ABSTRACT
How can scientists assist society and contribute to international policymaking – and just as crucially, how can society engage with and shape science? What will it take to make modern science diplomacy for the Anthropocene successful so that the benefits of science are furthered and its risks and harms, as far as possible, prevented?
In this article, we explore the relevance and usefulness of three areas of study to these questions: science diplomacy, the human right to science, and anticipation in the context of scientific and technological developments. We argue that a hitherto underappreciated aspect of science diplomacy – diplomacy (with)in science – has significant potential to complement anticipatory approaches such as the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator's (GESDA's) by furthering the same goals: ameliorating the negative impacts of scientific and technological developments and facilitating their benefits. We relate the concept of diplomacy (with)in science to the normative framework of the right to science under international human rights law and develop and motivate it further by illustrating two potential areas for its application.
Nothing anticipates the risks and benefits of science and technology quite as intriguingly as science fiction – especially when it is done as expertly as in The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.Footnote1 Set in the near-future, the novel interweaves factual details of global warming with fictional stories of the scientists, economists, and diplomats who attempt to overcome the extraordinary challenges humanity faces in the Anthropocene. As it opens, ‘it is getting hotter.’Footnote2 At the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Paris Agreement Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2023, delegates react by creating a new agency or subsidiary body with permanent duties to be placed in Zurich, Switzerland. They task this agency, nicknamed ‘the Ministry for the Future’ by members of the press, with representing the interests of future generations ‘whose rights, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are as valid as our own’ and with promoting the legal standing and physical protection of ‘all living creatures present and future who cannot speak for themselves.’Footnote3
The new Ministry is headed by Irish lawyer and diplomat Mary Murphy and staffed with scientists, economists, lawyers, and political scientists – or what Robinson calls ‘scientific politicians’ and ‘politicized scientists.’Footnote4 From the very beginning, the ‘nat cat’ (natural catastrophes) group offers a ‘flood of suggestions’; indeed, ‘you could literally fill a medium-sized encyclopedia with the good new projects already invented and waiting to scale.’Footnote5 These projects span from carbon-negative agriculture, direct air capture of CO2, landscape restoration and habitat corridors to a new kind of currency, blockchained carbon coins, as well as open source instruments that protect people’s private data by using quantum encryption.
The scientific inventions and technology are there, available to be used at a moment’s notice, but it takes all the (science) diplomacy Mary and her staff can muster to get the attention of the world’s politicians, bankers, and financiers. In the end, however, they are successful beyond their wildest hopes. When Mary is about to retire, she participates in the 58th COP meeting of the Paris Agreement signatories in 2053. At this point, as she proudly observes, many of her staff’s suggestions have been carried out in practice, and the worst climate change catastrophes have been averted.
Robinson has the two COP meetings – COP 29 and COP 58 – bookend The Ministry for the Future. What is especially interesting for our purposes is his belief in the rule of law and human rights, and in the U.N. system as a necessary framework for science in the service of the global public good – that is, for the scientific and technological progress needed to counter climate change for the benefit of everyone.Footnote6
In terms of genre, The Ministry for the Future is clearly closer to a utopian than to a dystopian scifi novel. It may be a stretch to label it a science diplomacy novel, but the questions asked and attempted answered by Robinson bear a striking resemblance to the ones we would like to discuss in this article: How can scientists assist society and contribute to international policymaking – and just as crucially, how can society engage with and shape science? What will it take to make modern science diplomacy for the Anthropocene successful so that the benefits of science are furthered and its risks and harms, as far as possible, prevented?
In what follows, we explore the relevance and usefulness of three areas of study to these questions: science diplomacy, the human right to science, and anticipation in the context of scientific and technological developments. In this context, ‘anticipation’ embodies the imperative to foresee and control potential harms by identifying risks, managing and containing them, and even holding entities accountable for not doing so. With the surge of dual-use technologies and scientific practices that can both benefit and potentially harm humanity, the necessity to anticipate not just the risks but also the opportunities presented by science has grown significantly.
Science diplomacy refers to a set of practices and areas of academic study concerned with the use and exchange of science and technology for purposes which may include, but are broader than, scientific discovery.Footnote7 Though interactions between science, scientists, diplomats, and diplomacy have long taken place, science diplomacy as an area of academic interest is a relatively recent field. Unlike traditional diplomacy, science diplomacy practitioners may or may not be agents of the state, with contributors ranging from science advisors to diplomats and scholars.Footnote8 As a result, ‘science diplomacy’ is an umbrella term used to refer to various intersections between science, policy, and international relations,Footnote9 areas which greatly impact one another.Footnote10
One aspect of science diplomacy focuses on the role of science and scientists in furthering national or cross-border interests.Footnote11 What especially concerns us in this article is a second aspect of science diplomacy, namely the use and exchange of science and scientists to address issues that are international or global in scope.Footnote12 Given the global impact of modern science and technology, many areas of contemporary science diplomacy seek to address issues in which science, technology, and scientists themselves play crucial roles. Climate change and global public health are good examples of this. As Peter Gluckman points out, attempts such as those by the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) to anticipate societal, including geopolitical, impacts of developments in science and technology are especially relevant to this sense of science diplomacy.Footnote13
We argue that a hitherto underappreciated aspect of science diplomacy – diplomacy (with)in science – has significant potential to complement anticipatory approaches such as GESDA’s by furthering the same goals: ameliorating the negative impacts of scientific and technological developments and facilitating their benefits. In Section I below, we provide an overview of science diplomacy and develop our notion of diplomacy (with)in science. Section II relates diplomacy (with)in science to the normative framework of the human right to science, as outlined in both Article 27 in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 15 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).
