Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T22:08:06.582Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Calculative Practices in International Environmental Governance: In (Partial) Defence of Indicators

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2020

Jaye Ellis Open the ORCID record for Jaye Ellis [Opens in a new window]
Jaye Ellis*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal, QC (Canada). Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The role of calculative practices such as goals and indicators in international environmental governance causes concern among many observers, who view them as promoting a reductivist approach to the non-human world and privileging economic understandings of environmental governance above all others. Yet they possess enormous potential to provide insights into the non-human world that could be of great benefit to governance. This article takes seriously critical perspectives of calculative practices, while exploring a weakness in much of the critical literature, namely a failure to examine assumptions about the nature of scientific knowledge and the manner in which it is, and ought to be, taken up by policy makers. I contend that both the design of environmental regimes and critical analyses of these regimes bear the marks of the influence, albeit indirect, of early 20th century views on the superiority of scientific knowledge and its unique capacity to ground decision making. I argue that a richer, more nuanced account of the co-production of ecological metrics such as goals and indicators and their potential contributions to ecosystem governance and sustainability is necessary. With such accounts, scholars and political authorities would be in a better position to address the very real pitfalls and dangers of calculative practices while not feeling compelled to forego these potentially powerful approaches.

Keywords

SustainabilityInternational law and politicsScienceCritical theoryIndicatorsCalculative practices
Type
Article
Information
Transnational Environmental Law , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 2020 , pp. 297 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the European Society of International Law annual meeting in Riga (Latvia) in 2016, and at the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)) in 2018. The rich feedback from participants at both events was immensely helpful for the development of the article. I thank Hans Lindahl and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. Dylan Edmonds and Patrick Kanopoulos provided excellent research assistance and comments on the evolving draft. Financial assistance from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council is gratefully acknowledged.

References

1 Popper, K.R., The Logic of Scientific Discovery (Routledge Classics, 2002), p. 94Google Scholar.

2 Sustainable Development Goals, available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs. Millennium Development Goals, available at: https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals.

3 Davis, K.E., Kingsbury, B. & Merry, S. Engle, ‘Indicators as a Technology of Global Governance’ (2012) 46(1) Law & Society Review, pp. 71–104, at 73–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 75.

5 Ibid., p. 77.

6 Miller, C., ‘Hybrid Management: Boundary Organizations, Science Policy, and Environmental Governance in the Climate Regime’ (2001) 26(4) Science, Technology, & Human Values, pp. 478–500CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jasanoff, S., States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order (Routledge, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Star, S.L. & Griesemer, J.R., ‘Institutional Ecology, Translations and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39’ (1989) 19(3) Social Studies of Science, pp. 387–420, at 393CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 United Nations Millennium Declaration (8 Sept. 2000), UN Doc. A/55/L.2.

9 UN General Assembly, ‘Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ (21 Oct. 2015), UN Doc. A/RES/70/1.

10 Ibid.

11 UN Economic and Social Council, ‘Report of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goal Indicators’ (19 Feb. 2016), UN Doc. E/CN.3/2016/2/Rev.1, Annex IV. There are 230 indicators listed, but a small number are associated with more than one target.

12 Merry, S. Engle, The Seductions of Quantification (University of Chicago Press, 2016), pp. 5, 19–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 On problems with arbitrariness and lack of conceptual frameworks in the indication and specification of indicators see Niemeijer, D. & de Groot, R.S., ‘A Conceptual Framework for Selecting Environmental Indicator Sets’ (2008) 8(1) Ecological Indicators, pp. 14–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hák, T., Janouskova, S. & Moldan, B., ‘Sustainable Development Goals: A Need for Relevant Indicators’ (2016) 60 Ecological Indicators, pp. 565–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 UN General Assembly, ‘Global Indicator Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and Targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ (6 July 2017), UN Doc. A/RES/71/313, Annex.

15 Ibid.

16 On the appropriateness of indicators for purposes other than those for which they were designed, see Pistor, K., ‘Re-Construction of Private Indicators for Public Purposes’, in Davis, K.E. et al. (eds), Governance by Indicators: Global Power through Quantification and Rankings (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 165–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 IUCN, ‘Protected Area Categories’, available at: https://www.iucn.org/theme/protected-areas/about/protected-area-categories. The categories range from strict nature reserve to protected area with sustainable use of natural resources: see N. Dudley (ed.), Guidelines for Applying Protected Area Management Categories: Developing Capacity for a Protected Planet (IUCN, 2013); IUCN, A Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas (IUCN, 2016), available at: https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/46259.

