UN Office of Human Rights Commissioner Seminar On Right To Enjoy Benefits Of Scientific Progress

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) will hold a seminar on the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications in Geneva next week.

According to the office, the 3-4 October meeting follows the presentation of the report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, focusing on the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on the cultural rights of everyone and respect for diversity at its twentieth session.  The resolution requested OHCHR to convene a seminar to discuss the right of everyone to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications.

Information about the seminar is available here.

The focus and objectives of the seminar are:

• “provide further clarification of the normative content of the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications; and

• clarify its relationship with other human rights and fundamental freedoms including, particularly, the right of everyone to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he or she is the author.”

OHCHR said: “Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the right “to share in scientific advancement and its benefits” as well as to the “protection of the moral and material interests resulting from scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author”. The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications is also recognised in article 15(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights affirms a number of principles applicable to ethical issues raised by medicine, life sciences and associated technologies. Perhaps the most relevant of these are found in article 15, which provides that “benefits arising from scientific research and its applications should be shared with society as a whole and within the international community, in particular with developing countries”. Benefits may take the form of special and sustainable assistance to, and acknowledgement of, the persons and groups that have taken part in the research, access to quality health care and access to scientific and technological knowledge.”

Discussion will cover, it said:

• “state obligations;
• country practices in implementation;
• scientific freedom;
• interdependence between the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications and other human rights (the rights to food and health as well as the rights of persons with disabilities)
• the relationship between the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications and  intellectual property rights;
• access to information, technology and knowledge”