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Abstract
Does everyone have the right to benefit from science? If so, what shape should benefits take? This article exposes the inequalities involved in bioprospecting through a relatively neglected human right, the right to benefit from science (HRS). Although underexplored in the literature, it is acknowledged that market-based conservation practices, such as bioprospecting, often rely on cheap “casual” labor. In contrast to critical discourses exposing the exploitation and misappropriation of indigenous people's cultural and self-determination rights in relation to bioprospecting (i.e., biopiracy), the exploitation of a low-skilled labor force for science has been little examined from a human rights perspective. Reliance on cheap labor is not limited just to those directly involved in creating local biodiversity inventories but constitutes a whole set of other workers (cooks, porters, and logistical support staff), who contribute indirectly to the advancements of science and whose contribution is barely acknowledged, let alone financially remunerated. As precarious workers, it is difficult for laborers to use existing national and international labor laws to fight for recognition of their basic rights or easily to rely on biodiversity and environmental laws to negotiate recognition of their contribution to science. We explore to what extent the HRS can be used to encourage governments, civil society, and companies to provide basic labor and social rights to science. This should be of keen interest to geographers, who for the most part have limited engagement in human rights law, and has wider significance for those interested in exploitative labor and rights violations in the emerging bio- and green economy.
是否每个人都有权从科学中获益呢? 若是如此, 应该是何种形式的利益呢? 本文透过相对受到忽略的人权, 亦即从科学中获益的权利 (HRS) 揭露涉及生物探勘的不公平。尽管文献未能充分探讨, 但诸如生物探勘等以市场为基础的保育活动经常仰赖廉价的 “临时” 劳动, 已是众所皆知。相对于暴露有关生物探勘 (例如生物瓢窃) 的原住民族文化和自决权的剥削及错误处置而言, 科学对低技术劳动力的剥削, 却鲜少从人权的视角进行检视。依赖廉价劳动力并不仅限于直接涉及创造地方生物多样性编目的工作, 同时构成其他工人的全部集合 (厨师、搬运工人、后勤支援员工), 而这些人间接促成了科学的进步, 但其贡献鲜少获得承认, 更遑论金钱方面的报酬。作为临时工人, 这些劳动者难以运用既有的国家和国际劳动法规来捍卫对其基本权利的认可, 或轻易地倚赖生物多样性与环境法规来协商认可其之于科学的贡献。我们探讨 HRS 能够被用来鼓励政府、公民社会和公司提供给科学所需的基础劳动和社会权益的程度。这应该是绝大部份鲜少涉入人权法规的地理学者热切关注的议题, 并对浮现中的生物及绿色经济中的剥削性劳动及权益损害有兴趣者而言, 有着更为广泛的重要性。
¿Tiene todo el mundo derecho a beneficiarse de la ciencia? Si ello es así, ¿qué forma deberán tomar esos beneficios? Este artículo deja al descubierto las inequidades implícitas en bioprospección a través de un derecho humano relativamente despreciado, el derecho a beneficiarse de la ciencia (HRS). Si bien el tema está poco explorado en la literatura, se reconoce que las prácticas de conservación basadas en mercado, tales como bioprospección, a menudo dependen del trabajo barato “casual”. En contraste con los discursos críticos que exponen la explotación y apropiación indebida de los derechos culturales y de la autodeterminación de los pueblos indígenas en relación con la bioprospección (esto es, biopiratería), la explotación de fuerza laboral no calificada por la ciencia ha sido poco examinada desde una perspectiva de los derechos humanos. La dependencia en el trabajo barato no se limita tan solo a aquellos directamente involucrados en la creación de inventarios de biodiversidad local, sino que constituye un conjunto total de otros trabajadores (cocineros, maleteros y personal de soporte logístico), que indirectamente contribuyen al avance de la ciencia y cuya contribución es escasamente reconocida y, menos aún, remunerada adecuadamente. Como son trabajadores precarios, resulta difícil para ellos utilizar las leyes nacionales e internacionales existentes para luchar por el reconocimiento de sus derechos básicos, u optar por confiar en las leyes ambientales y de la biodiversidad para negociar el reconocimiento de su contribución a la ciencia. Exploramos en qué medida puede usarse el HRS para estimular a los gobiernos, la sociedad civil y las compañías para proveer el trabajo básico y los derechos sociales a la ciencia. Esto debería ser de especial preocupación para los geógrafos, quienes en su mayoría tienen poco compromiso con las leyes de derechos civiles, y tiene una significación mucho más amplia para quienes están interesados en la explotación laboral y en la violación de los derechos en la emergente economía biológica y verde.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the participants of the Benelex workshop “Human Rights to Science” hosted by Elisa Morgera at the University of Edinburgh in May 2016 for their insightful comments. A special thanks to Gordon Walker, James McCarthy, and Laura Tilghman and three anonymous reviewers from the Annals of the American Association of Geographers for their suggestions on earlier versions of the article. We would like to acknowledge CNARP for logistical support while in Madagascar.
