Adjudicating Europe

Following the invitation of the Editors of adjudicatingeurope.eu, I am delighted to introduce you to the recently launched European Journal of Risk Regulation.

This new academic referred journal reflects the growing importance of both national and European regulations intended to protect health, safety, security and the environment – as well as the accompanying institutional challenges for the European Union governance. Although generally referred to as ‘life science’ by both K street and Magic Circle firms, this large body of law is academically known as risk regulation. As the European Courts are increasingly becoming aware, today the most important and widespread form of EU regulation in the internal market is concerned with the government of risk to individuals’ health and safety.

As citizens have come to reap the benefits of free and open trade on a global scale, as well as extended lifespan and high quality of life, they also seem to expect public authorities to deliver more protection against risks. Amid contemporary preoccupations with risks – sometimes fuelled by the media and ‘availability cascades’ – managing threats to society has become one of the central tasks of government. We at the EJRR like to believe that, as there is no more fundamental function of government than that of protecting its citizens from harm, risk regulation, if successfully managed, may offer a unique opportunity for the EU to increase its credibility and popularity. Yet, when called upon to regulate risk, the EU legislator, caught between the Treaty-sanctioned competing goals of “high level of protection” and free movement, must strike a difficult balance between the two. Meanwhile, despite the progressive Europeanisation of risk regulation, the study of the different sets of legislation making up EU risk regulation (chemicals, food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, pollution, etc.) is still largely carried out along sectoral and local lines.

It is time to transcend these partial and fragmented approaches and recognise – through a new journal – the emergence of a novel field of studies: the EU law of risk regulation. It is true that many different approaches to risk and its management have been developed over the past decades. What is lacking is a unified theory of European risk regulation.

Against this backdrop, the EJRR provides an innovative forum for informed and scholarly discussion on how these risks are regulated across policy domains in Europe and beyond. While the central focus of the journal is the European law regulating inter alia Chemicals (REACH), Nanomaterials, Pharmaceuticals, Food and Feed, Cosmetics, Pollution, Industrial Accidents and Public Health (life-styles risks, such as gambling, tobacco and alcohol consumption), discussion extends to other social sciences, such as economics, risk analysis, cognitive sciences, political science and sociology. Moreover, the Journal has a broad conception of the field of risk regulation, encompassing state and non-state sources of regulation and other nonregulatory alternatives (such as self-regulation, third-party regulation), as well as ‘nudges’. As reflected in its advisory and editorial boards, the EJRR is designed to build upon this rich scientific crossroads by attracting contributions from all key EU risk regulation actors such as agencies, policy-makers, consumers, the industry and trade associations, academics and the public at large.

Besides scholarly articles, case notes and book reviews, the EJRR hosts reports organised under different policy sections (biotech, nanotech,  pharma, risk communication, WTO, etc) in which our correspondents  inform readers about the latest developments in order to fuel the debate and trigger future research.

The next issue of the EJRR, expected by June 2010, will host a mini-symposium on the regulatory response to the recent volcanic ash crisis.

You may check the EJRR inaugural issue’s contents here and order a copy for free to the EJRR Executive Director, Patricia Hellmuth.

We would be honoured if you could consider submitting some of your future works to us.

Alberto Alemanno - alemanno@hec.fr