New Technologies and Human Rights: (Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law)

The first IVF baby was born in the 1970s. Less than 20 years later, we had cloning and GM food, and information and communication technologies had transformed everyday life. In 2000, the first map of the human genome was sequenced. More recently, there has been much discussion of the economic and social benefits of nanotechnology, and synthetic biology has also been generating controversy. This important volume is a timely contribution to increasing calls for regulation - or better regulation - of these and other new technologies. Drawing on an international team of legal scholars, it reviews and develops the role of human rights in the regulation of new technologies. Three controversies at the intersection between human rights and new technology are given particular attention. First, are human rights contributing to the creation of a brave new world of choice, where human dignity is fundamentally compromised? Second, are new technologies a threat to human rights? Finally, can human rights create better regulation of these technologies?

Table of Contents:
Table of Cases Table of Legislation List of Abbreviations List of Contributors 1: Thérèse Murphy: Repetition, Revolution, and Resonance: An Introduction to New Technologies and Human Rights 2: Roger Brownsword: Human Dignity, Ethical Pluralism, and the Regulation of Modern Biotechnologies 3: Han Somsen: Regulating Human Genetics in a Neo-Eugenic Era 4: Francesca Bignami: Constitutional Patriotism and the Right to Privacy: A Comparison of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights 5: Laurence Boisson de Chazournes: New Technologies, the Precautionary Principle and Public Participation 6: Thérèse Murphy: The Texture of Reproductive Choice: Law, Ethnography and Reproductive Technologies 7: Iulia Voina Motoc: The International Law of Genetic Discrimination: The Power of 'Never Again' 8: Hélène Boussard: Individual Human Rights in Genetic Research: Blurring the Line between Collective and Individual Interests Index

About the Author :
Therese Murphy is Professor of Law & Critical Theory at the University of Nottingham. She is the author of Civil Liberties Law: The Human Rights Act Era (OUP, 2001) with Stephen Livingstone and Noel Whitty. She is on the editorial board of the Human Rights Law Review, and is a member of the expert team that provides thematic and annual reports on the UK for the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency.