Science as a Cultural Human Right

By Helle Porsdam

The human right to science, outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and repeated in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, recognizes everyone’s right to “share in scientific advancement and its benefits” and to “enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.” This right also requires state parties to develop and disseminate science, to respect the freedom of scientific research, and to recognize the benefits of international contacts and co-operation in the scientific field.

The right to science has never been more important. Even before the COVID-19 health crisis, it was evident that people around the world increasingly rely on science and technology in almost every sphere of their lives from the development of medicines and the treatment of diseases, to transport, agriculture, and the facilitation of global communication. At the same time, however, the value of science has been under attack, with some raising alarm at the emergence of “post-truth” societies. “Dual use” and unintended, because often unforeseen, consequences of emerging technologies are also perceived to be a serious risk.

The important role played by science and technology and the potential for dual use makes it imperative to evaluate scientific research and its products not only on their scientific but also on their human rights merits. In Science as a Cultural Human Right, Helle Porsdam argues robustly for the role of the right to science now and in the future. The book analyzes the legal stature of this right, the potential consequences of not establishing it as fundamental, and its connection to global cultural rights. It offers the basis for defending the free and responsible practice of science and ensuring that its benefits are spread globally.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Release date: Sep 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781512822946

Book preview

Cover Page for SCIENCE AS A CULTURAL HUMAN RIGHT

Science as a Cultural Human Right

Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights

Bert B. Lockwood, Series Editor

A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

Science as a Cultural Human Right

Helle Porsdam

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia

Copyright © 2022 University of Pennsylvania Press

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

Published by

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

www.upenn.edu/pennpress

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Hardcover ISBN 978-1-5128-2293-9

Ebook ISBN 978-1-5128-2294-6

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Contents

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Setting the Scene

2. The Right to Science as a Cultural Human Right

3. The Dissemination of Science

4. Scientific Freedom

5. The Right to Science and International Cooperation and Solidarity

6. Of Human Rights, Human Duties, and Science Diplomacy

Conclusion

Notes

Index

Abbreviations

AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science

CBD UN Convention on Biological Diversity

CESCR Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

ECHR European Convention on Human Rights

IASC International Arctic Science Committee

ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

IP intellectual property

IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature

SAR Scholars at Risk

SDG sustainable development goal

SESAME Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East Laboratory

TRIPS WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights

UNDRIP United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

WHO World Health Organization

WTO World Trade Organization

Introduction

Science as a Cultural Human Right

One of the clear messages to emerge around the world during the COVID-19 crisis is just how important it is to understand the ways that science can assist society and, just as crucially, how society can engage with and shape science. The human right to science, outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and repeated in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), is key to answering this message. Article 27(1) of the UDHR recognizes everyone’s right to share in scientific advancement and its benefits; Article 15(1) of the ICESCR recognizes everyone’s right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.¹ This right—the right to science—also requires states parties to develop and disseminate science, to respect the freedom of scientific research, and to recognize the benefits of international contacts and cooperation in the scientific field.

The right to science has never been more important. Even before the COVID-19 health crisis, it was evident that people around the world increasingly rely on science and technology in almost every sphere of their lives: from the development of medicines and the treatment of diseases, to transport, agriculture, and the facilitation of global communication. This is reflected in the United Nations 2030 agenda with its seventeen sustainable development goals that emphasize the importance of science and technology for sustainable development. At the same time, however, the value of science has been under attack, with some raising alarm at the emergence of posttruth societies. Unintended, because often unforeseen, consequences of emerging technologies are also perceived to be a serious risk and subject to dual use.

Dual use refers to scientific research, especially in the life sciences, that can be used in a beneficent way but that also has potential to cause harm. For example, viral reverse engineering to discover why the Spanish influenza epidemic was so lethal is a type of dual-use research; on the one hand, critical information about pandemics can be gained, but on the other hand, a laboratory error or theft can cause widespread panic and consternation concerning the reasons for the underlying experiments.² Another example is editing of the human germline. While scientists working on such editing aim to maximize social and human welfare, they may well have started us on a slippery slope of nontherapeutic purposes, such as choosing specific traits for babies not directly related to health, like intelligence, height, or eye color (so-called designer babies).

