The provision of an adequate liability regime for ADAS technologies is an essential prerequisite for its roll out over the coming decade. Facing to the challenge of future highly automated vehicles, this paper proposed a Human-Machine Transition (HMT) approach as a common conceptual framework for considering Human Machine Interaction (HMI), liability and ethical issues in a unified way. The issues that arise are interrogated from a legal perspective, more specifically liability regimes and that of applied ethics. The paper highlights the issue of the handover/takeover. Potential consequences for insurance companies are then identified accordingly, with the aim to progress towards the sustainable deployment of automated vehicles on public roads.

<p>Pre-modern societies were subjected to risks attributed to fate, and human-made hazards that were considered manageable. Late-modern society is increasingly exposed to emerging environmental health risks that are products of the modernization process itself (e.g. genetically modified organisms). These risks result from broad changes in the environment and/or human activity. Some of these provoke high public perceptions of risk, and often institutions and communities must respond to these in the absence of scientific knowledge.</p> <p>This dissertation explores the determinants of the perception of food allergies – a recent addition to the environmental risk landscape. A recently assembled national database on food allergies was analyzed using multivariate logistic regression (n=3,462). In parallel, a media analysis of nine years of Canadian newspaper coverage of food allergy issues (n = 598 articles) explored the role of a primary source of risk communication.</p> <p>Results revealed a number of important determinants at the individual-level , as well as a number of experiential (e.g. exposure to food allergy-related information) and attitudinal covariates . The policy environment, was also implicated as an important modifying factor for risk perceptions. The media analysis revealed how food allergies are being constructed by different social actors through the news media, with substantial implications for public understanding. The dissertation concludes with a description of a conceptual framework for characterizing public response to emerging environmental health. This tool may prove crucial for increasing the understanding of the links between people, perceptions, and places as new environmental risks continue to emerge on the landscape.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This article is a literature review about global catastrophic risks. Its contribution is to give an overview of the research field in general and highlight the main potential catastrophic areas linked with recent studies. In many movies and TV shows, we can see our civilization collapse in various ways: Gigantic asteroids hit the earth and obliterate all life, nuclear wars emerge, artificial intelligence evolves and starts wars with humans, pandemics spread, and other kinds of catastrophic events with mass death or extinction of all life happen. Thus, even if these are extreme events and fiction, we should raise the question how likely it is that one or more of these events can occur in the near and far future. Although calculated probabilities of impact are low for the future such as tomorrow, in 10, 100 or a million years from now, this could actually be reality. Nevertheless, why should we care about the risks of these global catastrophic events today and what could be done to prevent or reduce the risk of a global catastrophe? In this paper we will discuss core content, such as different risks and ways to reduce them internationally, as well as the scientific context of the field. In fact, there are events that can be catastrophic on a global scale and happen in the near future, even if we do not know exactly when. Hence, specific risk assessment and proper mitigation strategies are necessary in order to maintain the human population. This article states that serious research is a basis for decision makers in particular, who invest funds in countermeasures.

L’expression « nouveaux risques » est de plus en plus employée pour désigner les risques sanitaires et environnementaux liés au progrès scientifique et technique lorsque leurs conséquences dommageables bien qu’anticipées sont entourées d’un fort contexte d’incertitude scientifique. Cette incertitude est souvent invoquée par les professionnels créateurs de ces risques pour tenter d’échapper à leur responsabilité et, quand ils n’y parviennent pas, pour en faire supporter la charge par leur assureur de responsabilité, au risque d’accréditer l’idée que l’assurance déresponsabilise. C’est autour de la question de l’assurabilité des nouveaux risques, ou plutôt de leur inassurabilité, que cette thèse est construite. Il s’est agi d’étudier l’aptitude du système actuel de responsabilité du fait des produits, aidé par l’assurance de cette responsabilité, à satisfaire l’objectif social de prise en charge des victimes de nouveaux risques. Les solutions du droit français ont été éprouvées à la lumière de celles retenues par les droits américain et chinois qui sont confrontés aux mêmes problèmes. A cet égard, l’étude des nouveaux risques, en conduisant à revisiter la notion de risque assurable, fait prendre conscience des limites des systèmes actuels de prise en charge. Il apparaît opportun de revenir aux fondamentaux du droit de la responsabilité et du droit des assurances tout en recherchant des techniques complémentaires. Ce pourrait être le recours à la solidarité nationale (par la création d’un fonds d’indemnisation) ou aux marchés financiers. / The expression « emerging risks » is increasingly used to describe the health and environmental risks related to scientific and technical progress whenever their damaging consequences, although anticipated, are shrouded in an opaque veil of scientific uncertainty. The professionals, who created these risks, often use this uncertainty in an attempt to avoid any liability. When unable to do so, they try to have them covered by their liability insurance, even though such behavior fuels the idea that insurance promotes irresponsible behavior. This thesis is built around the question of the insurability, or to be more precise, the non-insurability of emerging risks. The aim was to study the capacity of the current products liability system, complemented by the relevant liability insurance, to meet the social goal of taking care of the victims of those « emerging risks ». The solutions provided by the French law system have been put up for a test by comparing them with those of the American and Chinese ones, while taking into account the contextual problems met by the latter. In this regard, the study of emerging risks leads us to review the concept of insurable risk, and to admit there are limits to the current system dealing with the victims’ compensation. It seems appropriate to refer back to the fundamentals of liability law and insurance law while seeking additional solutions. Appealing to national solidarity (through the setting up of a compensation fund) or to financial markets could be the solution.

Climate change has become one of the most debated environmental risks. The world is faced with the threat of weather variability. There has been an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. There is rising concern that weather losses might affect the sustainability of insurance businesses. The primary obective of the study was to ascertain the significance of changes in temperature, precipitation and wind speeds in explaining changes in weather-related claims.Furthermore the reseach had three key secondary objectives, firstly to find if changes in annual average temperature levels lead to changes in weather-related claims. Secondly to determine if average annual wind speeds lead to changes in weather-related loss .Thirdly to establish if the average changes in annual rainfall or precipitation levels lead to changes in weather-related claims. Quantitatively this study explored the relationship between climate change and weather losses in South Africa. Temperature, rainfall, and wind speed were the main weather variables analysed. Lack of properly recorded insured weather losses was the major challenge. Nonetheless, total economic weather losses were used as a proxy for insured weather losses.The analysis employed regression, cointegration and vector error correction models. Study findings showed that climate change is influencing weather losses. The existence of correlation and causality between weather variables and losses was also affirmed. Thus the insurance industry should comprehensively incorporate climate change into its business strategy to minimise exposure. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)