18 IUCN, A Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas, ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Langford, M., ‘Lost in Transformation? The Politics of the Sustainable Development Goals’ (2016) 30(2) Ethics & International Affairs, pp. 167–76, at 170CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The participatory dimension of the negotiation of the SDGs is described in glowing terms in Fox, O. & Stoett, P., ‘Citizen Participation in the UN Sustainable Development Goals Consultation Process: Toward Global Democratic Governance?’ (2016) 22(4) Global Governance, pp. 555–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Hák, Janouskova & Moldan, n. 13 above.

22 Ibid.

23 The indicators are divided into three tiers to reflect this. An indicator is designated Tier 1 if it ‘is conceptually clear, has an internationally established methodology and standards are available, and data are regularly produced by countries for at least 50[%] of countries and of the population in every region where the indicator is relevant’. A Tier 2 indicator ‘is conceptually clear, has an internationally established methodology and standards are available, but data are not regularly produced by countries’; while for Tier 3, ‘[n]o internationally established methodology or standards are yet available for the indicator, but methodology/standards are being (or will be) developed or tested’. The indicator discussed above, 15.1.2, is a Tier 1 indicator. Goal 12, sustainable consumption and production patterns, features a large number of indicators in Tier 2 (such as 12.2.1: Material footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP) and Tier 3 (such as 12.8.1: Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development (including climate change education) are mainstreamed in (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment).

24 There is empirical evidence of a correlation between MDG indicators for which data is poor and a lack of progress towards targets: Jacob, A., ‘Mind the Gap: Analyzing the Impact of Data Gap in Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs) Indicators on the Progress toward MDGs’ (2017) 93(C) World Development, pp. 260–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Afful-Dadzie, E., Afful-Dadzie, A. & Oplatkova, Z. Kominkova, ‘Measuring Progress of the Millennium Development Goals: A Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Approach’ (2014) 28(1) Applied Artificial Intelligence, pp. 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 ‘Transforming Our World’, n. 9 above.

26 Ibid., p. 51.

27 Ibid., p. 53.

28 Bexell, M. & Jönsson, K., ‘Responsibility and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals’ (2017) 44(1) Forum for Development Studies, pp. 13–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, available at: https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets.

30 Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), 5 June 1992, in force 29 Dec. 1993, available at: http://www.cbd.int/convention/text.

31 Paris (France), 12 Dec. 2015, in force 4 Nov. 2016, available at: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf.

32 Costanza, R. et al. , ‘The Value of the World's Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital’ (1997) 387 Nature, pp. 253–60, at 253CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Gómez-Baggethun, E. et al. , ‘Concepts and Methods in Ecosystem Services Valuation’, in Potschin, M. et al. (eds), Routledge Handbook of Ecosystem Services (Routledge, 2016), pp. 99–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Methmann, C., ‘The Sky Is the Limit: Global Warming as Global Governmentality’ (2013) 19(1) European Journal of International Relations, pp. 69–91, at 80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Costanza et al., n. 32 above, p. 254.

36 R. Costanza, ‘Ecosystem Services in Theory and Practice’, in Potschin et al., n. 33 above, pp. 15–24, at 17.

37 Gómez-Baggethun, E. & Ruiz-Pérez, M., ‘Economic Valuation and the Commodification of Ecosystem Services’ (2011) 35(5) Progress in Physical Geography, pp. 613–28, at 614CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Kingsbury, B., Davis, K.E. & Merry, S. Engle (eds), The Quiet Power of Indicators: Measuring Governance, Corruption, and the Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

39 Hamilton, S., ‘The Measure of All Things? The Anthropocene as a Global Biopolitics of Carbon’ (2016) 24(1) European Journal of International Relations, pp. 33–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bäckstrand, K. & Lövbrand, E., ‘Planting Trees to Mitigate Climate Change: Contested Discourses of Ecological Modernization, Green Governmentality and Civic Environmentalism’ (2006) 6(1) Global Environmental Politics, pp. 50–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Agrawal, A., Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects (Duke University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Turnhout, E., Neves, K. & de Lijster, E., ‘“Measurementality” in Biodiversity Governance: Knowledge, Transparency, and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)’ (2014) 46(3) Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, pp. 581–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Rose, N.S., Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The author builds on the Callon and Latour concept of action at a distance: Callon, M. & Latour, B., ‘Unscrewing the Big Leviathan: How Actors Macro-Structure Reality and How Sociologists Help Them to Do So’, in Knorr-Cetina, K. & Cicourel, A.V. (eds), Advances in Social Theory and Methodology: Toward an Integration of Micro-and Macro-sociologies, Vol 1 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), pp. 277–303Google Scholar.

