Scientific freedom and human rights

The relationship between scientific freedom and human rights is as deep on the side of science as it is on the side of human rights. On the one hand, issues of the application of science and technology to the suppression or restriction of human rights have attracted concern for years and have justifiably dominated discussion. Likewise, responding to the abuse and oppression of scientists who are pursuing legitimate scholarship has been a recurring source of concern. On the other hand, issues of who benefits, who is allowed to contribute to science, who has a say in how science is governed, and how science is admitted into society and culture have come to maturity more recently.

Taken together, these issues are called “the right to science”¹ and form a new framework for considering a full range of issues in science and technology: ethics, capacity building (in a global economy that punishes countries that are not engaged in science), support for research, freedom to pursue scientific questions where there is an interest and resources to do so, freedom to pursue science for applications that will benefit a particular community or country, and freedom to use the knowledge and methods of science and technology for personal benefit and gain.

The right to science is valid by itself but also represents a strategy that can be used to reconcile issues of ethics and science policy and to advocate for a fair resolution of issues of exclusion or neglect. It is therefore emerging, in the United Nations system through the UN Economic, Social, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and in international law, as a framework as a tool for both analysis (for example, to evaluate policies, education, and laws, among other applications) and synthesis (constructing new and more robust approaches to diversity, science diplomacy, sustainable development, environmental protection, worker protection, sustainability, and global trade, among other obvious applications). The right to science is also useful in documenting situations of abuse and oppression, the resolution of which sometimes depends on making a good case and then invoking the case as grounds to apply global peer pressure. Actual change can only effectively be achieved within the country's own political and economic system. Some countries are obviously more resistant than others. Because of this reality, the pursuit of universal human rights takes a legalistic approach notwithstanding its fundamentally humanitarian nature.

Scientific freedom and human rights are natural rights that are codified in a legal framework grounded in the International Bill of Human Rights, and particularly Article 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966). There are three constituent “rights to science” enumerated within the general “right to science”: (1) the right to participate in science, (2) the right to benefit from science, (3) the right to benefit from a person's own contribution or invention. UNESCO, supported by national governments and a network of national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) acting as partners, is the UN agency monitoring this cluster of rights. The NGOs for human rights were first to become interested in this issue. The NGOs for science, however, have greatly refined the discussion and are moving it forward in their countries at the cutting edge of scientific research. (In the United States, the NGOs for science that are most engaged are the American Association for the Advancement of Science; Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society; and the American Chemical Society.)

The right to participate in science is critical to economic self-determination for any modern society because so much economic development depends on new knowledge, competition with countries in the technical arena, building capacity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), and technological prowess. However, it also applies at the local and individual level, because science, being the primary way that we explore the material world for depth of understanding, is indispensable to culture in the modern world. Even traditional cultures, with a very different worldview, have to cope with the challenges of science to their belief system and so require at least access and contact. In the environmental health sciences, we already know that we have much to learn from indigenous cultures and we accept that it is essential for all societies to understand the nvironment because their fate depends on it.

The rights (plural, for society and individual) to benefit from science are more obvious. The most obvious interpretation of the right to benefit is the right to derive economic benefit from products and knowledge, but an equally important part of the right to benefit is the use of science to identify and correct serious problems.² Without scientists studying the effect of science and technology, the rest of the society is denied the benefit of early warning, documentation of emerging problems, and effective solutions. The environmental health sciences are the premiere examples of this. ³

Scientific knowledge is universal and research is a global enterprise. It should be shared and all should benefit. While not everybody has the capacity or education to know, access to education is its own right, and the right to know accurately about the material world and the views that science provides is essential to making that right meaningful and connecting it to culture and the right to participate in one's culture. The tangible benefits of science, such as improved quality of life, improved health, prospects for a continually improving future for coming generations, policy and governance based on fact rather than supposition, economic development, and the invention of particular products and methods are by right available to society and should be accessible to the individual to the maximum extent that resources and social distribution allow.

