Liability in measurement [Legalmetrology]

This is my first column on legal metrology and legal issues in metrology. When the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Instrument and Measurement Magazine, Dr. Wendy van Moer, asked me to hold this column, I felt really honored but also worried about this task. I am a lawyer, so my competences are quite far from the technical issues covered by this magazine, though I have always believed that justice and metrology have a common goal: ascertaining the factual truth. Hence, I gladly accepted this task in the hope that I will succeed in giving you a few glances at the dark side of the moon. So, why this column? Let me start by recalling the definition of metrology given by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM): "the science of measurement, embracing both experimental and theoretical determinations at any level of uncertainty in any field of science and technology."