WP2 Case study: Neonicotinoid insecticides

Abstract

This case will focus on neonicotinoid insecticides (in short: neonics), and how the Precautionary Principle has been applied, and contested, in the regulation of these insecticides. In the context of increasing pest resistance to established Plant Protection Products, the industry argued that the invention of neonicotinoids signified a new and innovative era of pest management. However, some years after the introduction of neonics on the European market in the 1990s and 2000s, monitoring assessments and studies started to connect the use of neonics to large-scale bee deaths. Thus, the Precautionary Principle (PP) was applied to restrict neonics in some European countries. As studies and risk assessments accumulated, the PP was also applied by the European Commission (EC) to ban three neonics (imidacloprid, thiametoxam, clothianidin) in 2013 and again in 2018. The reasoning behind applying the PP was the seriousness of the possible irreversible damaging effects of neonics on important ecosystem services such as pollinating insects. The EC ban of the three neonics caused much controversy, and three agrochemical companies filed court cases against the ban. In this case, we will outline scientific uncertainties and ambiguities regarding the effects of neonics on pollinators (but also other species), in addition to the diverging perceptions of the role of the PP that became particularly evident in the court case proceedings. Further, we will discuss how innovation and precaution may interact. We find that a narrow framing of innovation and scientific certainty seem to conflate the PP and the Prevention Principle. However, with a broader framing of innovation, one could find possibilities for balancing precautionary regulations of neonics with innovations that are more line with an Integrated Pest Management approach.