Esposizione ad agenti chimici e responsabilità penale dei garanti della sicurezza sul lavoro: ancora sul processo di “flessibilizzazione” del diritto penale classico

Abstract

In modern society, characterized by constant technological and scientific progress, we are witnessing an increase in the assumptions of responsibility on the part of the guarantors of safety at work, mostly through the reinforcement of preventive and precautionary mechanisms supervised by penal sanctions of a criminal nature, aimed at averting risks to individual integrity. This approach is fuelled by the uncertainties that often characterize the scientific horizon, especially when considering areas such as exposure to pathogenic substances or chemical agents. The contribution aims to highlight the problems and limits of the intervention of criminal law in these areas, with particular attention to the discipline of Title IX of legislative decree no. 81/2008 dedicated to ‘Protection from chemical agents’, where the precautionary principle, far from being confined to a restricted space, has undergone considerable expansion.