Between Scylla and Charybdis: the implications of the human right to science for regulating the harms and benefits of environmental science and technology

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores whether the integration of human rights approaches, in particular, the human right to science in Article 15(1)(b) of the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, offers a basis for improving upon current approaches in international environmental law by widening democratic input and oversight in decisions involving environmental science and its applications. It examines a case study regarding the international regulation of marine geoengineering under an amendment to the 1996 Protocol to the 1972 Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter. The analysis focuses on how the harms and benefits of marine geoengineering research are conceived of in the amendment, and the norms and processes adopted to address them. These same issues are then examined under the human right to science, focusing on the recent interpretation of the right by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its General Comment No. 25. It seeks to show in a particular case how international environmental law and international human rights law each bring to bear different objectives, norms, and processes in how they treat issues of environmental science and technology, and explores the benefits of more integrated approach.