
On 15 June 2018 Prof. Dr. Susanne Augenhofer, LL.M. (Yale) will host the 4th round of the Yale-Humboldt Consumer Law Lectures. The Lectures take place in the Senatssaal of Humboldt-University and start at 2pm. This year’s speakers are:
Participation in the event is free of charge, but requires registration at https://yhcll2018.eventbrite.de by June 1, 2018.
Pouvant aller à l’encontre du droit à la vie privée et familiale pour les prisonniers russes, et faisant l’objet de requêtes devant la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme, l’éloignement des condamnés pourrait faire l’objet d’un encadrement plus strict.
Cour d'appel de Colmar, 08 février 2018
Tribunal de grande instance de Paris, 12 février 2018
Cour d'appel de Paris, 08 février 2018
Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel d'Orléans, 5e chambre, 11 septembre 2017
Tribunal de grande instance de Montpellier, 12 février 2018
Conseil de prud'hommes de Bordeaux, 01 février 2018
Pourvoi c/Cour d'appel de Paris - pôle 6-chambre 1, 06 octobre 2017
Tribunal de grande instance de Nevers, 13 février 2018
Conseil de prud'hommes de Bordeaux, 1er février 2018
Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel d'Aix-en-Provence, 13e chambre, 08 août 2017
Pourvoi c/ Cour d'appel de Lyon - 7e chambre , 05 juillet 2017
Allow me a succinct grumble about the precautionary principle. A recent Guardian item on trade talks post-Brexit refers ia to proponents of Brexit wanting to use future trade talks eg with the US, to ditch the precautionary principle. It states the proponents’ strategy ‘also advocates tearing up the EU’s “precautionary principle”, under which traders have to prove something is safe before it is sold, rather than waiting for it to be proved unsafe’.
Reversing the burden of proof (also known as the ‘no data no market rule’) is not a necessary prerequisite of the precautionary principle. If it were, public authorities’ task in regulating health, safety and the environment would look very different than it does today, as would the regulation of new technologies such as nano or synthetic biology (indeed even AI). Only in specific sectors, has the burden of proof been reversed. This includes, in the EU, REACH – the flagship Regulation on chemicals. In others, it was discussed (e.g. in the reform of the EU’s cosmetics Directive into a Regulation), but eventually dismissed.
Neither does the EU’s approach to the precautionary principle imply ‘when in doubt, opt out’, or ‘when in doubt, don’t do it’. One need only refer to the recent decision to extend the licence for glyphosate to show that the EU does not ban what is not proven safe (the least one can say about glyphosate is that its health and environmental safety is not clearly established). I blame Cass Sunstein’s Laws of Fear, superbly reviewed (critically) by Liz Fisher in the 2006 Modern Law Review for misrepresenting the principle – such that even its proponents often misunderstand its true meaning.
Precaution is not an alternative to science. It is a consequence of science.
Geert.
EU environmental law (with Leonie Reins), Edward Elgar, soft cover edition 2018, p.28 ff.
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