidance Result From Reason and Emotion”, 129:1 Psychological Bulletin (2003), pp. 139 et sqq.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
70 Ibid., at pp. 141 et seq.
71 Ibid., at pp. 154 et seq.
72 Ibid., at pp. 148 et seq.
73 See Samuelson & Zeckhauser, “Status quo Bias”, supra note 68, at pp. 41 et seq.
74 Nickerson, Raymond S., “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises”, 2:2 Review of General Psychology (1999), pp. 175–220.Google Scholar
75 See Stern, Stephanie, “Cognitive Consistency: Theory Maintenance and Administrative Rulemaking”, 63 University of Pittsburgh Law Review (2002), pp. 602 et seq. (analyzing how cognitive consistency may cause agencies to prematurely commit –“lock in”– to a proposal and thus undermine the value of public participation in administrative rulemaking; and suggesting some remedies).Google Scholar
76 See, for instance, Mahoney, Michael J., “Publication prejudices: An experimental study of confirmatory bias in the peer review system”, 1:2 Cognitive Therapy and Research (1977), pp. 161–175;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Maynatt, Clifford R. et al., “Confirmation bias in a simulated research environment: An experimental study of scientific inference”, 29:1 Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (1977), pp. 85–95;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Koehler, Jonathan J, “The Influence of Prior Beliefs on Scientific Judgments of Evidence Quality”, 56:1 Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (1993), pp. 28–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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79 Griffin & Tversky, “The Weighing of Evidence”, supra note 77, at p. 430; Slovic, Paul et al., The Perception of Risk (London: Earthscan, 2000), at pp. 209–210; Google ScholarPubMed Törngren, Gustaf & Montgomery, Henry, “Worse than chance? Performance and Confidence Among Professionals and Laypeople in the Stock Market”, 5:3 Journal of Behavioral Finance (2004), pp. 148 et seq.;Google Scholar Zaleskiewicz, Tomasz, “Financial forecasts during the crisis: Were experts more accurate than laypeople?”, 32 Journal of Economic Psychology (2010), pp. 384 et seq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
80 Griffin & Tversky, “The Weighing of Evidence”, supra note 77, at pp. 412 et seq.
81 Ibid., at p. 430.
82 See Klayman et al., “Overconfidence”, supra note 77, at p. 243.
83 See Bier, Vicki, “Implications of the Research on Expert Overconfidence and Dependence”, 85 Reliability Engineering and System Safety (2004), pp. 321 et seq., at pp. 324–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
84 Tichy, “The over–optimism”, supra note 78, at p. 360.
85 Bier, “Implications”, supra note 83, at pp. 324–325.
86 See Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962);Google Scholar Lakatos, Imre, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
87 § 10.1 of ICNIRP Statutes, supra note 10.
88 On the question of whether a mere change in the consensus within the scientific community concerning the efficacy of a medicinal product, which is not based on any new data, can on their own justify the withdrawal of the marketing authorisation of such product, see joined Cases T-74/00, T-76/00, T-83/00 to T-85/00, T-132/00, T-137/00 and T-141/00, Artegodan and others v. Commission [2002] ECR II-4945, paragraphs 196-221 (where it is stated that it cannot); and Case C–221/10 P, Artegodan v. Commission and Germany [2012], paragraphs 96-110 (where it is stated that it can).