The important role played by science and technology and the potential for dual use make it imperative to assess scientific research and its products not only on their scientific but also on their human rights merits. The added value of a human rights approach is more focus on the varied stakeholders in diverse societies. With relation to the right to science, such a focus requires "a form of affirmative action, that is, specific investments in science and technologies likely to benefit those at the bottom of the economical [sic] and social scale."³ Legally speaking, as a human right, the right to science is not absolute. States may adopt specific measures to limit the conduct of science or the dissemination of scientific results in order to prevent harm or disrespect for other human rights.⁴ Such measures are called for to protect vulnerable groups such as indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities from the negative consequences of scientific testing or applications on, in particular, their food security, health or environment.⁵

Though it provides both scientists and members of the public with powerful legal and political tools to participate in science and to gain access to and share scientific knowledge and its applications, the right to science is surprisingly little known and underexplored. Too often restricted to academic exercises, or kept as the province of UN and human rights scholars, the implications of the right to science have yet to be fully developed, normatively as well as practically. Dedicating her third thematic report to the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications, the first UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Farida Shaheed, noted the urgency of the topic: The scope, normative content and obligations of the State under this right, she writes in the first paragraph of her 2012 report, remain underdeveloped while scientific innovations are changing human existence in ways that were inconceivable a few decades ago.⁶

Precisely because so many of the changes we are experiencing are the result of science and technology, we need to see the right to science as important in and of itself. The right to science has often been viewed as merely an ancillary right that supports others, such as the rights to health, development, and education. With the publication of General Comment No. 25 on science in April 2020, shortly after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, this view is about to change.⁷ The new comment provides authoritative guidance to states parties on how to implement the right to science, just as it offers instruction to the UN, human rights and scientific organizations, universities and scientists, and civil society as a whole on their rights and obligations with regard to this right.

General Comment No. 25 promotes and takes the right to science seriously as a cultural human right. Cultural life is larger than science, the comment recognizes, as it includes other aspects of human existence; it is however reasonable to include scientific activity in cultural life. Thus, the right of everyone to take part in cultural life includes the right of every person to take part in scientific progress and in decisions concerning its direction.⁸ Science is a socially and culturally situated practice, and scientists and policymakers need to be more aware of the perception by the general public of science and science policies and on their effect on people’s lives.

My point of departure is UDHR Article 27, but even more so ICESCR Article 15. Article 15(1) refers to the benefits of science. This term encompasses four different things: (1) the material results of scientific research (medicines, vaccination, and technological instruments); (2) the scientific knowledge and information that derives from scientific activity; (3) the role of science in forming critical and responsible citizens who are able to participate fully in a democratic society; and (4) evidence-based decision-making processes in a democratic society.⁹ The coronavirus pandemic has provided a clear illustration of how the benefits of science do not merely relate to getting a vaccination or having access to the best treatment available. They also concern access to knowledge that people need in order to participate in a responsible manner in democratic dialogue.

From a right-to-science perspective, doing science not only is an activity in which scientific professionals engage; it also includes collaborations between scientists and members of the public.¹⁰ Through such collaborations, volunteers (known as citizen scientists) have helped make many important discoveries. According to Article 15(2), these discoveries must be disseminated for the benefit of all: States parties should not only abstain from interfering in the freedom of individuals and institutions to develop science and diffuse its results. States must take positive steps for the advancement of science (development) and for the protection and dissemination of scientific knowledge and its applications (conservation and diffusion).¹¹

Article 15(3) obliges states parties to secure the freedom indispensable for scientific research. This freedom includes the protection of researchers from unjustified interventions; the possibility to express themselves freely and openly on the ethical, human, social, or ecological implications of their research; the possibility of cooperating with other researchers, nationally as well as internationally; and the sharing of scientific data between researchers, with policymakers, and with the public wherever possible.¹²

Finally, Article 15(4) recognizes the importance of international cooperation. States should make it possible for scientific researchers to participate in the international scientific community, especially through facilitating travel in and out of their territory. Developed states should contribute to the growth of science and technology in developing countries, just as benefits should be shared with the international community. International cooperation is furthermore essential because of the risk of dual-use and because many of the most pressing problems today are global in scope and need to be solved globally.¹³

ICESCR Article 15 should, I argue, be read from the bottom up, starting with science as an international endeavor [Article 15(4)]. Without inspiration and input from fellow scientists, citizen scientists, and others around the world, individual scientists and their research groups will have none of those original ideas that lead to progress, in the short or long term. Without scientific freedom [15(3)], there will be no pursuit of ideas. There will be nothing to disseminate [15(2)]—and therefore nothing for the public to benefit from and share [15(1)].

One chapter of my monograph The Transforming Power of Cultural Rights (2019) concerns the right to science as one of four core cultural rights.¹⁴ Taking that chapter as its starting point, the present book is dedicated solely to the right to science and its potential for humankind, as I see it, to defend the free and responsible practice of science—and at the same time to recognize that science and its applications are part of the cause as well as the cure. Crucially, as I argue in The Transforming Power of Cultural Rights, human rights, including cultural rights, constitute one of the few global ethical discourses that we have today. Immediate problems such as climate change, pandemics, resource management, and a just and sustainable economic order call for global solutions. As these heavily involve science and technology, we need a global, ethical, and cultural vocabulary and discursive tool that supports a common discussion among diverse communities that have no other common vocabularies. The right to science provides such a tool.

