L'Aquila verdict
From: Willy Aspinall <Willy.Aspinall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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It may help inform our discussion and thinking to add an additional factor to the debate of the L'Aquila verdict, which might have potential implications for the international nature and conduct of volcanology.
It is my understanding that the Italian penal code (Codice Penale), i.e. the law of Italy, includes an article which asserts a direct relationship between event prevention and event cause that is quite different from what might be expected, especially by people in other jurisdictions. For public officials in Italy, this particular statute appears to impose a very heavy, generic responsibility on them to take preventive action against events, with failure to do so being equated with causing the event. Whether or not there are exclusions to this, for Acts of God or natural disasters, would require specialist legal knowledge of the Codice Penale. Seemingly scientists, involved in civil protection decision-making, fall under this statute, otherwise the Italian scientists' lawyers would surely have run this defence at trial.
We will have to await the publication of the full judgment to see if this penal code article was the primary basis for the verdict in the present case, but it seems criticisms that it was not a "fair trial" may be missing the mark, just as were the earlier protests and petitions based on scientific considerations of earthquake prediction. The judiciary in any country will act in accordance with its own laws.
There is now a clear need for Italian, and foreign, scientists to
understand exactly how such penal code provisions may impinge on them when participating in natural hazards and risks assessments in Italy, and for all scientists to recognize they may be subject to similar draconian statutes in some other countries. For Earth scientists this is, or should be, a wider legal concern than for most other scientific advisers, who generally work just within their own country (see also Nature, 477, p251; 2011).
While physical scientists are used to the principle of universal laws, valid in all countries, an assumption that criminal or civil laws and their application are universal, and that penalties for similar offences are comparable if convicted, is demonstrably foolish: penalties for littering in Singapore are much more severe than elsewhere, for instance. Unless or until the law in Italy (and where such statutes exist elsewhere) is changed to address the special circumstances of natural disasters, scientists will, or should, want to know what exposure they have to obscure or dated legal code provisions, whether ANY defence is viable, what protection they have against arbitrary or vexatious litigation, and how they can indemnify themselves against such legal actions, if at all.
Thus, whatever the ultimate outcome of the three-step trial and appeal cycle in Italy, the L'Aquila case will surely influence many scientists' attitudes to participating in natural hazards mitigation in foreign jurisdictions, and could even impinge on whether they act as advisers in science-based public decision-taking in their own countries (see IAVCEI News, Vol 1, 2004).
Willy Aspinall
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Cabot Professor in Natural Hazards & Risk Science
University of Bristol
Dept. of Earth Sciences / Cabot Institute
email: Willy.Aspinall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home tel: +44 1747 871002 fax: +44 1747 871012
Cabot Professor in Natural Hazards & Risk Science
University of Bristol
Dept. of Earth Sciences / Cabot Institute
email: Willy.Aspinall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home tel: +44 1747 871002 fax: +44 1747 871012
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