43 See, e.g., Rutherford, P., ‘The Entry of Life into History’, in Darier, E. (ed.), Discourses of the Environment (Blackwell, 1999), pp. 37–62Google Scholar.

44 Engle Merry, n. 12 above, pp. 28–9.

45 Foucault, M., Naissance de La Biopolitique (Gallimard; Seuil, 2004), pp. 12–4Google Scholar.

46 Rose, n. 42 above, p. 49.

47 Foucault, n. 45 above, pp. 249–74.

48 Foucault, M., Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (Gallimard, 1975)Google Scholar; Foucault, M. & Gros, F., Histoire de la sexualité (Gallimard, 1976)Google Scholar.

49 Engle Merry, n. 12 above, p. 29; K.E. Davis, B. Kingsbury & S. Engle Merry, ‘Introduction: The Local-Global Life of Indicators: Law, Power, and Resistance’, in Kingsbury, Davis & Engle Merry, n. 38 above, pp. 1–26, at 1, 2.

50 Methmann, n. 34 above, p. 81.

51 Engle Merry, n. 12 above, pp. 19ff.

52 Methmann, n. 34 above, p. 71 (arguing that ‘[the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol] brings about a way of governing the earth's carbon cycle which purports to save the climate but in fact protects business as usual from climate protection. The failure of the CDM is the success of a depoliticization of climate change politics’); Turnhout, Neves & Lijster, n. 41 above, p. 583.

53 Koskenniemi, M., ‘Declaratory Legislation: Towards a Genealogy of Neoliberal Legalism’, in Liivoja, R. & Petman, J. (eds), International Law-Making: Essays in Honour of Jan Klabbers (Routledge, 2014), pp. 17–38, at 18–9Google Scholar.

54 Lövbrand, E. & Stripple, J., ‘Disrupting the Public–Private Distinction: Excavating the Government of Carbon Markets Post-Copenhagen’ (2012) 30(4) Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, pp. 658–74, at 663CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ilcan, S. & Phillips, L., ‘Developmentalities and Calculative Practices: The Millennium Development Goals’ (2010) 42(4) Antipode, pp. 844–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Rose, n. 42 above, pp. 87–88; Ilcan & Phillips, ibid.

56 Rose, n. 42 above, p. 49; Lövbrand & Stripple, n. 54 above; Ilcan & Phillips, n. 54 above.

57 Ilcan & Phillips, n. 54 above, p. 847; Castree, N., ‘Neoliberalising Nature: The Logics of Deregulation and Reregulation’ (2008) 40(1) Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, pp. 131–52, at 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Polanyi, K., The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Beacon, 2001), pp. 35–6Google Scholar.

59 This is the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) developed by Potschin and Haines-Young for the European Environmental Agency, available at: https://cices.eu. Without a doubt, the last category is the most technically and philosophically challenging, and by far the most controversial, including among scholars generally supportive of ecosystem services valuation: see Gómez-Baggethun & Ruiz-Pérez, n. 37 above.

60 Polanyi, n. 58 above, p. 36.

61 ibid.

62 ibid., Ch. 4.

63 ibid., p. 74.

64 ibid., pp. 152ff.

65 ibid., pp. 151ff.

66 ibid., pp. 73–4.

67 ibid., p. 76.

68 ibid.

69 ibid.

70 ibid.

71 ibid., p. 136. See also O'Connor, J., Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism (Guilford Press, 1998), pp. 144ffGoogle Scholar (for a discussion of the role of the state in attempting to secure and protect the three conditions of production identified by Marx: (i) personal conditions (in particular, labour); (ii) communal, general conditions of social production (namely infrastructure and education); and (iii) natural conditions).

