The Role of Law in Managing the Tension between Risk and Innovation: Introduction to the Special Issue on Regulating New and Emerging Technologies

Abstract

Technological innovations are crucial drivers of economic, social, and environmental progress. While innovations lead the evolution of our societies and permeate all domains of human life, they also pose significant risks both to humans and the environment. Law and regulation are expected to enable innovation, while at the same time protecting society from unintended consequences. However, assessing new technological risks confronts deep uncertainty and limited knowledge. In contrast to simple risks (e.g. car accidents), technological risks (such as risks stemming from new health technologies, nanotechnology, biotechnology, or robotics as discussed in this special issue) cannot be calculated according to traditional technocratic models, namely as a statistically foreseeable function of probability and effects. It is widely recognised that regulating new and emerging technologies is challenging for law due to problems of uncertainty and limited knowledge in the assessment and management of technological risks. To address this challenge it is crucial to study the ways in which law and regulation can successfully respond and adapt to technological progress.

Assessment Of The Budget Independence Of The Territories

“…Thus, a complete and reliable assessment of the financial independence of municipalities, the study of conditions for ensuring and eliminating deficiencies in the municipal finance management system are important areas of sustainable socio-economic development of municipalities with the aim of ensuring a decent quality of life for the population based on the implementation of the fiscal budget by local authorities politicians (Weimer & Marin, 2016).…”

State and Bank Financing of Innovations: Federal and Regional Aspects

“…In our study we analyzed some aspects of innovation implementation and its financing both at the federal, Thai and regional levels. They substantiated the necessity to activate the banking community in financing innovations [7,13,16].…”

“…At the same time, the issues of investment policy implementation today receive serious attention from the scientific community [3,7,14,17]. The works by B. Stosic, M. Mihic, R. Milutinovic, S. [11], M. Weimer, L. Marin, [16], I. Yeremenko, E. Rudskaya [18] and other researchers are devoted to innovative investment approaches.…”

Innovation risks: challenges and prospects

“…There is no uniform classification required to reveal the nature of risks, relations and dependences connected with risks. It prevents efficient innovation risk management [14,16].…”