The Precautionary Principle and/or Risk Assessment in World Trade Organization Decisions: A Possible Role for Risk Perception

Risk analysis has been recognized and validated in World Trade Organization (WTO) decision processes. In recent years the precautionary principle has been proposed as an additional or alternative approach to standard risk assessment. The precautionary principle has also been advocated by some who see it as part of postmodern democracy in which more power is given to the public on health and safety matters relative to the judgments of technocrats. A more cynical view is that the precautionary principle is particularly championed by the European Community as a means to erect trade barriers. The WTO ruling against the European Community's trade barrier against beef from hormone-treated cattle seemed to support the use of risk assessment and appeared to reject the argument that the precautionary principle was a legitimate basis for trade barriers. However, a more recent WTO decision on asbestos contains language suggesting that the precautionary principle, in the form of taking into account public perception, may be acceptable as a basis for a trade barrier. This decision, if followed in future WTO trade disputes, such as for genetically modified foods, raises many issues central to the field of risk analysis. It is too early to tell whether the precautionary principle will become accepted in WTO decisions, either as a supplement or a substitute for standard risk assessment. But it would undermine the value of the precautionary principle if this principle were misused to justify unwarranted trade barriers.     

Systematic Generation of Theory in Family Sociology*

This paper describes a procedure for facilitating the generation of theory useful to family sociologists. This procedure is based upon a linguistic model, and it utilizes the metaphor of literary genre as a guide. A distinction is made between the construction and the generation of sociological theory. The suggestion is made that the generation perspective may enhance the ability of theorists to find subtle interconnections among phenomena and thereby to extend fields of sociological knowledge along novel paths. The procedure itself depends first upon the construction of a binary lexicon. One such lexicon consists of one matrix of concepts describing social structure from the perspective of stabilization of social relations and a complementary matrix describing structure from the perspective of destabilization. From these matrices, one concept is chosen as a metonym or as a metaphor to act as a basis for deriving connections among the other concepts in the matrices. The manipulation of concepts from both matrices permits the development of propositions suggesting ironies and contradictions in social relations. Examples of the use of this procedure are presented, and some unresolved problems are described.     

Polysemy of Values or Conflict of Interests: A Multi-Disciplinary Analysis

The concept of Value is one that has opened onto many reflections throughout history, leading to the emergence of a plurality of visions, some converging, but most diverging. Nowadays, the word `Value' is frequently used, but with a definition which varies with every discipline. This makes it a polysemous and transverse notion. In this article, we present several visions anddefinitions, which have appeared in philosophy, sociology, economics, finance, marketing, management and design. Our multidisciplinary approach is not intended to select or discard any definition, but firstly we wish to enhance the polysemy of the word Value and the similarities and differences between disciplines. Secondly, we wonder if the fuzzy meaning of Value in all these disciplines is due to a confusion with the notion of `interest'. Following this idea, we propose a model of agents and interactions of the economic environment.