Why New Realities Demand New Rights: The Coming Good Society by William F. Schulz & Sushma Raman

Abstract

Reviewed by: Why New Realities Demand New Rights: The Coming Good Society by William F. Schulz & Sushma Raman Howard Tolley Jr. (bio) William F. Schulz & Sushma Raman, Why New Realities Demand New Rights: The Coming Good Society ( Harvard University Press, 2020), ISBN 978067424577, 314 pages. The Coming Good Society's co-authors address new realities and prospective rights involving animal species, robots with artificial intelligence, and Nature as well as twenty-first century threats necessitating enhanced human rights protection concerning gender equality, privacy, genetic manipulation, and political corruption. William Schulz, the [End Page 214] former Director of Amnesty International, and Sushma Raman, Executive Director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy fully appreciate the dangers posed by recent attacks on previously recognized, increasingly precarious human rights. They nevertheless insist that without ongoing consideration of prospective new rights for non-humans, then established rights may wither and a truly good society cannot be realized. "[T]his book is designed less to predict than to provoke."1 In explaining why rights change, the authors provide a basic theoretical framework that grounds universal rights in international standard setting rather than religion or natural law. Since UN adoption of the Universal Declaration of human Rights, essential norms have steadily expanded, making clear that rights are fluid, social constructs that can also be eroded. "Rights are 'transactional' … not static; … '[they] contain the seeds for their own expansion.'"2 As the less powerful become informed and make fresh demands against those with power to affect their lives, new rights emerge. Adults advanced new rights for children, "moral patients" who could not make claims on their own. Similarly animals, robots and trees need human representatives to claim legal standing for the assertion of new rights. A revolutionary cultural change in attitudes toward gays and lesbians resulted in extraordinarily swift legal recognition in the West for same sex marriage and protection from discrimination in the workplace. The authors note the need for enhanced rights for transgender or intersex individuals including teens' access to puberty suppressing drugs while deferring surgery until competent.3 Commodified tracking devices have stripped consumers of privacy in their purchase preferences, but the consequences go far beyond irritating pop up ads. Culturally biased algorithms perpetuate racial inequities in lending, a credit score, and more importantly dubious criminal profiles, a threat score, applied by law enforcement agencies. India has pioneered in developing a national digital identity program "Aadhaar." China developed a biometric identity base equally valuable to identify individual needs for food, education, and housing as well as to control free thinkers and their ability to organize collective action. Medusa "helps governments … gather information at rapid speed on private emails, chats, social media, and browsing histories."4 The authors recognized the need for government use of private medical records to contain the Ebola epidemic; the COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated that contact tracing trumps privacy rights. The growing abuse of technological surveillance nevertheless threatens personal dignity that must be defended with vigilant efforts to maintain the optimum balance between security and privacy. Biomedical advances similarly provide valuable tools with the potential for egregious misuse. DNA databanks successfully used to confirm guilt or innocence of accused felons also threaten to "magnify societal disparities" between citizens providing government agencies with a genetic map "which includes [End Page 215] … their ancestry, their immediate and extended relatives, their current medical condition and propensity for future diseases, and even 'behavioral tendencies and sexual orientation.'"5 CRISPR, DNA gene editing of an egg or sperm that can prevent disease, also enables the wealthy to make irrevocable decisions about their newborn. Bioscientists have also experimented with synthetic embryos (SHEEF) that develop human organs. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World vision of an artificially created super caste appears increasingly within reach. When advocating for an expanded vision of rights to include animals, robots, and trees Schulz and Raman succeeded in provoking this reviewer to reconsider long held views, to reflect on how man made machines could possibly be entitled to rights, and to appreciate more fully the need to protect plant and animal life demonstrating extraordinary super human capabilities. The authors provide a three part framework clarifying how...