Anticipation in the biosciences and the human right to science.

Abstract

Anticipation entails contemplating the beneficial and harmful impacts of scientific and technological progress. Anticipation has a long history in science, technology, and innovation policy partly due to future impacts of scientific progress being inescapable. The link between anticipation, an undertheorized concept, and human rights law is yet to be fully explored. This paper links anticipation to the rights to science, a lesser-studied human right codified in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. The paper argues that the normative content of the right includes anticipation entitlements and duties. Combining the entitlements and duties with anticipation typologies leads to identifying three forms of anticipation that governments (and, in some cases, scientists) must carry out: beneficial, responsible, and participatory anticipation. The paper concludes by identifying three ways in which further conceptual work can enrich human-rights-based anticipation.