What Does the History of Technology Regulation Teach Us about Nano Oversight?

Abstract

As policy makers struggle to develop regulatory oversight models for nanotechnologies, there are important lessons that can be drawn from previous attempts to govern other emerging technologies. Five such lessons are the following: (1) public confidence and trust in a technology and its regulatory oversight is probably the most important factor for the commercial success of a technology; (2) regulation should avoid discriminating against particular technologies unless there is a scientifically based rationale for the disparate treatment; (3) regulatory systems need to be flexible and adaptive to rapidly changing technologies; (4) ethical and social concerns of the public about emerging technologies need to be expressly acknowledged and addressed in regulatory oversight; and (5) international harmonization of regulation may be beneficial in a rapidly globalizing world.

Methodological considerations for testing the ecotoxicity of carbon nanotubes and fullerenes: Review

“…However, results should be discussed carefully to clarify that fullerene mixtures produced using this process are toxic, not that fullerenes themselves are necessarily inherently toxic. This is a particularly important distinction given that findings of high NP toxicity can sway public opinion strongly and that such opinions can influence governmental regulations [5]. Given the serious toxic effects observed for THF-nC 60 , suspending fullerenes with THF for consumer products should be avoided unless no other alternative approach is available that meets the manufacturers' specifications.…”

“…This research should help mitigate the potentially harmful consequences of NPs and lead to the sustainable development of this technology. Research is also needed to avoid unsupported negative perceptions of the nanotechnology industry that could impede realizing the full benefits of this technology as a result of a lack of public trust [5].…”

Anticipatory Ethics and Governance (AEG): Towards a Future Care Orientation Around Nanotechnology

“…The literature has tended to focus on issues like whether or not NT gives rise to new NT-specific social and ethical concerns and the development of voluntary self-governing frameworks, codes of conduct, industry standards of practice and trying to formulate best practice in direct government without government [4,12,22,34,43,45,47,69]. This paper seeks to contribute to that debate and to add a new dimension by considering the governability dilemma from a jurisprudential perspective.…”

“…Public trust is much easier lost than earned and once lost is difficult to restore [47]. Public acceptance could be regarded as the grant of a social licence for the sustainability of potentially risky NEST.…”

“…In the framing of a suitable approach to NT governance, looking to the history of technology governance to provide a tailor-made framework cannot assist to any great extent in the design of a suitable NT governance framework per se [34,47]. Path dependencies created by regulatory frameworks designed to govern earlier technologies which were based on the backwardlooking conventional risk assessment paradigm and reactive ethical concerns frequently fail to identify negative impacts in advance [64].…”