La dissémination des interprétations du principe de précaution Le cas des essais OGM au champ

Abstract

The Precautionary Principle (PP) became a genuine meta-norm, supposed to frame the decisions concerning several scientific and technological choices in situation of combined uncertainties and controversies. It links scientific, ethical and political aspects. And since it is frequently associated with the participatory principle, or even the pluralism principle, the main topic of this article is to analyse the different interpretations, often partial, and sometimes contradictory, that have been attributed to it during the national debate organised by the (French) Economic and Social Council: “Debate on the GMO and field trials” (2002). It is true that the precautionary principle should be applied in very specific circumstances, in particular in cases where the limitation of scientific expertise is the cause of uncertainty that could not be used as an excuse not to take the appropriate decisions, confronting risks that might provoke serious or/and irreversible harms. In 2002 it was already formulated in French laws and was assumed as familiar to the main protagonists of the debate. Rather than analysing the precautionary principle in abstracto, we are going to investigate how it is “put to the test” inside this very original institutional framework, gathering experts, students and four “wisemen”.