What counts as expertise? The case of glyphosate and Jasanoff's 'three-body problem'

Smyth, Caer ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5816-6180 2017. What counts as expertise? The case of glyphosate and Jasanoff's 'three-body problem'. Environmental Law Review 19 (3) , pp. 168-182. 10.1177/1461452917724137

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Abstract

In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organisation published a monograph stating that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, Monsanto’s leading herbicide, was ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’. Shortly after this, the European Food Safety Authority re-assessed glyphosate’s licence for use in the European Union, and deemed it to be safe for human use. Both of these expert advisory bodies faced condemnation and accusations of political bias as a result of these assessments. Employing Jasanoff’s ‘three-body problem’, this article examines the conflicting conclusions of the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the European Food Safety Authority, exploring what the contested assessments of glyphosate reveal about the entangled relationship between scientific expertise and law-making.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Cardiff Law & Politics Law
Additional Information:	Released with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Publisher:	SAGE
ISSN:	1461-4529
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 February 2020
Date of Acceptance:	13 July 2017
Last Modified:	02 Dec 2024 17:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/129580

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