Working Session: Foundational Principles For Global Policy

Presenter: 
risasi
eshuster
Moderator: 
gannas
Discussant: 
crehmannsutter
mosemwegie
Day: 
Wednesday 28 July 2010
Start Time: 
2:45pm
End Time: 
5:15pm
Session Year: 
2010
Location: 
Terry Room
Short Description: 
[All details yet to be confirmed.]
Topic: What important foundational principles inform policies and practices involving the new human biotechnologies in different countries, cultures and regions? Are there foundational principles for global policy that could be widely affirmed and usefully promulgated?
The Session:  Discussion of experiences world-wide; discussion of background materials and drafts of possible statements of foundational principles; consideration of further initiatives after the July meeting.

Climate change, nuclear proliferation, oil pollution, synthetic biology, and (bio)terrorism have convinced most people on the planet that global dangers require a global response. Biotechnology, especially gene-based biotechnologies, that change not just what we can do, and the future of life on earth, but who we are as human beings, should rank high on the global regulation agenda.  

That global regulation is possible has been demonstrated by the World Trade Organization; that it is desirable is shown by the almost universal support of the Land Mine Treaty; but that it is extremely difficult is also evidenced by failed attempts to control trafficking in humans and their organs and tissues, the sex trade, and narco-trafficking. What can we learn from successes (like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the subsequent treaties, the International Criminal Court) and from failures (like the failed cloning treaty) in global regulation that can help chart a strategy by using civil society to build a global consensus on regulation with (or without) the overt support of scientists, physicians, transnational corporations, governments, and intergovernmental organizations?   

Assuming agreement on what should be done on a global level how can we make it happen?   
 

Full Description: 
[All details yet to be confirmed.]
Topic: What important foundational principles inform policies and practices involving the new human biotechnologies in different countries, cultures and regions? Are there foundational principles for global policy that could be widely affirmed and usefully promulgated?
The Session:  Discussion of experiences world-wide; discussion of background materials and drafts of possible statements of foundational principles; consideration of further initiatives after the July meeting.

Climate change, nuclear proliferation, oil pollution, synthetic biology, and (bio)terrorism have convinced most people on the planet that global dangers require a global response. Biotechnology, especially gene-based biotechnologies, that change not just what we can do, and the future of life on earth, but who we are as human beings, should rank high on the global regulation agenda.  

That global regulation is possible has been demonstrated by the World Trade Organization; that it is desirable is shown by the almost universal support of the Land Mine Treaty; but that it is extremely difficult is also evidenced by failed attempts to control trafficking in humans and their organs and tissues, the sex trade, and narco-trafficking. What can we learn from successes (like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the subsequent treaties, the International Criminal Court) and from failures (like the failed cloning treaty) in global regulation that can help chart a strategy by using civil society to build a global consensus on regulation with (or without) the overt support of scientists, physicians, transnational corporations, governments, and intergovernmental organizations?   

Assuming agreement on what should be done on a global level how can we make it happen?