AAAS
Ginger Pinholster
30 July 2013
A poor, rural village seeking a safe source of drinking water might
first need the Internet in order to promote the free exchange of
scientific information, one human-rights expert contended 11 July during
a meeting of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition.
Researchers must be able to freely exchange information, often across
borders, to help uphold everyone's right to enjoy the benefits of
science, said Frank William La Rue, United Nations (UN) Special
Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of
opinion and expression. All human rights are interrelated, said La Rue,
founder of the Center for Legal Action for Human Rights: After all, he
noted, people cannot enjoy the benefits of potable water unless
scientists can study how best to purify it. Such efforts require
unencumbered scientific freedom of expression.
La Rue's comments were offered as part of a panel discussion on the
relationship between international research cooperation and Article 15
of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which guarantees everyone the right to enjoy "the benefits of scientific progress and its applications."
His
remarks
echoed comments offered by Michael H. Posner, U.S. Assistant Secretary
of State, during an October 2012 event at AAAS. The right to share in
scientific advancement and its benefits "simply cannot be realized
without the climate of free expression that is essential to the
unfettered thinking that produces scientific advancement in the first
place," Posner's written remarks for that event stated.
Posner was addressing Article 27 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
which preceded Article 15 and has been fully embraced by the United
States. Article 27 ensures everyone's right "to share in scientific
advancement and its benefits."
In contrast, the international covenant that includes Article 15,
adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1966 and ratified
by 160 governments, has been signed but not yet ratified by the United
States. However, La Rue's co-panelist E. William Colglazier, science and
technology advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State, said that the United
States, "as a policy matter," does uphold the "values and principles"
of Article 15 — "envisioning a world that promotes the ability of
everyone to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."
Colglazier, a former AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow,
expressed strong support for advancing scientific benefits worldwide. "I
drank the Kool-Aid on the benefits of science and technology a long
time ago," Colglazier joked, while also reviewing the serious role that
science can play in advancing diplomacy and economic progress. At the
State Department, Colglazier said, his office has worked to ease
regulatory hurdles, such as lengthy visa application procedures for
foreign scientists, which can inhibit international research
cooperation. Finding solutions to global challenges such as disease
threats, insufficient food supplies and climate change will require
international research cooperation, he noted.
He cited a number of U.S.-supported programs that help promote
productive international scientific cooperation. Those efforts include,
as only a few examples, the
Science Technology Innovation Expert Partnership, which links U.S. researchers with foreign audiences; the
NeXXt Scholars Program,
an effort to help young women from Muslim-majority countries as well as
the United States to pursue undergraduate science-related degrees from
U.S. women's colleges; and LAUNCH, which
supports innovative approaches to global sustainability challenges.
Another panelist, Herman Winick, a retired physicist with the
Stanford University Department of Applied Physics, now focuses on
supporting the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and
Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), a joint effort involving nine
countries. The particle accelerator, under construction in Jordan,
illustrates how national security concerns can be appropriately managed
to promote multi-national research goals, he said.
Colglazier noted that the United States must remain alert to the risk
of new threats and security challenges. But, he added: "The United
States has much to gain from global scientific engagement and from
helping to develop more knowledge- and innovation-based societies around
the world. Since knowledge is not a zero-sum game, all boats rise with
the tide."
The AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition has been working since
2009 to engage scientists and engineers in defining and advancing
Article 15. In a 14 June 2013
article in
Science,
AAAS Associate Program Director Jessica Wyndham and co-author Audrey
Chapman noted that key conceptual questions must be answered before
Article 15 can be fully realized. For example, they asked, "What kind of
infrastructure and policies are required to implement the right?"
Wyndham said, after the 11 July event, that the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes an array of human
rights, and while U.S. ratification seems unlikely for now, many of the
principles contained in the treaty do currently and may increasingly
inform U.S. policy and programs.
The
AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition
is a network of scientific and engineering organizations that recognize
a role for scientists and engineers in human rights. The Coalition is
an activity of the association's Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights
and Law program.