The Book’s Structure and Chapters

The book consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 sets the scene for the rest of the book by exploring what we know about the right to science as a human right, what we do not know, and what we can do to make the right to science more known to the public, the legal community, and other stakeholders, as well as to scientists themselves. In this, as in the five chapters to follow, the Flora Danica project (1761–1883) and its history will illustrate and help us reflect on various pertinent aspects of the right to science. One of the largest botanical works ever published, Flora Danica covered the entire wild flora of the double monarchy of Denmark-Norway, Schleswig and Holstein, and the North Atlantic dependencies (the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland). Mostly forgotten today outside of Denmark—and, if remembered at all, then mostly for lending its name to a porcelain dinner set produced in the 1790s that was decorated with motifs from the Flora Danica herbarium and likely intended as a gift for Russian empress Catherine II—this botanical work offers insight into the advancement of human knowledge and creativity that is useful for the present project.

Flora Danica was an enlightenment-era project and an early example of a work that involved both citizen science and science diplomacy. The intention behind it was utilitarian in two ways. First, the idea was to find out what kinds of plants were available for practical use in agriculture and medicine to boost the Danish economy. Second, and perhaps more interesting in our context, the hope of its various editors was to make available to people in the Danish realm valuable knowledge about the uses of plants and herbs. Framing my discussions on the relationship between science and culture in Chapter 2, the dissemination of science in Chapter 3, scientific freedom in Chapter 4, the global transfer of knowledge in Chapter 5, and the usefulness of human rights discourse in Chapter 6, the Flora Danica is used as an early illustration of and introduction to various aspects of the right to science.

Chapters 2 through 5 each discuss one of the four parts of ICESCR Article 15. Chapter 2 explores the right to science as a cultural human right and the implications of its being included with the right to culture and authors’ rights in both UDHR Article 27 and ICESCR Article 15. The rights outlined in these two articles are often viewed as the core of cultural rights.¹⁵ As some scholars see it, the drafters of the UDHR and the ICRSCR made a mistake by categorizing the right to science as a cultural right—a mistake that may in part explain why this right is underexplored and less well known than other human rights.¹⁶ I argue, however, that the presentation of the right to science as a cultural right may be valuable in that its proximity to the right to participate in cultural life as well as to authors’ rights may allow for ethical and human-centered deliberations to become more integral parts of the scientific endeavor.

Chapter 3 concerns the dissemination of science, outlined in ICESCR Article 15(2). As the drafters of the ICESCR knew, without dissemination, translation, or curation the right to science cannot be activated. The public can benefit from scientific progress only when scientific knowledge, data, and expertise are made universally accessible and when the benefits of the practice of science are universally shared.¹⁷ Lifelong learning about scientific topics often takes place outside the classroom in informal environments such as science museums and libraries. By making the latest scientific discoveries and discussions available to everyone and involving the public in the histories, processes, and impacts of science, museums and libraries play central roles in the scientific training of citizens. I argue that the work of museums, which emerged more or less simultaneously with the modern system of scientific disciplines, provides a long-established gateway through which citizens can gain access to and activate their right to science. As places of research, education, and interactive engagement, science museums and libraries have to come to grips with and balance the rights of the public with those of scientists and curators on a daily basis. They therefore provide a good illustration of issues of relevance to the dissemination of science.

The focus of Chapter 4 is scientific freedom [Article 15(3)]. For most scholars, scientific freedom is crucial, the starting point for everything they do. In the most relevant human rights instruments as well as in General Comment No. 25 on science, the 2017 UNESCO Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers, and the special rapporteur’s report concerning science from 2012, necessary restrictions on scientific freedom nevertheless feature prominently. In order to safeguard basic human rights principles such as human dignity and nondiscrimination, prior informed consent, confidentiality of data, and other kinds of protection from dual-use research are needed. From a human rights perspective, scientific responsibility is the flip side of scientific freedom. When it comes to dual use, the interests of the public may clash with those of scientists. The latter cherish their scientific freedom whereas the former call for important restrictions on that very freedom. On this issue, as on the topics of strategic funding and citizen science, we must acknowledge the clashing human rights interests involved in order to find equitable and just solutions.

Chapter 5 explores the right to science from the perspective of international cooperation and solidarity. The global aspect of the right to science encompasses both the importance of sharing the tangible results or products of scientific research around the world and the free flow of ideas and creativity. Here, it is especially the latter aspect that is discussed. The chapter’s focus is on the historical, legal, and conceptual meanings of Article 15(4). This last part of Article 15 relies on, and makes sense only when read together with, the article’s first three parts. In the current context of pandemics and climate change, global in scope like the interdependence of the world’s economies, it is by no means the least significant. The issue of intellectual property and its relationship to authors’ rights, outlined in Article 15(1), plays a prominent role when it comes to the global transfer of knowledge, as it does in many other right-to-science contexts. Touched on in previous chapters, too, intellectual property is explored, in this chapter, from the perspective of international cooperation and assistance, voiced as an imperative in the ICESCR and other major human rights instruments. The issues of scientific (mis)conduct and the importance of ethical standards in the conduct of science are also relevant in this context.

The final chapter, Chapter 6, rounds off the book by offering a discussion of the usefulness of the human rights discourse. Over the past many years, points of criticism have been raised against this discourse from various quarters. These include attacks on human rights as a western construct that has been imposed on the world under the pretense of universalism, as well as critiques of the lack of obligations and enforcement in practice of these rights. In this chapter, I defend what Mary Ann Glendon has called in the American context rights talk and what I have described elsewhere as human rights talk.¹⁸ I do so against the background of the right to science as discussed in the previous five chapters. I also look at the new Cold War–like atmosphere currently engulfing science that calls out for science diplomacy. Little known as it is, the right to science, I argue, clearly shows the promise of human rights as empowering rights.

When he was honored by the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition in Washington, D.C., in 2009, Richard Pierre Claude, the first author to write a monograph about science in the service of human rights, compared the progress made within science and human rights, respectively.¹⁹ Advances in science and technology: certainly so. Advances in human rights: far too few, he said.²⁰ This differential pace between achievements in implementing human rights and advancements in science and technology demands our attention, he continued. Certainly, we still face human rights violations of every variety, including genocides, torture as public policy, and extra-judicial killings, but we now live in a technologically wired global village brought to us through innovative applications of science and technology.²¹

Claude was right, in my opinion, when he pointed to the potential of science serving human rights in his 2002 book. And he was right again when he drew our attention, seven years later, to the very prominent roles science and technology play in our lives—and to how important it therefore is to be alert to the human rights implications of the technologically wired global village in which we all live today.

In Chapter 6 as in my Conclusion, I attempt to connect all the threads from the previous chapters into one coherent narrative. I end by suggesting a couple of additional perspectives that may serve as recommendations for further action and research.

A Brief Note on Method, Sources, and Acknowledgments

It is not only with regard to the Flora Danica project that I draw on my Danish background. Throughout the book, I use other examples from Danish history and culture to illustrate, introduce, and open up relevant issues for discussion. My reason for doing so is twofold. First, as a small country whose language and culture have limited range, Denmark provides a case study of the need for international cooperation and multilingualism in science. Second, I offer a lens through which to view right-to-science issues that is different from the Anglo-American one most often used in today’s global academia.

Danish is a language spoken by only about 5.5 million people and is understood by perhaps a few more million other Nordics in Norway, Sweden, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland. Apart, perhaps, from the concept of hygge—a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being, pronounced hoo-guh²²—Danish culture is not much known outside Denmark itself. For the Danes, as for the members of any other small culture or community, linguistic diversity is an important issue. When it comes to the dissemination of scientific research, their right to science is not activated without translation—both from (typically) English into their native tongue and from the professional language used in scientific journals into a more popular and accessible discourse that they can relate to.

The very fact that the dissemination of global scientific results takes place at the local level may well keep Danish alive as a language of popular dissemination. But as an academic language, chances are that it will not survive. This is a justified worry of scholars in my country, especially in the humanities and social sciences, whose research concentrates on Denmark and the Nordic countries. They have been used to publishing their scholarship in Danish or Nordic journals, but feel increasing pressure to publish in more prestigious British or American journals. This means that they cannot write in their native tongue and that they have to present their scholarship in a different way. With a more international audience, they can no longer take any knowledge of the Nordic context for granted.

As English has become the global academic language, it has become easier for native speakers of English to use local examples and to assume that the rest of the world will be able to follow. This is not the case for someone writing about, say, Danish history or politics. There are plenty of things that have to be explained before writers can get to the arguments they want to make. So location matters. By using the Flora Danica project as a kind of narrative backbone, I have chosen a perspective from which to engage with the right to science that is unlike the one a native speaker of English would use. It is my hope that this offers a different, but still useful, kind of reading experience.

Many of the texts I use are primary sources such as the General Comments issued by the monitoring body of the ICESCR, UNESCO reports, and reports written by the UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights. I also engage with secondary texts written by fellow scholars, legal as well as cultural—and also botanical. Not being a botanist myself, I have relied heavily on the work of three Danish botanists who are specialists on the Flora Danica project. Ib Friis, Henning Knudsen, and Peter Wagner have all given very generously of their time to explain to a humanities scholar with no knowledge of their discipline the ins and outs of Flora Danica and its plants. For this, I am very grateful. I would also like to thank the Carlsberg Foundation whose Semper Ardens Monograph grant allowed me to finish this book.

This is not the first time that I have attempted