72 Methmann, n. 34 above.

73 Mansfield, B., ‘Rules of Privatization: Contradictions in Neoliberal Regulation of North Pacific Fisheries’ (2004) 94(3) Annals of the Association of American Geographers, pp. 565–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 O'Connor, n. 71 above, Ch. 8.

75 Ibid., pp. 182ff.

76 Görg, C., ‘Societal Relationships with Nature: A Dialectical Approach to Environmental Politics’, in Biro, A. (ed.), Critical Ecologies: The Frankfurt School and Contemporary Environmental Crises (University of Toronto Press, 2011), pp. 43–72, at 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77 See, e.g., Gómez-Baggethun et al., n. 33 above, p. 99 (who note that monetary valuation is just one means of valuation, and by far the most controversial); Skroch, M. & López-Hoffman, L., ‘Saving Nature under the Big Tent of Ecosystem Services: A Response to Adams and Redford’ (2010) 24(1) Conservation Biology, pp. 325–7, at 325CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gómez-Baggethun and Ruiz-Pérez note that this conflation of the economic framing of ecosystem services with their monetization, and monetization with commercialization, ought to be resisted, insisting on distinctions between goods/services and commodities, and between use value and exchange value: Gómez-Baggethun & Ruiz-Pérez, n. 37 above, pp. 620, 623. For a brief overview of non-monetary evaluation of ecosystem services, see J.O. Kenter, ‘Deliberative and Non-Monetary Valuation’, in Potschin et al., n. 33 above, pp. 271–88.

78 Görg, n. 76 above, p. 57.

79 Ibid., p. 60. In a similar vein, Gómez-Baggethun and Ruiz-Pérez argue that ‘within the ideological, institutional and economic context in which ecosystem services science operates it is not realistic to assume that monetary valuation can be used without acting as a driver of commodification’: Gómez-Baggethun & Ruiz-Pérez, n. 37 above, p. 624.

80 Görg, n. 76 above, p. 61.

81 Both O'Connor and Görg draw on ecology to yield insights into the non-human world, and O'Connor, in particular, refers often to ecological literature. As a result, both perceive the scientific acknowledgement of complexity, uncertainty, contingency and chaos: Görg, n. 76 above; O'Connor, n. 71 above.

82 Görg, n. 76 above.

83 Horkheimer, M. & Adorno, T.W., Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (Noerr, G. Schmid ed., Jephcott, E. tr., Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 1–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 Ibid., p. 4.

85 Ibid., p. 19.

86 Ibid., pp. 6–7.

87 Ibid., p. 8.

88 The entry for logical positivism in the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy indicates that this school is mainly of historical interest: ‘[w]hile there are still philosophers who accept some of the logical positivists’ theses, many of the central doctrines of the theory came under considerable attack in the second half of the twentieth century’: Audi, R. & Audi, P., ‘Logical Positivism’, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but see Uebel, T., ‘Logical Empiricism’, in Curd, M. & Psillos, S. (eds), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science, 2nd edn (Routledge, 2014), pp. 90–102Google Scholar (who argues that the school suffered from ‘hostile caricatures’ and has since rebounded). See also Gattei, S., Thomas Kuhn's ‘Linguistic Turn’ and the Legacy of Logical Empiricism: Incommensurability, Rationality and the Search for Truth (Ashgate, 2008)Google Scholar (on the continuity between logical empiricism and the more sociologically informed theories championed in the 1950s and onwards).

89 Gattei, ibid., pp. 17ff.

90 Mirowski, P., ‘The Scientific Dimensions of Social Knowledge and Their Distant Echoes in 20th-Century American Philosophy of Science’ (2004) 35(2) Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, pp. 283–326, at 294CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 Reichenbach, H., Experience and Prediction: An Analysis of the Foundations and Structure of Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. vGoogle Scholar. That logical empiricism held such sway in the 1930s to the 1950s may go some way to explaining why Horkheimer and Adorno took such a relentlessly pessimistic view of science, not acknowledging its many contributions and insights, as Leiss notes in W. Leiss, ‘Modern Science, Enlightenment, and the Domination of Nature: No Exit?’, in Biro, n. 76, pp. 21–42, at 30.

92 Reichenbach, ibid., p. 30. Reichenbach does not insist on absolute verifiability, which he acknowledges would be impossible as direct, empirical observations cannot be combined to produce indirect observations that are themselves absolutely verifiable, but only observations to which a certain weight may be assigned according to their probability: ibid., pp. 46–53, 71.

