Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Abbreviations
- Table of cases
- Table of statutes and other public documents
- Part I General introduction
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The regulatory environment: UK Biobank, eBay and Wikipedia
- 3 Four key regulatory challenges
- 4 Technology as a regulatory tool: DNA profiling and Marper
- Part II Regulatory prudence and precaution
- Part III Regulatory legitimacy
- 8 Key boundary-marking concepts
- 9 Human rights as boundary markers
- 10 A look at procedural legitimacy: the role of public participation in technology regulation
- Part IV Regulatory effectiveness
- Part V Regulatory connection
- Concluding overview
- Index
- References
3 - Four key regulatory challenges
from Part I - General introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Abbreviations
- Table of cases
- Table of statutes and other public documents
- Part I General introduction
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The regulatory environment: UK Biobank, eBay and Wikipedia
- 3 Four key regulatory challenges
- 4 Technology as a regulatory tool: DNA profiling and Marper
- Part II Regulatory prudence and precaution
- Part III Regulatory legitimacy
- 8 Key boundary-marking concepts
- 9 Human rights as boundary markers
- 10 A look at procedural legitimacy: the role of public participation in technology regulation
- Part IV Regulatory effectiveness
- Part V Regulatory connection
- Concluding overview
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
If law and technology are to work together to improve the basic conditions of human social existence – for example, to improve the conditions of public health and security, to ensure an adequate, safe and stable supply of food and water, to safeguard the physical environment, and so on – this presupposes a regulatory environment that supports the development, application and exploitation of technologies that will contribute to such an overarching purpose, an environment properly geared for risk management and benefit sharing.
Relative to such a project, regulators are liable to be called to account if:
they fail to take sensible precautionary measures relative to the risks presented by emerging technologies;
the purposes or objectives that they are pursuing (or, the manner and means by which they pursue those objectives) are judged to be illegitimate;
their interventions are ineffective and not fully fit for purpose; or
they have failed to make an initial targeted and sustainable regulatory connection; or, where regulation has become disconnected, they have failed to make an appropriate reconnection.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Law and the Technologies of the Twenty-First CenturyText and Materials, pp. 46 - 71Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012