The Blaise case: The precautionary principle and its role in judicial review

The approval renewal of glyphosate as an active substance for pesticides in the EU has also kept the Court of Justice occupied.

The article “Case C-616/17 Blaise and Others: The precautionary principle and its role in judicial review – Glyphosate and the regulatory framework for pesticides” was published on the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law by Sabrina Röttger-Wirtz, Assistant professor of EU law at Maastricht University.

Within this line of case law, the Blaise case is the most recent one. In this preliminary reference procedure, the Court was asked to review the validity of the Plant Protection Products Regulation 1107/2009, examined against the precautionary principle as benchmark. The case is relevant not only for the questions raised about the Regulation, but also as it sheds a light on the – albeit limited – use of the precautionary principle in the judicial review of EU legislative measure.

Within the RECIPES project, Sabrina Röttger-Wirtz  conducted the case study on "Glyphosate", which analyses the role that the precautionary principle played in the EU procedures for the re-approval of glyphosate.

A full overview of the RECIPES’s case studies can be found HERE.