Regolamentazione e gestione del rischio nel settore agroalimentare. Alcune riflessioni sull'approccio economico al Principio di Precauzione

“Precautionary Principle” is a prominent concept in current scientific debate in the fields of food safety, environmental protection and climate change. In fact during last years, climate and environmental threats and food scares (global warming, BSE, Avian flu, GM foods, etc. . . ) contributed to increase the attention of public opinion and experts toward the application of this principle. The Rio Declaration in 1992 codified for the first time the precautionary approach: “in order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation”. Despite the clear meaning of this statement, its interpretation generated several controversies, mainly about the level of intensity of its application in national and international regulations. Thus, the aim of this work is to give some enlightenments on the economic approach to the problem, according to the framework built by Gollier and Treich in some recent works on economic interpretation of Precautionary Principle. Moreover, a discussion on risk regulatory institutions and strategies of risk management is presented.