Prof. Eric Johnson discussing Large Hadron Collider on World Swiss Radio

Report: New legal solutions needed for experiments like CERN's

Friday, 26 February, 2010 - online article with comments
by Alex Helmick, World Radio Switzerland

New solutions are needed for courts to properly evaluate science experiments, especially ones that could be dangerous, according to a new report issued by a law professor in the United States.The report points to CERN’s big bang experiment and says people should be allowed to bring lawsuits against CERN and have their cases heard by judges who are well-informed on very complicated topics. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, based in Geneva, is designed to recreate the moments right after the Big Bang.

The legal report doesn’t claim the experiment is going to create a black hole and swallow the earth, as some have claimed—most of the scientific community has refuted the idea. But it does say that future, unprecedented experiments could be dangerous and a universal legal framework is needed to deal with them. Reporter Alex Helmick spoke to legal professor Eric E. Johnson from the University of North Dakota. Johnson authored the report that appears in the Tennessee Law Review.