In the final Section III, we provide two case studies exemplifying how a right to science-based diplomacy (with)in science may complement the goals of anticipation. One of these concerns blockchain and decentralised science, which arguably facilitate participation in scientific processes and ensure that rights- and stakeholders are heard in practice. The other discusses the requirement of Article 4 ICESCR that the common good be taken into account in decision-making concerning science, its development and diffusion, and its applications.
Throughout, excerpts from Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future will help us introduce and touch upon issues of special relevance.
Science diplomacy: as open as possible, as closed as necessary
The kind of science diplomacy that Mary and her team at the Ministry for the Future engage in is not new. The British Royal Society, for example, employed an ‘Assistant to the Secretaries for Foreign Correspondence’ as early as 1723,Footnote14 and science as a valued part of cultural exchange dates to antiquity.Footnote15
During the twentieth century, scientists became increasingly involved in political and diplomatic matters and research outcomes, but also science itself as a process and way of communicating was used to further specific power interests.Footnote16 One prominent and outspoken twentieth-century scientist to realise that the tools, techniques and tactics of foreign policy need to adapt to a world of increasing scientific and technical complexity was the Danish physicist and Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr.Footnote17 The only way to curtail the post-war nuclear danger and to maximise benefits from recent scientific and technological breakthroughs, he argued, was to share science and technology across both geographical and academic borders.Footnote18 With increasing tensions between the U.S. and China and the recent outbreak of war in the Ukraine, Bohr’s ideas are as timely as ever. As a prerequisite for peace, openness needs, as Bohr saw it, to be promoted and scientists can and should play a part in this process.
In the twenty-first century, several of the defining challenges – from climate change and global pandemics such as COVID-19 to food security, poverty reduction, and nuclear disarmament – have scientific dimensions. As recognised in a recent German government Strategy Paper, these challenges call for ‘international responses.’Footnote19 This means that even issues normally considered to belong within a foreign and security policy framework must now ‘be examined under the microscope of international scientific discourse and subjected to any criticisms that may result.’Footnote20 For these and other reasons, the EU wants to play an increasingly active and visible role in international science diplomacy.Footnote21 The European Commission has made open access to research data applicable by default in European funding schemes but has also recognised that there may be good reasons to keep certain research results closed. Encouraging sound research and data management means finding the right balance between ‘as open as possible’ and ‘as closed as necessary.’Footnote22
Recent UN instruments, originating from different UN bodies – the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, the 2017 UNESCO Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers, and the CESCR’s 2020 General Comment No. 25 on Science – recognise the important role of scientists in helping to lay the foundation for a peaceful and sustainable world. According to the latter two of these instruments, scientists can do so by collaborating broadly with citizen scientists and colleagues in other fields; engaging with legislators and policymakers to help base policies on evidence; as well as by paying due regard to the intellectual autonomy of scientists, their scientific freedom, and the ethical implications of their research.Footnote23
This is a tall order. For many scientists, the most essential thing is to carry on with their research – and avoid being sidetracked by or ‘wasting time’ on non-scientific issues. Yet, as Niels Bohr and other scientists attempted to show regarding the nuclear revolution in the mid-twentieth century, the best prerequisite for overcoming political mistrust is a sense of shared urgency to solve critical global issues. As another Nobel laureate, biochemist Jennifer Doudna, wrote in 2020 about the decision of the Trump administration to pull funding and membership from the WHO during the COVID crisis, when governments refuse to help, or when they interfere in a negative way as the Trump administration had just done, scientists must ‘rely on a renewed push for ‘science diplomacy’ … [to] champion education and evidence-based decisions with greater public buy-in and lower political friction.’Footnote24
Science diplomacy models: strengthening science from within
In the most often used and referenced science diplomacy models, this perspective from within or on behalf of science is missing. Collaborating with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the British Royal Society in 2010 suggested the following taxonomy, for example, which identifies three pillars of science diplomacy:
Science in diplomacy: informing foreign policy objectives with scientific advice
Science for diplomacy: using science cooperation to improve international relations between countries
Diplomacy for science: facilitating international science cooperation.Footnote25
We suggest that a fourth pillar be added to this influential model: diplomacy (with)in science. ‘In today’s international order, nobody really speaks up for the global knowledge commons,’ write Jean-Claude Burgelman and Luk Van Langenhove. ‘That is precisely what scientists could do: play the role of being the diplomatic spokespersons of the global knowledge commons. This implies that science could be a diplomatic actor on its own behalf.’Footnote26
Burgelman and Van Langenhove call this use of advocacy for global scientific knowledge ‘diplomacy in science’ or ‘knowledge diplomacy.’ Instead of representing the interests of a state, diplomacy in science seeks to represent the interests of science by engaging with stakeholders who are not themselves scientists, but whose support is crucial for scientific progress, such as politicians, civil servants, and the public. This might take the form of lobbying, of educational campaigns, or of establishing international networks.
In addition to this outward focus – the engagement with stakeholders outside of science – diplomacy (with)in science, as we conceive it, also has an internal dimension. In diplomacy within science, attempts are made by both scientists and others to further scientific progress and other interests of science by engaging with actors, institutions, or processes within science. One example of this internally focused diplomacy (with)in science is the effort to promote scientific progress by increasing collaboration across scientific fields. As Gluckman puts it,
[I]t is becoming clearer that we need to find new ways of doing science, such as employing transdisciplinary approaches – this itself is an internal form of diplomacy within science. […] Disciplinary silos need to be replaced by transdisciplinary approaches. The global and indeed national good needs the humanities, social sciences, data, health and natural sciences and technologies to cooperate. Important values are at stake, futures are at stake and science diplomacy of a new kind within ourselves will be needed too.Footnote27
Other examples might include initiatives designed to facilitate scientific progress by increasing access to participation in science among groups underrepresented in science; programmes aimed at fixing known or under-researched problems and challenges in science, such as pressures and biases of the kind that have led to the reproducibility crisis;Footnote29 and the development of programmes that increase access to scientific knowledge, data, and equipment, such as the Open Science movement.Footnote30
Facilitating diplomacy (with)in science will require efforts at securing the support of domestic policies that strengthen scientific culture. A cornerstone of this effort is the nurturing and enhancement of public trust in science. In an era where misinformation is rampant, trust in scientific findings and processes becomes paramount. This trust is not merely about accepting scientific results but involves understanding the rigorous methodology behind them and feeling science and scientists are working on topics and using methods that are important and acceptable to the public, even if not always straightforwardly so. By treating public funding of research and development as a form of public investment and emphasising the ethical dimensions of science and research – as noted in the 2017 UNESCO Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers – we can bolster this trust and ensure a more harmonious relationship between science and society.
Once soundly integrated at the national policy-making level, scientific and technological knowledge may then be used to further ‘policies for international relations’ and for strengthening ‘capacities for science diplomacy.’Footnote31
When it comes to practical implementation, national academies of science could play a key role. Many are already engaged in policy work concerning science, and they are well positioned to feed into State reporting both for the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR)Footnote32 and for the monitoring of the implementation of the 2017 UNESCO Recommendation. A more active role for national academies of science in national reporting could be an example of potentially game-changing participation or lobbying, as science is one of the areas to which Member States collectively have paid the least attention in their reporting.Footnote33 The UNESCO monitoring procedure may help raise awareness and promote international exchange, and the UPR provide platforms with yet untapped opportunities for holding Member States accountable for their obligations to ensure an enabling working environment for scientific researchers and for furthering science as a public good, and this may eventually prove to be important to help anticipate and prevent risky science.Footnote34
While the potential merits of diplomacy within science seem obvious, concerns might be raised about the politicisation of science and the possibility that diplomatic agendas might overshadow the interests of scientific inquiry. However, it is essential to point out that diplomacy within science as we envision it here aims to bridge the gap between science and policy-making, ensuring that scientific advancements are used for the collective good. It does not intend to compromise the integrity of scientific research. Nevertheless, the benefits of science diplomacy more generally will necessarily be contingent on a well-structured diplomatic approach aimed at keeping the emphasis on the ‘science’ aspect of ‘science diplomacy’.
An important part of this new kind of science diplomacy thus evolves around scientific freedom and its limits. Freedom to conduct science, to exchange information, personnel, methods, and data, is a key scientific interest. If the safe exchange of scientists, scientific knowledge, and technological equipment cannot be guaranteed, no scientific progress can be made from which the public may benefit.Footnote35 Thus, promoting the freedom of science from political, commercial, and other interference is an important task for diplomacy in science, that is, the external dimension of diplomacy (with)in science. But to ensure that such freedom does indeed further methodologically and ethically sound science, certain restrictions are necessary. While some of these are externally imposed, others have to do with scientific responsibility (as the alternate side of scientific freedom), and concern diplomacy within science.
The right to science and scientific freedom under responsibility
Among the scientific solutions that turn out to work well in The Ministry for the Future is pumping seawater out from under the big glaciers and back onto the rock beds to slow down global warming. Before they can dedicate themselves fully to this, however, the glaciologists working in Antarctica must take a scientific detour – for funding reasons. Instead of doing what they know will work scientifically, they ‘had been following the money, taking it where we could get it and doing what they asked us to do with it.’ As this produces no useful results, the glaciologists know that from now on, they must let their science lead them in order to ‘give expert advice, [and] guide the money where it needed to go.’Footnote36
‘The freedom indispensable for scientific research and creative activity’ that is jeopardised for Robinson’s glaciologists by following the money is protected under Article 15(3) ICESCR. Without academic and scientific freedom, as former UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye puts it, ‘societies lose one of the essential elements of democratic self-governance: the capacity for self-reflection, for knowledge generation and for a constant search for improvements of people’s lives and social conditions.’Footnote37
Scientific responsibility as diplomacy in science
Article 15 ICESCR contains three additional provisions concerning science and culture; collectively, these four provisions constitute what is known as the right to science. As we have argued elsewhere, the connection between these provisions is best understood by reading the article from the bottom up.Footnote38 Since the progress of science crucially relies on the exchange of ideas and observations, Article 15(4) recognises the importance of international scientific cooperation and freedom of movement. These complement, and are necessary for, scientific freedom more broadly (Article 15(3)), which in turn is required to produce the kind of progress in science and application that is to be disseminated (Article 15(2)) for the benefit of everyone (Article 15(1)).
In a democratic society, scientific research can never be entirely free, however, but must always be conducted in a socially and ethically responsible manner.Footnote39 Scientific research and its products should be assessed not only on their scientific, but also on their human rights merits. To safeguard basic human rights principles such as human dignity and non-discrimination, various kinds of protection from inter alia dual-use research are needed. In the 2017 UNESCO Recommendation and the 2020 General Comment on Science as in other human rights instruments, necessary restrictions on scientific freedom therefore play a prominent role.
The ICESCR itself lays out its general criteria for limitations in its fourth Article. To be acceptable, such limitations must be ‘determined by law and only in so far as this may be compatible with the nature of these rights and solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society.’ Thus, limitations must have been adopted by due legislative process; have a legitimate aim; and the limitation must be appropriate and proportionate to achieve this aim. In the context of the right to science, specific restrictions on research and application can be legitimate where necessary to prevent disproportionate or unnecessary harm or disrespect for other human rights.Footnote40 The limitation criteria inherent in the ICESCR treaty system represent a careful balancing of the interests of science and society which places a significant burden on those wishing to restrict scientific interests. As we shall see later, it provides a potentially powerful normative standard to which science diplomats can hold states accountable.
Specific measures that pass this high bar for legitimate restrictions on scientific freedom may include those aimed at ensuring confidentiality of data, and free, prior, and informed consent by specific populations such as indigenous populations or ethnic minorities.Footnote41 Issues of prior consent and the protection, in general, of these groups are often linked to the democratic access to participate in science policy. This is an important aspect of citizen science, as Farida Shaheed pointed out in her 2012 report on the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications. The hope is that citizen participation in science and science policy may highlight the ‘human factor’ – that is, may help ensure focus on human dignity and integrity, thereby preventing dual-use science.Footnote42 Forming part of the science-society interface and democratic dialogue underlined in the 2017 Recommendation, citizen participation can help further the interests of science directly, by increasing the amount of labour available for scientific projects. Perhaps more importantly, it can also do so indirectly, both by injecting an element of the wisdom of crowds into the design and conduct of science, as well as by increasing familiarity with and trust in science among the participating public.
Whereas Article 15(3) ICESCR promotes scientific progress by mandating the necessary freedom, Article 15(2) ICESCR does the same by more directly mandating steps towards ‘the conservation, the development and the diffusion of science and culture.’ The existence of this obligation on States parties to the ICESCR is of great relevance to science diplomats, who may draw attention to it, and legitimacy from it, in their efforts to promote the interests of science. Since Article 15(2) ICECSR is a voluntarily assumed obligation binding under international law to foster, maintain, and spread science, it represents a standard to which those acting on behalf of the interests of science can hold states accountable across the scientific pipeline from education and research through publications, conferences, and other products and exchanges.Footnote43
Both Article 15,2 and Article 15,3 ICESCR concern the obligations that States have to respect, protect, and fulfil the right of everyone to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress. To these should be added the issue of the responsibility of the individual researcher. This issue is raised in both the Special Rapporteur’s report and the 2017 UNESCO Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers.
Scientific responsibility as diplomacy within science
The need to protect the public from harmful effects of science, scientific applications, and scientific misconduct introduces tensions to the principle of scientific freedom recognised in Article 15(3) ICESCR. Left unrestrained, powerful incentives, errors, and biases could well lead to neglect of human subjects’ rights and interests in priority-setting and experimentation, insufficient attention to dual-use potential, and misleading, mercenary, or even fraudulent scientific claims. Consequently, various bodies have been issuing guidance on scientific responsibility and misconduct for decades.Footnote44
Other than the responsibility that scientists bear towards individuals and society, restrictions on scientific freedom also arise from responsibilities owed towards science itself. Scientific progress relies crucially on scientific integrity. Without it, minute details and precise data must be scrutinised; even if colleagues have the time and skills to do so, this lack of trust in integrity necessarily introduces delays and uncertainties into the scientific process. Although innovations are needed to further progress, the underlying methodology must remain scientifically appropriate. Thus, forgeries, misrepresentations, fraudulently obtained consent, misleading figures, statistical hacks, questionable assumptions, etc. constitute significant threats to scientific progress.Footnote45 For these reasons, such practices are cause for scientific excommunication if discovered:
Scientific responsibility includes the responsibilities of scientists towards science and their fellow scientists – doing good science requires, for example, appropriate application of scientific methods, accurate reporting of results, and open dissemination of findings. It is now widely accepted that scientific responsibility extends beyond this and requires some consideration be given to the outcomes and consequences of research. Interpretation and determination of such responsibilities is frequently based on moral considerations.
In relation to the public and decision-makers who influence the direction and application of science and technology – the scientific community has responsibilities because it is in a unique position to present information and knowledge that it is developing about the challenges which face humanity and how they might be addressed.Footnote46
The General Comment on Science adds to these approaches the view that, ultimately, significant issues at the science-society interface should be decided via democratic decision-making:
In controversial cases, participation and transparency become crucial because the risks and potentials of some technical advances or some scientific researches should be made public in order that society, through an informed, transparent and participatory process, can decide whether or not the risks are acceptable.Footnote50
Specific areas of application for diplomacy (with)in science
The preceding sections have introduced our notion of diplomacy (with)in science and related it to the normative framework of the right to science under international human rights law. In what follows, we develop and motivate the concept of diplomacy (with)in science further by illustrating two potential areas for its application. The first of these concerns blockchain and roughly illustrates diplomacy within science; the other examines the general common good as an example of diplomacy in science.
Blockchain and decentralised science: diplomacy within science
I am the nothing that makes everything happen. You don’t know me, you don’t understand me; and yet still, if you want justice, I will help you to find it. I am blockchain. I am encryption. I am code. Now put me to use.Footnote52
One way of ensuring that rights- and stakeholders are heard in practice is through the use of technology that facilitates participation in scientific processes. Powering these innovations – imagined, in Robinson’s case, but all of them based on real-world analogs – is blockchain technology. The term ‘blockchain’ is usually associated with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, but actually it refers to a set of advances in cryptography, game theory, and computer science – a set of conceptual and technological innovations which, when added together, allow for secure and transparent transactions directly between individuals. Blockchain data structures were first described in 1991Footnote54 by academics Haber and Stornetta, but were not implemented in practice until early 2009, based on a famous whitepaper by Satoshi Nakomoto (a pseudonym).Footnote55
Blockchains consist of ‘blocks’ of data which are ‘chained’ together sequentially in time. One block contains all the information about transactions that have occurred in a certain timeframe. Cryptographic hashing functions and time stamps are used to order (‘chain’) blocks together sequentially in time and to guarantee that the information contained in the previous block has not been tampered with (or, if it has, that this change will be immediately obvious). There are various mechanisms, known as consensus mechanisms, which operate to designate a particular version of the blockchain as the canonical, that is, accurate, one. Various consensus mechanisms leverage economic incentives in the form of compute costs,Footnote56 stake,Footnote57 or authorityFootnote58 to establish agreement on the canonical version of a blockchain.
Some blockchains allow for programmes to be included in, and executed on, the data contained in these blockchains. Such programmes are known as ‘smart contracts.’ The combination of mathematically guaranteed data integrity and the ability to operate smart contracts can combine in ways that permit the functions normally carried out by intermediaries instead to be carried out automatically by pieces of code.
In The Ministry for the Future, this functionality is used to issue and keep track of carbon coins, and to enable access to automated micro-level financial services. The application of blockchain-enabled financial services, such as loans and brokerage, is known as decentralised finance (DeFi) – decentralised because the financial services offered are enabled by the collective sharing of resources according to programmed rules, rather than by a (centralised) financial institution such as a bank.
Crucially, however, blockchain data structures are agnostic to the information contained in them; they work the same whether the data tracked concerns financial transactions or the exchange of any other information. For the same reason that decentralised finance has seen rapid adoption – reduction in fees and latencies through automation and disintermediation leading to financial services becoming available to people without much capital – efforts have begun to apply blockchain technologies to science. Known as decentralised science (DeSci), these efforts are based on the observation that science, like finance, requires trust in the integrity of information shared between peers: ‘Scientific information in its essence is a large, dynamic body of information and data that is collaboratively created, altered, used and shared, which lends itself perfectly to the blockchain technology.’Footnote59
To progress, science requires the exchange of data and hypotheses in ways unbiased by non-scientific considerations; and the more individuals participate in this process, the faster science can progress.Footnote60 The combination of data integrity and smart contracts have several useful applications in scientific ecosystems including, but not limited to, means of increasing participation in the conduct of science;Footnote61 reducing costs, delays, and other inefficiencies in accessing and publishing scientific outputs, as well as in administering scientific projects;Footnote62 providing alternative incentive structures and sources of funding;Footnote63 removing sources of bias in research conduct and reporting;Footnote64 and enabling novel organisational structures for scientific cooperation, decision-making, reputation management, and priority-setting.Footnote65
DeSci exemplifies a technical implementation of diplomacy within science. It creates mechanisms for the transfer of data, hypothesis, and funding between actors that do not know or trust one another and who might not otherwise have access to these resources, thus opening up scientific processes to greater input from scholars working in underfunded areas, to citizen scientists, and to interdisciplinary projects which might have difficulty getting started or publishing their results under current funding and publication arrangements. These aspects of DeSci make it a practical means of increasing the freedom to participate in scientific processes.
This freedom, and other rights and freedoms subsumed under the right to science, cannot, however, always be guaranteed. In certain cases, it will be necessary to place limits on scientific freedom and conduct to prevent developments which produce more harm than good. One way of doing so is to leverage the general common good element of the general limitations criterion in Article 4 ICESCR.
General common good: diplomacy in science
As mentioned above, Article 4 ICESCR requires that any limitations on the right to science be ‘determined by law and only in so far as this may be compatible with the nature of these rights and solely for the purpose of promoting the general welfare in a democratic society.’ The latter part of this formulation requires that the general interests of society be considered when evaluating limitations on the enjoyment of the right to science. As we will see, this requirement was introduced in order to ensure that the general limitation criterion is interpreted restrictively, i.e. to ensure that rights, including the right to science, can only be limited where this is truly necessary for the general wellbeing as opposed to factional interests. As such, the general wellbeing element of the general limitations criterion can serve as a normative and political standard to which science diplomats can hold states accountable to ensure that no barriers to scientific progress are introduced that are not strictly necessary.
Limitations on the enjoyment of human rights are not necessarily problematic. Rather, they reflect the need to balance the interests of the individual against those of the wider community, as well as to weigh competing rights claims.Footnote66 Article 4 ICESCR was based on Article 29(2) UDHR, which provides that: ‘In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.’ The travaux préparatoires show that reference to ‘the just requirements of morality’ and ‘public order’ were added to ‘the general welfare’ since the latter term had a narrower meaning in French than it did in English, referring essentially to social and economic wellbeing.Footnote67 These additional purposes legitimising limitations would eventually make it into the ICCPR, though not the ICESCR.
During the drafting of the ICESCR, a US proposal based on Article 29(2) and likewise referring to morality, public order, and the rights and freedoms of others was rejected on the grounds, firstly, that these terms were too vague and, secondly, that ‘while considerations of public order and morality might justify limitations on civil and political rights they do not seem to be relevant in the same sense with respect to limitations on economic, social, and cultural rights.’Footnote68
As it appears from the travaux, a primary reason for failing to include additional grounds of limitation was to ensure that limitations could not be easily justified by vague references to ‘national security’ or ‘economic development.’ One way to reconcile these competing views might be to require States to demonstrate that any invocation of national security, economic developments, public order, and the like is legitimate ‘only in so far as they are genuinely synonymous with ‘the general welfare’.’Footnote69 Thus, if a State party seeks to limit the right to science for reasons, say, of economic development, the State party must further demonstrate that the economic considerations at issue reflect the general wellbeing of the entire society as opposed, say, to only that of publishers or pharmaceutical companies.
