Although the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress – in short REBSP or the right to science – is included in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and several human rights treaties, it remains a right that is not well known nor yet well explored.

The role of science in societies and its benefits and potential dangers have been discussed in various international fora, but hardly ever in a human rights context. Nowadays, within a world that is increasingly turning to science and technology for solutions to persistent socio-economic and development problems, the human dimension of science has also received increased attention. One of the avenues to reinforce the link between science and human rights is the elaboration and implementation of the right to science.

The project aims to increase the knowledge and understanding of the right to science and to raise awareness of the existence of this right and of its content. A better understood and elaborated right to science will be better implemented by states, better respected by non-State actors such as corporations and better enjoyed by individuals and communities. The added value of a human rights approach or human rights lens to science, compared to other approaches such as ethics of science, is that a human rights approach does not only focus on scientists and science, but on broader society, including economic activities, and the rights and obligations of different stakeholders. It identifies rightsholders (empowerment) and dutybearers (obligations), as well as accountability mechanisms. It guarantees that research and technology agendas include human rights principles, such as universality, participation, non-discrimination and equality, and that these agendas focus on disadvantaged groups.

Expanding the Right to Science

Most of the existing research on the right to science has been done by human rights lawyers. This right however demands reflection from different disciplines, applying different research methods. The right to science should be studied from the perspective of its link to other human rights or its role as enabling the enjoyment of other human rights. But, the right to science also has value in itself and this value needs to be further elaborated. A great variety of topics and issues are (to be) studied, including: what is the added value of the right to science to, for instance, the rights to health or food? What are the gender aspects of the right to science? What does the right to science mean for Open Access and Open Science? How does patenting the results of science relate to the right to science? To what extent does the right to science protect against harmful science?

Several developments have taken place in the last years. Member States of UNESCO adopted in 2021 a Recommendation on Open Science, following the adoption in 2017 of the UNESCO Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted in 2020 a General Comment on the right to science and economic, social and cultural rights. Several UN Special Rapporteurs have paid attention to the right to science. Although these instruments and documents reaffirm the importance of the right to science, more multidisciplinary research and analysis need to be done to further elucidate this right in a legal as well as a policy context and to make it justiciable and actionable.

Publications

• Yvonne Donders, “The Right to Science: Another Tool to Repair Gender Inequalities in Sciences and Research”, in: Andrea Broderick and Jennifer Sellin (eds.) Socio-economic Rights, Inequalities and Vulnerability in Times of Crises: Building Back Better, Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming 2024.
• Yvonne Donders and Monika Plozza, “Look before you leap: states’ prevention and anticipation duties under the right to science”, The International Journal of Human Rights, October 2023 (open access
• Yvonne Donders & Konstantinos Tarraras, "Mainstreaming science and human rights in UNESCO''. Book chapter in The Right to Science. Then and Now. Edited by Helle Porsdam & Sebastian Porsdam Mann. November 2021
• Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Yvonne Donders & Helle Porsdam. ''The right to science in practice: a proposed test in four stages''. Book chapter in The Right to Science. Then and Now. November 2021
• S. Porsdam Mann, Y. Donders, C. Mitchell, V. J. Bradley, M. F. Chou, M. Mann, G. Church, and H. Porsdam, “Opinion: Advocating for science progress as a human right”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS) October 23, 2018 115 (43) 10820-10823
• Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Helle Porsdam, Christine Mitchell & Yvonne Donders, “The Human Right to Enjoy the Benefits of the Progress of Science and its Applications”, Open Peer Commentary, The American Journal of Bioethics (2017) 17:10, 34-36. 

Researcher

Yvonne Donders, Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam

Partners

• Valerie Bradley, Human Services Research Institute, Boston
• Michael Chou, Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School
• Christine Allan de Lavenne, SIDE law office Paris
• Matthias Mann, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich
• Christine Mitchell, Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School
• Monika Plozza, Faculty of Law, University of Lucerne
• Helle Porsdam, Faculty of Humanities and Law, University of Copenhagen
• Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School

• Kostas Tararas, Social and Human Sciences UNESCO HQ Paris