Letter from Professor Kühling

Why signing on to this initiative is so important

The current technology assessment on the consequences of mobile radio for the European Parliament shows that "sufficient evidence" is available for the carcinogenic effect caused by non-ionizing radiation in experimental animals, as well as for the impairment of fertility in men, male rats and mice. Also, how "oxidative cell stress" is caused in living organisms by artificial electromagnetic fields is largely understood after a comprehensive review of the available literature. If one relates this factual situation to the legal principles of hazard protection and precaution valid throughout Europe, then a clear dilemma becomes apparent: Neither is sufficient hazard protection enacted in most member states, nor is precaution sufficiently taken into account.

Even if final scientific findings are still lacking, Article 191 TFEU applies in the EU, according to which a "high level of environmental protection" is to be aimed for, based on the principles of precaution and prevention. As the European Commission and the European Court of Justice put it, "where the existence and magnitude of risks to human health are uncertain, the institutions may take protective measures without waiting for the existence and magnitude of those risks to be clearly established." Such measures are largely absent due to the now clear factual situation; in Germany, the relevant regulation bypasses this entirely.

According to the European Convention on Human Rights, the protection of the home also includes radio waves as a possible factual basis for intervention. However, the exercise of this right to inviolability may only be interfered with if this is required or provided for by law. In Germany, however, there is no legal basis for this. European law principles must be implemented uniformly as a matter of urgency.

Both for protection against health hazards and for precautionary measures, there is an urgent need for technically reliable protection standards and precautionary regulations, so that the largely unrestrained expansion of the mobile communications infrastructure is finally regulated in terms of the protection of people and nature.

I have just outlined this in my "White Paper on Mobile Communications".

Wilfried Kühling
Professor Dr.-Ing. habil.,
Institute of Geosciences and Geography Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (ret.)
Germany