Description
This collection of essays examines the multi-faceted roles of experts and expertise in and around contemporary legal and regulatory cultures. The essays illustrate the complexity intrinsic to the production and use of expert knowledge, particularly during transition from specialist communities to other domains such as policy formulation, regulatory standard setting and litigation. Several themes pervade the collection. These include the need to recognize that: expert knowledge and opinion is often complex, controversial and contested; there are no simple criteria for resolving disagreements between experts; appeals to 'objectivity' and 'impartiality' tend to be rhetorical rather than analytical; contests in expertise are frequently episodes in larger campaigns; there are many different models of expertise and knowledge; processes designed to deal with expert knowledge are unavoidably political; questions around who is an expert and what should count as expertise are not always self-evident; and the evidence rarely 'speaks for itself'.
Table of Contents
Contents: Experts and expertise in legal and regulatory settings, Gary Edmond and David Mercer; Expertise and experience in the governance of science: what is public participation for?, Alan Irwin; Scientific expertise and regulatory decision-making: standards, evidential interpretation and social interests in the pharmaceutical sector, John Abraham; Protecting the environment at the margin: the role of economic analysis in regulatory design and decision-making, Marc A. Eisner. Hyper-experts and the vertical integration of expertise in EMF/RF litigation, David Mercer; Jackson Pollock, Judge Pollak, and the dilemma of fingerprint expertise, Simon A. Cole; 'Science above all else': the inversion of credibility between forensic DNA profiling and fingerprint evidence, Michael Lynch; Judging facts: managing expert knowledges in legal decision making, Gary Edmond; Narrative traditions of space, time and trust in court: terra nullis, 'wandering', the Yorta Yorta native title claim, and the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Controversy, David Turnbull; Ethical dimensions of law - science relations in US courtrooms, David S. Caudill; The invisible branch: the authority of science studies in expert evidence jurisprudence, Gary Edmond and David Mercer; Bibliography; Index.