Funding
Fieldwork research for this article was funded by a Fulbright Institute for International Education (IIE) research award.
Notes
1. The ICBG (2003–2013) was a private–public consortium of research organizations MBG and CNARP, Conservation International (CI), and commercial partners (Dow AgroSciences and EISAI Pharmaceuticals).
2. Field research was conducted by the first author and draws on qualitative methods including more than seventy-eight semistructured interviews with rural inhabitants, research scientists, and policy administrators involved in bioprospecting. Participant observation was also done on two bioprospecting expeditions (2005, 2007) in the Antsiranana region of Madagascar. This empirical work was updated with recently published ICBG project and academic literature and interviews with ICBG bioprospectors in Madagascar in 2014. All names of research participants are pseudonyms; Malagasy village names have also been changed.
3. In 2006, 5,000 MGA ≈ US$2.50.
4. The UDHR (1948) is the centerpiece of international human rights and is the first international instrument protecting the basic rights of the individual. ICESCR (1966, ratified 1976) is one of three international covenants subsequently designed to transform the UNDR into binding treaty obligations.
5. Examining ICBG Phase I, anthropologist Laura Tilghman (personal communication via Skype 2016) noted that porters often guide collectors indirectly toward medicinally useful plants and away from already collected duplicate samples and that bioprospectors rate duplicate collecting as one of the most expensive aspects of the scientific discovery process. Other similar transmission of knowledge between manual workers and scientists is very common in the bioprospecting literature (Hayden Citation2003).
6. This is focused within Article 8(j) of the CBD, which gives communities the right to benefit from their cultural and biological resources. These benefits are determined by an Access and Benefit Sharing agreement, and were codified in the long-awaited 2010 Nagoya protocol, which so far has not addressed labor rights of precarious conservation workers.
7. For more information see http://www.aaas.org/program/science-human-rights-coalition (last accessed 30 December 2015).
8. For a full description see Chapman (Citation2009, 25).
9. The Maastricht Principles were issued on 28 September 2011 and constitute an international expert opinion, restating (rather than establishing new) human rights law on ETOs; they clarify extraterritorial obligations of states and third parties on the basis of international law.
10. Successful implementation of human rights is difficult to quantify, but numerous cases exist of their effect on protecting marginalized indigenous communities, particularly concerning access and sovereignty in relation to the environment (UNEP Citation2014) and land access and the right to food (De Schutter Citation2011).
11. The ILO has been criticized for failing to protect poor skilled workers, despite the 1999 “Decent Work” program (ILO Citation1999; Vosko Citation2002).
12. For example, in Siliadan v. France, the court upheld that modern slavery imposes a duty to enact legislation criminalizing such conditions (Mantouvalou Citation2012).
13. In Madagascar, direct applicability of international conventions by the courts is guaranteed by the constitution, which, in its preamble, recognizes the International Bill of Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and the conventions on the rights of women and the rights of the child.
14. This team also included representatives from MBG, CI, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (since replaced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture).
15. Because Madagascar currently does not have a specific law for bioprospecting, ICBG was set up alongside the guidelines of already established access and benefit-sharing agreement between the U.S. NIH and CNARP.
16. These programs have shown mixed results in demonstrating that long-term conservation goals are met through bioprospecting (Neimark Citation2012; Neimark and Tilghman Citation2015).
17. To obtain collection permits, scientists must apply through the ad hoc Flora/Fauna Committee/Orientation Committee for Environmental Research (CAFF–CORE).
18. A kabary is a cultural form of communication and political speech, whereby Malagasy indirectly explain a historical event relevant to a current situation.
19. This understanding of their resources is quite similar to Walsh's (Citation2012) depiction of Ankarana forests as central in a “global bazaar” where foreign ecotourists, gemstone miners, and bioprospectors all supply a worldwide demand for Madagascar's “natural wonders” (74).
20. Also quoted in Neimark and Schroeder (Citation2009, 51).
21. Many of these “benefits” are listed in detail within the different sites (see Robinson 2014). Return visits to Phase I sites have shown that many of these conservation-based projects fall into disrepair once the project leaves (L. Tilghman, personal communication via Skype 2016).
22. Other recent studies, some by members of ICBG–Madagascar themselves, note that delivery of new equipment and the many training sessions held within Malagasy research institutions directly target Malagasy scientists (Miller Citation2015; MBG Citation2016). Although this form of “technology transfer” is an accomplishment in terms of benefit-sharing delivery, it falls short of addressing scientific capacity building or participation at the local level.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Benjamin D. Neimark
BENJAMIN D. NEIMARK is a Lecturer in international development and natural resources in the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, Lancashire LA1 4YQ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the political ecology and economy of bio- and green economy interventions and uneven rural development in Madagascar and Africa.
Saskia Vermeylen
SASKIA VERMEYLEN is Senior Lecturer and Chancellor's Fellow in the Law School, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G1 1QE, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research focuses on self-determination rights of indigenous peoples and the recognition of tangible and intangible property rights.