However, there are other situations where access to bodies of knowledge is, for example, indigenous traditional knowledge.⁴ One way of looking at this problem is that science represents a form of “public knowledge” accessible to all, while traditional knowledge is a form of collective “private knowledge” shared within a defined group; it does not have the status of public knowledge for the society as a whole and therefore need not be shared with all. In that case, control of access is a broader cultural issue and governance is usually by traditional means. For example, tribal custom may dictate what information can be shared with outsiders and even within the tribe about such matters as cosmology, genealogy, the location of productive hunting or fishing grounds, medicinal plants, and so forth. This, too, presents a challenge that the environmental health sciences have encountered before.

A global questionnaire solicitation (not a formal, structured survey) of priority issues in the right to science was recently undertaken by a team led by Jessica Wyndham (American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS]) and Margaret Weigers Vitullo (American Sociological Association) on behalf of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition.⁵ Among 3,462 respondents to the electronically distributed questionnaire, 80% lived and worked in North America, 10% in Europe; 55% were associated with an academic institution; 41% identified with the life science disciplines, 21% with social sciences, 15% with physical sciences, 8% with environmental sciences, 8% with engineering, and 7.5% with computer sciences and mathematics; 65% of respondents were male, 34% female. Regional and age distribution suggested greater access and motivation to respond among young professionals.

Respondents were asked how their current work benefited society. The role of science in advancing scientific knowledge, both for all and for the general public, was most widely recognized. The role of science in protecting health was singled out in the questionnaire with a consistent response prioritizing it as the second-highest benefit of science and was consistently high across regions (37.4% in North America to 28.4% in the “Global South” of predominantly developing countries). Protecting the environment was next, also consistent across regions at 20% in Asia to 32% in the Global South. Next, in a tighter band of results, was economic benefit, at between 20% and 25% except for the Global South, where it peaked at 30%. The use of science in setting public policy was also remarkably consistent across regions at about 18%. After that, the perceived benefits dropped off.

Among respondents working in the environmental sciences, 75% reported that their current work applied to protecting the environment, as one might expect, but there was also a disproportionately high benefit in advancing scientific knowledge (47% for environmental sciences, compared to 70% in the physical sciences and 36% in engineering) and advancing the knowledge of the general public (40%, compared to the next highest: 33% in computer sciences and mathematics and 27% in the social and behavioral sciences) and a recognition that the work provides the empirical basis for policy and law (33%, compared to the next highest: 28% in social and behavioral sciences). Importantly, 23% reported that their work contributed to economic development. Compared to other fields, however, environmental sciences reported little explanatory power in analyzing social behavior (3.5%, compared to 57% in the social and behavioral sciences). In addition, the connection between environmental science and health was weak (6.9%, the lowest reported).

Thus it would appear that environmental sciences carries a universality in advancing scientific knowledge beyond the confines of its disciplines. This can be understood by the tradition of “natural history,” which informs much contemporary environmental science but not necessarily environmental health sciences. There is a disconnect with health, which is surprising considering the close relationship between environmental sciences and pollution studies, public health's field of “environmental health” (meaning human health as opposed to the “health of the environment”), and emerging issues in human health and ecosystem disruption, including and especially climate change.

Among other findings from the survey, the five government actions most frequently and consistently chosen across regions as useful to protect the right to science were as follows:

1.	Increase funding for scientific infrastructure and research
2.	Provide adequate science education to the general public
3.	Promote a positive view of science and scientists among the public
4.	Ensure open access to scientific information
5.	Promote and protect academic freedom

Other important issues had to do with protecting intellectual property, open access to scientific information, separating science and religion (in North America), and ensuring reasonable costs for products that arise out of research.

The right to science does not stand alone. It is reciprocal with other rights, such as the right to take part in cultural life, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement. With the implications of a right to science also come countervailing scientific responsibilities, and with them questions of governance and social democracy. There is no better example of this at work than the environmental and occupational health sciences and our role in monitoring and documenting problems, proposing solutions, and informing public policy.⁶ The concept of a “right to science,” the mechanisms set up by UNESCO to articulate and support this right, and the legal structure it provides are essential to environmental sciences and deserve our careful study and engagement. At the same time, the environmental sciences, and particularly the environmental health sciences, are on the cutting edge of the right to science. What we do matters, why we do it matters, and who does it matters, as much for human rights as for health and for the environment.

Declaration of interest

The views and opinions expressed in this column represent the opinion of the author and not necessarily those of the editorial board of this journal, the publisher, or other parties.