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Written in response to the Bush Administration?s aggressive rhetoric previous to and during the Iraq War, this book addresses the key issues relating to Precautionary Principles on defense policies regarding pre-emptive war. Policymakers in the West seem prone to use these tactics when they feel there is certainly an outside threat to national security, and even when the threat is miniscule, after 9/11 American leaders in particular seem to err on the side of caution. Knowing the difference between a certain threat, a risky pre-emptive attack, and uncertainty could have informed public debate.

In recent years, scientists have noted a decline in the health of bee populations. Whereas a whole host of possible causes have been identified, it is the use of pesticides in agriculture—specifically the use of neonicotinoids—that has warranted some investigation. The scientific evidence of their impact on the health of bees remains debated. This article examines how the UK Government has responded to the decline in bee populations and the apparent link to neonicotinoids. While notionally committed to deploying the Precautionary Principle in such instances, the government has tended to err more on 'sound science' as a policymaking tool. Early evidence indicates that the government used the latter initially but has become more amenable to utilising a precautionary approach recently. Whether this can be attributed to an embrace of the Precautionary Principle, or simply a change caused by the installation of a new Secretary of State for the Environment, is open to interpretation.

This article examines the proposition put forward in a BBC documentary concerning 'war on terror' policies in recent decades that the British prime minister embraced the precautionary principle over his decision to go to war with Iraq. We argue that the conventional understandings of precaution that have been developed in the environmental arena do not translate well into the field of foreign policy. Our argument is buttressed by a content analysis of Tony Blair's speeches prior to the Iraq conflict of 2003. The analysis focuses on the ways the prime minister justified his decision to participate in the war in Iraq to the UK electorate. We conclude that, although understandings of precaution, particularly the 'strong' precautionary principle, do have problems when applied to this particular issue, and that the war was mainly based on a traditional 'sound science' foreign policy paradigm, the novel idea of using weaker forms of the precautionary principle in foreign policy is nevertheless intriguing, and warrants further research.

Focuses on Australian government responses to 1952 Peace conference for Asia and the Pacific Regions held in Beijing, China arguing that Prime Minister Menzies championed civil liberties while H.V. Evatt, leader of the Australian Labor Party, was far more restrictive on passport control.

This paper looks at the way in which the idea of the Precautionary Principle, increasingly influential in environmental and other policy areas, is being and might be used in foreign and security policy. It aims to contrast the relative precision with which the term is used in the environmental arena with the current usage in international relations. Contrasting the Precautionary Principle with ideas of precaution, prevention, pre-emption and similar terms in post-structuralist analyses of risk, humanitarian intervention and US foreign policy in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, the paper identifies costs and benefits in deploying a more carefully specified account of the Precautionary Principle. In particular, it highlights key issues of regulatory authority and the way in which policy-makers and analysts understand and respond to the limits of knowledge and knowledge systems as important challenges to which careful use of the Precautionary Principle can potentially contribute. The paper concludes by suggesting that both policy-making and policy analysis could potentially be improved by adapting and extending the idea of the Precautionary Principle as it is deployed in other policy arenas.

Research has shown that neoliberal economic policies may increase violence. In this study we extend this logic to create a "neoliberalism-homicide hypothesis." We test this hypothesis using two global measures of neoliberalism (the Economic Freedom of the World Index and the Index of Economic Freedom) and 2014 homicide rates for 142 nations. Regression analysis provides little support for the neoliberalism-homicide hypothesis using the global indexes. However, when examining factors that make up these indexes we discover that as size of government and tax burden become more neoliberal across nations, homicide rates increase. A post hoc exploratory analysis suggests that the association between government size, spending, taxes, and homicide is largely indirect and manifests through economic inequality and poverty. That is, neoliberal government policies appear to increase poverty and inequality which, in turn, lead to higher rates of homicide. We situate our findings within the broader literature on neoliberalism and violence and suggest directions for future research.