Anticipatory duties under the human right to science and international biomedical law

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper assesses the interplay between international human rights law and international biomedical law as two specialised regimes within international law. The focus lies specifically on the anticipatory duties arising under the human right to benefit from science and its applications on the one side and under international biomedical law on the other. International biomedical law instruments adopt a human rights-based approach to the regulation of biology and medicine, so one of the questions is whether the anticipatory duties in biomedical law are indeed a specific application of the corresponding duties in international human rights law, modified, expanded and elaborated further to better address the distinctive subject matter, namely, the interface between the individual and science and technology in a medical context? Or whether the anticipatory duties in international biomedical law draw from international environmental law and/or general international law? The main question that this paper aims to address concerns the precise scope and content of the anticipatory duties under international biomedical law and their relationship to human rights.