The general wellbeing element of the general limitation criterion can thus be viewed as a powerful diplomatic tool which can be wielded from within science against unjustified State interference in scientific processes. This versatile tool can also be used from outside science, for example by State parties, to introduce those limitations which truly are necessary. In either case, the tool reinforces the importance of the general common good over individual interests. As such, it serves as an important counterweight to the traditional focus of human rights instruments on the interests of the individual.Footnote70
Concluding remarks
Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future was published a couple of years before the UN General Assembly adopted a historic resolution declaring access to a clean and healthy environment a universal human right.Footnote71 Originally presented by Costa Rica, the Maldives, Slovenia, and Switzerland, this resolution notes that the right to a healthy environment is related to existing international law and calls upon States, international organisations, and business enterprises to fight for a more healthy environment for all. As a rare innovation in the field of human rights and the environment, it joins a resolution declaring the ‘right to water’ a human right – with large-scale implications for water conservation, management, and access to this most basic and important of resources.Footnote72 We can only hope that these resolutions will have the same impact in reality as the Paris Agreement has in Robinson’s novel – that they will become a turning point in human history and the birth of a good Anthropocene.
We have argued in this article that activating the human right to science as a science diplomacy tool may help make modern science diplomacy for the Anthropocene successful. This diplomatic tool has the potential to complement anticipatory approaches to science and technology by furthering the same goals. It does so by providing technical and normative means to help address and ameliorate factors that inhibit, distort, or bias scientific processes, such as the influence of sectarian interests on scientific funding and development. It also provides technical and normative means of increasing participation, diversity, and inclusion, which, in addition to being valuable in and of themselves, also facilitates scientific progress by increasing the scientific workforce and the breadth of its combined experience. By removing distorting forces, furthering political and financial support for science, introducing well-thought-out normative standards for scientific integrity, responsibility, and freedom, and increasing the diversity and depth of the wisdom of the scientific crowd, right to science-based diplomacy (with)in science can be a significant meta-level factor for the facilitation of beneficial science and for the inhibition of harmful science.
Along with the other rights outlined in Article 15 ICESCR, the right to science embodies principles that are intended to inform the conduct of science.Footnote73 As a cultural human right, it paves the way for ethical and human-centered deliberations becoming a more integral part of the scientific endeavour, links scientific freedom to scientific responsibility, and ‘adds a legal and moral dimension to a range of fundamental issues, including scientific freedom, funding, and policy, as well as access to data, materials, and knowledge.’Footnote74
Some scholars have argued that the drafters of the UDHR and the ICESCR made a mistake when they categorised this right as a cultural human right.Footnote75 We beg to differ. As one of those economic, social and cultural rights that the drafters of the UDHR considered to be ‘indispensable for [a person’s] dignity and the free development of [their] personality,’Footnote76 the right to science, along with the other rights listed in Articles 23 through 27 UDHR, is groundbreaking because it aims at the realisation of the development of one’s self.Footnote77 The very fact that it was originally categorised as a cultural right enables us to see science, ‘done’ by both professional and citizen scientists, as a part of culture and to apply ethical, social, and cultural concerns to scientific scholarship just as we do to any other kind of scholarship. It allows us to take into account human rights and social values when we approach the issue of authors’ rights (Article 15(1)(c)) and intellectual property (IP).Footnote78 It also makes it possible ‘to capture the full spectrum of ethical, legal, social and political concerns that arise and to mediate the inherent tensions and trade-offs associated with emerging science and innovation and their regulation,’ for example with regard to international environmental law.Footnote79
Thus, science as part of culture broadly understood reminds us of one of the noble ideals underlying both: the furthering of human creativity and learning for the benefit of the individual and society.Footnote80
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Additional information
Notes on contributors
Helle Porsdam
Helle Porsdam is professor of Law and Humanities and UNESCO Chair in Cultural Rights at the University of Copenhagen.
Sebastian Porsdam Mann
Sebastian Porsdam Mann is a DPhil researcher at the University of Oxford.
Notes
1 Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (London: Orbit, 2020).
2 This is the opening line of the novel. Ibid, 1.
3 Ibid, 16.
4 Ibid, 91.
5 Ibid, 251.
6 ‘Rule of law is all we’ve got,’ as one of the lawyers at the Ministry says early on (p. 36). ‘Rule of law. What a weak reed to stand on!,’ says another. ‘Yes. What can we do about that? Just make it stick’, 61.
7 Vaughan C. Turekian, ‘The Evolution of Science Diplomacy’, Global Policy 9 (2018): 5.
8 Pierre-Bruno Ruffini, ‘Conceptualizing Science Diplomacy in the Practitioner-Driven Literature: A Critical Review’, Humanities and Social Science Communications 7 (2020): 124.
9 Tim Flink and Nicholas Rüffin, ‘Chapter 6: The Current State of the Art of Science Diplomacy’, in Handbook on Science and Public Policy, eds. Dagmar Simon, Stefan Kuhlmann, Julia Stamm and Weert Canzler (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019).
