Why do the United States and European Union regulate pesticide and agricultural biotechnology risks differently?

Details

This article compares risk regulation in the United States and the European Union through two ideal models: evidence-based risk approaches and socially acceptable risk approaches. These models provide the framework for the examination and broadly inform US and EU risk governance.

Its method is a comparative analysis of transatlantic regulatory differences, using pesticides and agricultural biotechnologies as case studies. The article uses these cases to argue that neither approach can claim neutrality or objectivity: non-scientific normative frameworks—frameworks involving values and judgments—are always involved in risk regulation.

The case studies challenge the account that US–EU differences arise from a focus on “risks” versus “hazards,” or “science” versus “politics.” Instead, the two systems reflect different approaches to scientific uncertainty, pursue different levels of protection, and consider different non-scientific factors. The article also states that the two systems have very different implications, without specifying those implications in the abstract.

The concluding section considers the Biden administration’s strategic vision. It notes that environmental and public health protection are high on President Biden’s agenda and that public interest litigation is thriving in the US. It ends by asking whether these developments will be sufficient to break regulatory path dependency—the tendency to continue along an established regulatory course—and lay the foundations for a paradigm shift in US risk governance. The abstract leaves that question open.