Spotlight: Linking Human Rights, Science and Development

This series of SciDev.net articles highlights emerging thinking about the potential impact of, and challenges faced by, a human rights-based approach to the role of science in development.

The articles, available in both English and Spanish, include:

• "Science and Human Rights: A Valuable Perspective" - David Dickson notes that "the issues raised by a rights-based approach to science in development are not particularly new, nor even unique to this approach. But it is also clear that a rights-based approach adds a moral dimension to these debates....It can, for example, provide a lever that critics of government or institutional policies can use to legitimate demands for greater public access to the benefits of science, and for protection against what can be seen as its abuses (for example, the development of chemical or biological weapons)."
• "Linking Science and Human Rights: Facts and Figures" - In this overview article, S. Romi Mukherjee outlines how a human rights-based approach intersects with debates over science and technology (S&T) and development. In one portion of the article, Mukherjee describes a study of advancing the right to water, sanitation, water infrastructure, and water use, led by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Lao PDR in collaboration with the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the development charity Oxfam, and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA). To examine the politics of water distribution and use in Laos, researchers used a range of techniques, some of which fall under the rubric of human rights-based approaches, including: participatory monitoring and evaluation, community dialogues between provincial and district officials and villages, transparent bidding processes for water supply, and community user groups (which build village consensus on contribution rates, and maintenance of water systems). Mukherjee notes that these techniques are not exclusively human rights-based. "Indeed, one of the great obstacles to developing good human rights-based practice is that the approach can encompass everything, thus risking being nothing at all. Also, consultation and dialogue do not necessarily guarantee consensus, let alone firm implementation."
• "Accessing Science as a Human Right to Development" - In a complementary feature article, Jan Piotrowski talks to some of those who are seeking to implement this rights-based approach, particularly within UN agencies such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Piotrowski begins with these words: "Access to science, as well as an equitable share of its benefits, is a universal human right, as inalienable as the right to water, justice or even life. At least this is the status given to science by the UN's 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)....Legally protecting access to science is a powerful idea, particularly when applied to development, where so many areas - including agriculture, healthcare, and information and communication technologies (ICTs) - rely heavily on uptake of scientific advances. Science can also be used to protect other basic human rights, and has been used to monitor and attempt to prevent human right abuses in conflict. But how is this right being implemented around the world, and who is pushing the rights-based agenda for access to science? And why are national policymakers failing to use a rights-based agenda to get science to their people?"
• "Responsible Science is Vital for Development" - In this opinion piece, Bhavani R. V. argues that using a human rights approach in specific areas of science and the development agenda can help safeguard the rights of vulnerable populations through a commitment to uphold scientific responsibility on a range of issues, from genetically modified crops to research on neglected diseases. The author notes that, while ICTs have ushered an information revolution, they are capable of infringing on the lives of people in negative ways, from access to private information to cyber crimes. Also, "[a] gender divide is visible in the low number of women working in science, and the differential access to the fruits of S&T. In countries such as India, this is reflected in the adverse sex ratio (favourable to boys, adverse to girls), illegal sex determination tests and female foeticide."
• "Putting Human Rights Principles into Practice" - In this opinion piece, Jessica Wyndham discusses how a rights framework can be used to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate development programmes and argues that governments and other stakeholders are responsible for putting these principles into practice. She provides "examples [that] reflect the mutually reinforcing nature of the relationship between S&T and human rights. What serves as the foundation for this relationship is the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress." And yet, "[t]ranslating this and other human rights into practice is an ongoing task that will not be achieved without rigorous scientific methods and innovative applications of technology. Nor will it be achieved without the commitment of policymakers, and the scientific and engineering communities."
• "Climate Change Policy Should Pass a 'Human Rights Test'" - Simon Caney outlines in this opinion piece how a human rights framework can address the ethical issues raised by the challenges of climate change and their implications for S&T policy. He observes that climate change is the result of many different actors (billions of people as well as firms, governments, and international institutions) acting without considering their collective impact on the environment. Thus, as he argues, institutions which shape energy policy - from national legislatures and international organisations like the World Trade Organization and World Bank to bodies funding research into new technologies - need to (amongst other things) coordinate and cooperate with each other to ensure that social and economic policies are not pursued in ways that destroy the environment.