The Nations Approach

the principles of federal institutional design should reflect the prima facie equality of the moral entitlement of different national groups. There ought to be a 

Since secession is not only destabilizing but also in most cases impracticable, it is a priority of the nations approach to accommodate the self-determination claims of national groups in relation to one another within their host states. The recognition of their basic entitlements as a particular kind of actor allows national groups to share the state on the right grounds from their own and others perspective. 

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A pilot study conducted between January and March 2004 confirmed that interviews could generate sufficient data to characterise the national approaches and relevant EU decision-making processes. 

The following sections of this Chapter will explore national regulatory approaches and how these approaches have evolved. Contrasts between the national approaches are most evident by the fundamental differences in the roles of the national actors (an overview of the findings are shown in Table 4.2). The resulting relationships between regulators and the stakeholder groups surveyed in this research will also be examined (indicated by shading in Table 4.2). 

National approaches to risk management are strongly established within France, Germany, Sweden, and the UK. The national approaches have evolved over many years involving complex socioeconomic and cultural phenomena. In turn, the regulatory culture is reflected in the country s administrative infrastructures. Fiistorical and social contexts, such as the legal systems and industrial relations, provide some explanation as to how and why differences occur in national approaches to chemicals policy and risk management. 

The next Chapter exposes how without careful attention to particular issues during implementation the REACH legislative text is unlikely to deliver the recommendations identified in Table 4.6. Several examples are presented in Chapter 5 that illustrate how the strengths and weakness of the national approaches tend to hinder rather than facilitate EU decision-making. The proposed systems framework for decision-making under REACH then seeks to rectify these potential shortcomings of the legislation. 

The proposed systems framework for EU decision-making under REACH seeks to counterbalance the weaknesses and to draw on the strengths of the national approaches while addressing the points shown in Table 7.1. Specifically, the framework would fuse hazard, technical and risk-benefit approaches to risk management (Table 7.2). Compared with the current process of chemical legislation and the recent REACH proposal, the systems framework would avoid a linear substance-by-substance approach by applying a set of decision-making rules based on hazard and use to all chemicals (Section 5.3.1). 

Political dimensions of risk management contribute to the quality, type and level of information needed during assessments of hazards, exposures and regulatory impacts. This book illustrates just how Member States may sometimes need to establish different levels of protection within their national territories. The analysis of the national approaches demonstrates why Member States give preference to certain risk management control instruments. 

A review of the current state of risk criteria in NPPs includes national approaches and international publications. The national approaches about risk criteria differ notably from country to cormtry, so no commonly accepted international agreement exists. 

In spite of the fact that no common criteria exist internationally, one can conclude that the production of electrical energy from nuclear power should not contribute notably to the overall risk is common to the national approaches. The ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle is mostly acceptable, which states that the risk should be as low as it is reasonably achievable. 

It may seem that my approach to nationhood increases the possibility of minorities mobilizing along national lines and aspiring to acquire a status at the level of the federal state equal to that of already existing national groups, which presents a problem for the stability of multinational states. The destabilizing effects of dynamic identities that the nations approach accommodates can be controlled by the terms of nations approach in at least two respects. 

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