Publication

National governments have lost their monopoly on the use of force while determined individuals and groups of individuals can lay their hands on weapons with which they can inflict huge, even irreversible damage to entire societies. Assuming that pre-emptive military action is here to stay, we should be determined not to let it escape democratic control. This paper seeks the procedures and checks that should be in place if pre-emptive military action is to be firmly embedded in democratic practices and institutions. To that end, it reviews the application of precautionary principle in the environmental and food safety domains and assesses whether the procedural checks and practices used there can also have their utility in the international security domain.