The Silence of the Sirens

Risk is a projection of a specific temporality performed by the observer. However, this projection is doomed to impossibility because of the prohibiting problems of time, causality, subjectivity and relativity of risk. The observer is left only with a castrated projection that defies the role of science as a pedestal for the projection and institutes negation as its driving force. This projection is materialised within the Law in the form of the Precautionary Principle. Risk evokes undesired dualisms, especially the one between Idealism and Operationalism. The essay attempts to bring the two together by extrapolating the hard appearance of the legal system as seen through Luhmann’s autopoiesis and the need for critical openness of a contextualised environmental law. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.