THE GLOBALISATION OF RISK IN THE XXI~(ST) CENTURY

摘要

Risk assessment, crisis management and the public perception of risk in our societies have all changed dramatically in the past two decades. Totally new risks are emerging which are organically linked to globalisation. There is a danger that national interests may prove an obstacle to controlling and managing some of them, and the risks which are in this category are amongst the greatest ones we face. It is therefore very important to develop a new, international, perception of risk, similar to the perception of, say, climate change, so that an international response becomes natural, and international rules, ethics and guidelines are in place which can be followed. The present situation, in several areas, remains haphazard, with the danger that nations could take decisions based on their own local situation which could be quite inappropriate in the eyes of their neighbours, leading ultimately to conflicts. Of course, the risks considered here are of a rather special kind. Other forms of risk (earthquakes, volcanoes, etc) remain at national level. This suggests that one must classify risks according to their scale size, and the level at which intervention is required as local, national, international and global or planetary. To date, the highest level of risk political authorities are usually willing to contemplate is national, except in certain specific areas, such as pollution and climate change, the area of disease control, coming under the World Health Organisation, and famines, in which several international agencies are involved. Even when a risk is recognised, as in the case of the protocols about climate change, nations are often unwilling to take the necessary measures.