93 Reichenbach, ibid., p. 31.

94 Ibid., pp. 58–9.

95 Ibid., p. 64.

96 Ibid., p. 68.

97 Ibid., pp. 71–2.

98 Star & Griesemer, n. 7 above, p. 393.

99 Ibid., pp. 393–4.

100 Callon, M., ‘Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay’ (1984) 32 The Sociological Review, pp. 196–233CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Latour, B., Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Harvard University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

101 Star & Griesemer, n. 7 above, p. 398.

102 Luhmann, N., Ökologische Kommunikation. Kann die moderne Gesellschaft sich auf ökologische Gefährden einstellen?, 5th edn (VS Verlag, 2008), Ch. 4Google Scholar.

103 Ibid., p. 22.

104 Ibid., pp. 29ff. For an excellent and accessible account of Luhmann's theory, see King, M. & Thornhill, C., Niklas Luhmann's Theory of Politics and Law (Palgrave MacMillan, 2006), particularly Ch. 5Google Scholar ‘Risk and the Environment’.

105 Luhmann, N., Law as a Social System (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 413Google Scholar; King & Thornhill, ibid., pp. 32–3; Luhmann, n. 102 above, pp. 41ff.

106 Settele, J. et al. , ‘Terrestrial and Inland Water Systems’, in Field, C.B. et al. (eds), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 271–359, at 314ffGoogle Scholar.

107 Consider the phenomenon of climate grief: Cunsolo, A. & Ellis, N.R., ‘Ecological Grief as a Mental Health Response to Climate Change-Related Loss’ (2018) 8 Nature Climate Change, pp. 275–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

108 Hamilton, n. 39 above.

109 Beck, S. et al. , ‘Towards a Reflexive Turn in the Governance of Global Environmental Expertise: The Cases of the IPCC and the IPBES’ (2014) 23(2) GAIA – Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, pp. 80–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beck, S., ‘Between Tribalism and Trust: The IPCC under the “Public Microscope”’ (2012) 7(2) Nature & Culture, pp. 151–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grundmann, R., ‘The Legacy of Climategate: Revitalizing or Undermining Climate Science and Policy?’ (2012) 3(3) WIREs Climate Change, pp. 281–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

110 Rehg, W., Cogent Science in Context: The Science Wars, Argumentation Theory, and Habermas (The MIT Press 2009), Ch. 8Google Scholar.

111 Engle Merry, n. 12 above, pp. 216ff.

112 Koskenniemi, n. 53 above, p. 17.

113 Ibid., p. 18.

114 ‘Translation’ here must be understood not as the transfer of meaning from one system to another but the creation of meaning within each system which is understood by each to be ‘the same’: Ellis, J., ‘The Role of Translation in Transnational Governance’ (2017) 22(2) Tilburg Law Review, pp. 165–84; Star & Griesemer, n. 7 aboveCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

115 Teubner, G., ‘The Two Faces of Janus: Rethinking Legal Pluralism’ (1991) 13 Cardozo Law Review, pp. 1443–62Google Scholar.

116 Beck, S., ‘Moving beyond the Linear Model of Expertise? IPCC and the Test of Adaptation’ (2011) 11(2) Regional Environmental Change, pp. 297–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar; der Sluijs, J. Van et al. , ‘Anchoring Devices in Science for Policy: The Case of Consensus around Climate Sensitivity’ (1998) 28(2) Social Studies of Science, pp. 291–323CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hulme, M., ‘Lessons from the IPCC: Do Scientific Assessments Need To Be Consensual To Be Authoritative?’, in Future Directions for Scientific Advice in Whitehall (Centre for Science and Policy, 2013)Google Scholar. Another cautionary tale is the highly unproductive misunderstanding of the Bradford Hill guidelines for epidemiological research as strict guidelines which courts may employ as checklists to determine the probative value of epidemiological evidence: Cranor, C.F., Toxic Torts: Science, Law, and the Possibility of Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 101ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

117 Mach, K.J. et al. , ‘Unleashing Expert Judgment in Assessment’ (2017) 44 Global Environmental Change, pp. 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

118 Porter, T.M., Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Merry, S. Engle & Conley, J.M., ‘Measuring the World: Indicators, Human Rights, and Global Governance’ (2011) 52(3) Current Anthropology, pp. S83–S95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

119 Hulme, n. 116 above.