4. Responsibility of designers and manufacturers

Innovation can be the direct consequence of constraints (*). For example, environmental constraints have generated new products (particle filters), new processes (solvent-free gluing) and new organizations (SMS, SM-QSE [7] ...). In terms of safety and the environment, designers, producers, importers and distributors are responsible for their products, processes and installations. The notion of responsibility implies a notion of objectives to be reached (compliance, contract to be respected) or not to be reached (endangering others). Responsibility therefore only makes sense in the light of clearly assigned objectives or obligations (precautionary principle). The responsibility of the players we have just mentioned concerns both legal entities and individuals. In other words, we'll be looking at the liability of both the engineer...