The objective of the present article is to develop a better
understanding of the institutional dynamic of transnational regulatory
scientific institutions (RSIs). RSIs play a significant role in the
transnational regulatory process by mediating between the scientific community
and policy-making bodies. I argue that RSIs have a hybrid structure involving
both political-legal and epistemic authority. The hybrid structure of RSIs,
their capacity to exert both normative and epistemic authority, constitutes an
innovative response to the demand of modern society for scientific certainty
and to the scarcity of normative power in the international domain.
This hybrid
nature has a triple structure, involving three complementary pairs:
law~science, law~non-law, and science~pseudoscience. I examine the way in which
RSIs cope with the challenge of maintaining their epistemic and legal authority
against the tensions generated by their hybrid structure. The discussion of
hybrid authority is related to the problem of scientific uncertainty. I examine
this theoretical argument drawing on an in-depth analysis of three RSIs that
reflect the institutional diversity of the RSI network: the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Commission on Non-Ionizing
Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), and the European Committee of Homeopaths (ECH).
I conclude with a discussion of some of the policy issues associated with the
institutional design of RSIs. The policy discussion refers first to the risk
posed by RSIs’ hybrid structure to their internal stability; and second to some
potential adverse social impacts which need to be considered alongside RSIs’
projected benefits.
