ブックタイトルRILAS 早稲田大学総合人文科学研究センター研究誌

概要

RILAS 早稲田大学総合人文科学研究センター研究誌

WASEDA American RILAS Beef JOURNAL and Nuclear NO. Power 1 (2013. Plants: 10)Risk Management of Complex Technological Systems and the Precautionary PrincipleAmerican Beef and Nuclear Power Plants:Risk Management of Complex Technological Systemsand the Precautionary Principle ?Sang Wook YIAbstractMan-made disasters, unlike natural disasters such as typhoons, are in principle avoidable. Risk-managementin practice however is extremely difficult to do. The difficulty arises not just from the interwoven complexity oftechnological systems involved, but also from the intrinsic uncertainty of its target, that is the risk itself. I shallexamine two cases of risk-management in South Korea, the one related to American beef and the other related tonuclear power plants. The first is a case of dramatically failure, and the other, of continued interactions betweenmultiple interests groups. I shall argue that a successful and democratically justified risk-management of sciencetechnologysystems around us should start from their essentially Janus-faced nature. The unpredictability oftechnological consequences requires us to be even more cautions as regards calculating the‘expected’utilitiesand costs of a complex technological system. The implications of precautionary principle shall also be discussed.1. IntroductionMan-made disasters, unlike natural disasters suchas typhoons, are, in principle, avoidable. We could bemore prepared: building better walls, driving moresafely, and educating people better. Theoretically, wemight consider every possible disastrous scenariowhich might happen in our complex society, even onan international level, and set up precautionary or preemptivemeasures to prevent the possibility ofdisasters or, if that is unrealistic, to minimize theexpected damages.We could be even more systematic in our preparingefforts. We could collect the relevant statisticsregarding various sorts of man-made disasters and estimatetheir probabilities. Similarly, we could determinethe average costs required to prevent the disasters, andcalculate the benefits we could reasonably expect toharvest from our precautionary measures. Based on allthis information, we could systemize our decisions toexecute (or not execute) certain measures to forestallunwelcome events, and designate how much of ourlimited resources should be allocated to fund suchmeasures. If the benefits outweigh the correspondingcosts, we would be justified in employing some portionof our limited resources (which could have beenused for other“utility-raising”activities) to executethe precautionary measures. This is the basic model ofcost-benefit analysis, usually regarded by policy makersand public servants as the“golden standard”forpublic decision-making. On the surface, this modelappears clear and simple: you implement the policy aslong as the expected utility which is benefit minus costis positive.In practice, however, risk management isextremely difficult to do. The difficulty arises not onlyfrom the interwoven complexity of the technologicalsystems involved, but also from the intrinsic uncertaintyof the risk itself. The first kind of difficulty ismore mundane (and therefore much more commonthan usually assumed), but critical in the sense that thecomplexity of man-made systems can (and does) oftenfrustrate our efforts to fully understand their workingprinciples and come up with effective preemptivesolutions to potentially fatal disasters.The second kind of difficulty is no easier to dealwith. The nature of risk can be vague or uncertain. Itcan be vague in the sense that the exact content of therisk (if not its consequential manifestation) may bepartially socially constructed. More and more childrenare now diagnosed with ADHD. Although their inattentivebehavior and hyperactivity is genuine, the very109