10 Tim Flink, ‘Taking the Pulse of Science Diplomacy and Developing Practices of Valuation’, Science and Public Policy 49, no. 2, (2022): 191–200.
11 Vaughan C. Turekian, Peter D. Gluckman, Teruo Kishi and Robin W. Grimes ‘Science Diplomacy: A Pragmatic Perspective from the Inside’, Science & Diplomacy 6, no. 4 (2017): 1–13.
12 Ibid.
13 Peter D. Gluckman, ‘Scientists and Scientific Organizations Need to Play a Greater Role in Science Diplomacy’, PLOS Biology 20, no. 11 (2022).
14 Derek Massarella, ‘Philip Henry Zollman, the Royal Society’s First Assistant Secretary for Foreign Correspondence’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 46, no. 2 (1992): 219.
15 See e.g. James Poskett, Horizons: The Global Origins of Modern Science (Mariner Books, 2022).
16 See e.g. Ruffini, ‘Conceptualizing Science Diplomacy’
17 Finn Aaserud, ‘Niels Bohr's Diplomatic Mission During and After World War Two’, Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 43, no. 4 (2020): 493–520.
18 Niels Bohr, ‘Open Letter to the United Nations’, 1950: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/BohrUN.shtml.
19 German Federal Foreign Office, ‘Science Diplomacy: A new strategy in research and academic relations policy’, (2020) – retrieved from https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/blob/2436494/2b868e9f63a4f5ffe703faba680a61c0/201203-science-diplomacy-strategiepapier-data.pdf
20 Ibid.
21 Carlos Moedas, ‘Science Diplomacy in the European Union’, Science & Diplomacy 5, no. 1 (2016).
22 European Commission, ‘Horizon 2020 Funding Guide: Open Access & Data Management’ https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/docs/h2020-funding-guide/cross-cutting-issues/open-access-data-management/data-management_en.htm.
23 United Nations, ‘Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, A/RES/70/1 (2015); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, ‘Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers’ (2017); United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ‘General Comment No. 25 on Science and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Art. 15.1.b, 15.2, 15.3 and 15.4’, E/C.12/GC/25 (2020).
24 Jennifer Doudna, ‘Jennifer Doudna on how Covid-19 is spurring science to accelerate’, The Economist, June 5th 2020: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2020/06/05/jennifer-doudna-on-how-covid-19-is-spurring-science-to-accelerate.
25 Royal Society, ‘New Frontiers in Science Diplomacy’ (2010). https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2010/new-frontiers-science-diplomacy/.
26 Jean-Claude Burgelman and Luk Van Langenhove, ‘Viewpoint: Science Diplomacy Needs a Refresh to Meet Contemporary European Needs’, ScienceBusiness (2021). https://sciencebusiness.net/viewpoint/viewpoint-science-diplomacy-needs-refresh-meet-contemporary-european-needs.
27 Peter D. Gluckman, ‘Covid-19 and the Future of Global Cooperation and Science Diplomacy’, Keynote, Special Session at US-Korea Conference 2020 – available at https://informedfutures.org/ukc2020/ (accessed August 3, 2022).
28 UNESCO Recommendation on Science, Article 14(d)(iv).
29 Monya Baker, ‘1,500 Scientists Lift the Lid on Reproducibility’, 533 Nature (2016): 452–4.
31 UNESCO, Recommendation on Science, Articles 5(c), 6, 7, and 14(c).
32 Jessica M. Wyndham, Margaret W. Vitullo, Rebecca Everly, Teresa M. Stoepler, and Nathaniel Weisenberg, ‘The Right to Science: From Principle to Practice and the Role of National Science Academies’, in The Right to Science: Then and Now, eds. Helle Porsdam and Sebastian Porsdam Mann (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 211–30.
33 UN CESCR, General Comment No. 25, para 2.
34 See Critical Voices – UNESCO’s Instruments in Defence of Freedom of Expression of Artists, Journalists and Scientific Researchers, produced by the Permanent Delegation of Denmark to UNESCO – available at https://unesco.um.dk/.
35 See Stjepan Oreskovic and Sebastian Porsdam Mann, ‘Science in the Times of SARS-CoV-22’, in The Right to Science: Then and Now, eds. Helle Porsdam and Sebastian Porsdam Mann (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 166–94; Sebastian Porsdam Mann and Maximilian Martin Schmid, ‘Health Research Priority Setting: State Obligations and the Human Right to Science’, The American Journal of Bioethics 18, no. 11 (2018): 33–5.
36 Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, 260–1.
37 David Kaye, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression’, A/75/261 (2020): Summary.
38 This argument is made by Helle Porsdam in Science as a Cultural Human Right (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022).
39 UN CESCR, ‘General Comment no. 3 on The Nature of States Parties Obligations Art. 2, para. 1’, E/1991/23, para. 52. See also General Comment No. 25 on Science, Section III.
40 Yvonne Donders, ‘Balancing Interests: Limitations to the Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and Its Applications’, European Journal of Human Rights 4 (2015): 492.
41 UN CESCR, General Comment No. 25, para 41.
42 Farida Shaheed, ‘Report on the Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress and its Applications’, A/HRC/20/26 (2012).
43 The importance of science communication and other aspects of the obligations imposed by Article 15(2) ICESCR, including their sometime tension with IP and author’s rights, are discussed at greater length in Porsdam, Science as a Cultural Human Right supra n. 38; Helle Porsdam, The Transforming Power of Cultural Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2019); and Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Helle Porsdam, Max Schmid, and Peter Treit, Scientific Freedom: The Heart of the Right to Science, in press (Rowman and Littlefield).
