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DEALING WITH UNCERTAINTY ABOUT RISK IN RISK MANAGEMENT 55 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. De Minimis Risk and Conflicting Social Objectives The objectives of risk management involve such fundamental conflicts that regulatory solutions that satisfy all interested parties are unlikely. One such objective springs from the expressed desire for safety; that is, the desire to eliminate risks to the extent possible. Countering this social objective is the desire for efficiency in risk management. The desire for efficiency rests on the argument that resources are scarce. Calabresi and Bobbitt (1978) note, however, that "commonly . . ., scarcity is not the result of any absolute lack of a resource but rather of the decision by society that it is not prepared to forgo other goods and benefits in a number sufficient to remove the scarcity." In health and safety risk regulation, the conflicting objectives of maximum protection and careful use of scarce resources are considered in varying degrees. In many cases, economic efficiency is explicitly stated as one of several regulatory goals, and the analytical examination of regulatory costs and benefits is customary or even obligatory. In such cases the de minimis approach is likely to formalize the practice of ignoring small risks. Where the regulatory mandate is more strongly focused on protection, however, the costs of achieving safety are secondary considerations or are not legal considerations at all, at least in principle. In practice, cost considerations do usually influence all regulatory decisions. In these circumstances and because of the historical legal acceptance of de minimis (Davis, 1981), such an approach may be particularly useful in avoiding the regulation of trivial risks that a literal reading of the law would require. Under a well-designed de minimis system, the social objective of achieving a high degree of safety could be met while recognizing a need to ignore small risks. In this way de minimis offers the possibility of bringing practical considerations into decisions where very small risks or uncertain are involved without resorting to the risk-cost trade-offs that many find offensive and certain laws prohibit. In short, de minimis may permit us to avoid facing the difficult conflicting objectives contained within our risk-value system. One practical value of a de minimis policy may result from the pressures it creates to reevaluate inconsistencies in the attention applied to various risks. A de minimis risk policy is philosophically consistent with a view expressed by Lord Rothschild (1978): "There is no point in getting into a panic about the risks of life until you have compared the risks which worry you with those that don't but perhaps should." Another objective in modern risk regulation is the separation (to the extent that is practical) of questions of science from questions of policy (National Research Council, 1983). This objective arises from several motivations, notably to permit public participation in the formulation of risk policy without requiring scientific expertise, and to distance scientific debate from