44 Roberto Andorno, ‘The Right to Science and the Evolution of Scientific Integrity’, in The Right to Science: Then and Now, eds Helle Porsdam and Sebastian Porsdam Mann (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 91–103.
45 Christian Starck, ‘Freedom of Scientific Research and its Restrictions in German Constitutional Law’, Israel Law Review 39, no. 2 (2006): 110–26.
46 Catherine Rhodes and John Sulston, ‘Scientific Responsibility and Development’, European Journal of Development Research 22, no. 1 (2010): 3–9.
47 See Andorno, ‘The Right to Science and the Evolution of Scientific Integrity’.
48 See e.g. Paul Berg, ‘Asilomar 1975: DNA Modification Secured’, 455 Nature (2008): 290–1.
49 We thank Prof. Dr. Peter Murray at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany for suggesting this.
50 UN CESCR, ‘General Comment on Science’, para 61.
51 Ibid., para 22.
52 Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, 177.
53 Ibid, 455.
54 Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta, ‘How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document’, Journal of Cryptology 3 (1991): 99–111.
55 Satoshi Nakamoto ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’, (2008).
56 Compute and its associated electricity costs (Proof of Work).
57 That is, fraudulent activity results in forfeiture of assets (Proof of Stake).
58 For example blockchains, e.g. bloxberg, operated by a fixed list of trusted universities, where trust is presumed to be pre-established (Proof of Authority).
59 Joris Van Rossum, ‘Blockchain for Research: Perspectives on a New Paradigm for Scholarly Communication’, Digital Science Report (2017): 8.
60 Jens Ducrée, Martin Codyre, Ray Walshe and Sönke Bartling, ‘DeSci – Decentralized Science’, Preprints (2022).
61 Ibid.
62 Christian Delgado-von-Eitzen, Luis Anido-Rifón and Manuel Fernández-Iglesias, ‘Blockchain Applications in Education: A Systematic Literature Review’, 11 Applied Science (2021): 11811.
63 Jens Ducrée, Martin Etzrodt, Sönke Bartling, Ray Walshe, Tomás Harrington, Neslihan Wittek, Sebastian Posth, Kevin Wittek, Andrei Ionita, Wolfgang Prinz, Dimitrios Kogias, Tiago Paixão, Iosif Peterfi and James Lawton, ‘Unchaining Collective Intelligence for Science, Research and Technology Development by Blockchain-Boosted Community Participation’, Frontiers in Blockchain 4 (2021): 631648.
64 Mehdi Benchoufi and Philippe Ravaud, ‘Blockchain Technology for Improving Clinical Research Quality’, 18 Trials (2017): 335; Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Julian Savulescu, Philippe Ravaud and Mehdi Benchoufi, ‘Blockchain, Consent and Prosent for Medical Research’, Journal of Medical Ethics 47 (2021): 244–50.
65 Ducree et al., ‘Unchaining Collective Intelligence’.
66 Amrei Müller, ‘Limitations to and Derogations from Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, Human Rights Law Review 9, no. 4 (2009): 559.
67 Philip Alston and Gerard Quinn, ‘The Nature and Scope of States Parties’ Obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly 9, no. 2 (1987): 156–229.
68 Ibid, 202.
69 Ibid.
70 Rumiana Yotova, ‘Regulating Genome Editing Under International Human Rights Law’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly 69, no. 3 (2020): 666.
71 UN News, ‘UN General Assembly Declares Access to Clean and Healthy Environment a Universal Human Right’ 22 July 2022. (accessed August 5, 2022).
72 See discussion on this point in: Andrew Mazibrada, Monika Plozza and Sebastian Porsdam Mann (2023) Innovating in uncharted terrain: on interpretation and normative legitimacy in the CESCR’s General Comment No. 25 on the right to science, The International Journal of Human Rights, DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2023.2234298
73 ‘At its core, Article 15 requires that science be used as an instrument for human benefit, and that the process of doing scientific research and the development of applications from that science be consistent with fundamental human rights principles such as non-discrimination and equal treatment, participation and transparency in decision-making, and free and informed consent to participation in research.’ AAAS, ‘Right to Science: FAQs’ – available at https://www.aaas.org/programs/scientific-responsibility-human-rights-law/resources/faqs. (accessed August 15, 2021).
74 Sebastian Porsdam Mann, Yvonne Donders, Christine Mitchell, Valerie J. Bradley, Michael F. Chou, Matthias Mann, George Church and Helle Porsdam, ‘Opinion: Advocating for Science Progress as a Human Right’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of Aamerica 115, no. 43 (2018):10820–3.
75 Tara Smith argues, for example that, ‘the right to science has become so indelibly attached to the right to culture in both the UDHR and the ICESCR is unfortunate. … Permanently subsuming the right to science under the banner of cultural rights, both ideologically and textually in these two key human rights instruments, may have blunted the effect and the perception of the right over time.’ See Tara Smith, ‘Understanding the Nature and Scope of the Right to Science through the Travaux Préparatoires of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, The International Journal of Human Rights 24, no. 8 (2020): 8.
76 Article 22 UDHR reads: ‘Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.’
77 Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 212.
78 See Laurence R. Helfer and Graeme W. Austin, Human Rights and Intellectual Property: Mapping the Global Interface (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 144. – We flesh out this line of thinking in more detail in Porsdam, Science as a Cultural Human Right.
79 Anna-Maria Hubert, ‘The Human Right to Science and Its Relationship to International Environmental Law’, The European Journal of International Law 31, no. 2 (2020): 626–7.
80 Cf. the reports by UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Farida Shaheed.