Science in the Service of Human Rights (review)

"Has politics entered the house of science and, if so, what is it doing there?" asks Richard Pierre Claude in his new book Science in the Service of Human Rights, navigating the binary relationship between the public need for protection of scientific freedom and regulation of progress to equitably distribute its benefits. "If scientific freedom is half the operative equation, responsibility is the other half." ¹ In so saying, the author offers us a comprehensive look at the many ways that human rights provide the framework through which this paradox can be resolved. Upon completion, readers will benefit from rich conceptual analysis and a wealth of examples to answer the following question: How do human rights counter the misuse of scientific research and serve as a framework to harness science for the global common good, while protecting basic freedoms to advance science and research and to respect intellectual property?

Through case studies and historical presentations, the author details many recent contributions to the promotion of human rights made by the applied sciences, technology and the health professions. The book emphasizes the democratic need for people to understand policy issues related to science because problems that mix science and politics present some of today's most daunting ethical questions. Did China violate the human rights of prisoners by harvesting their kidneys and other human organs without their formal consent? Do the victims of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa have the right to effective pharmaceutical treatments that are beyond their financial reach? Do intellectual property rights trump other human rights? How can the public influence science policy?

"[S]cience is a human construct operating in a social milieu, and the work of scientists is central to the welfare of all humankind." ² It is not news that scientific progress has allowed us to alter and extend food systems, clone animals and—potentially—human organisms, create synthetic chemicals that have altered natural and human reproductive systems, and manufacture weapon systems that kill in enormous quantities. But the author presents a new framework for debate on such controversial questions surrounding scientific freedom and responsibility by illuminating the many critical points of intersection between human rights and science including the implications of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' (UDHR) assertion of everyone's right "to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."

The book makes contributions in four major areas. It highlights the work of individual scientists in the advancement of human rights, brings human rights into the study of the philosophy of science, offers analysis and contemporary examples of the application of Article 27 of the UDHR, and demonstrates the interdependent relationship of science and human rights to many of the issues most central to the debates and mobilization activities associated with economic globalization.

First, the author says a major objective of the book is to pay "tribute to those many scientists, statisticians, engineers, health professionals, forensic specialists, and others in technical fields who have demonstrated admirable qualities of global citizenship offering their expertise in the service of human rights." ³ Examples include individuals such as Einstein, Sakharov, Rotblat and Goldemberg (in the chapter "Scientists as Human Rights Activists") referencing their views on scientific responsibility and freedom linked to human rights, and (in a separate chapter) nongovernmental groups working on issues of science, technology, and health. Such groups include the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (documenting human rights abuses of scientists); ⁴ Physicians for Human Rights (forensic anthropological work in the Former Yugoslavia); ⁵ Doctors Without Borders (AIDS medications in Africa); ⁶ the Norwegian Bellona Foundation (documentation of government interference with the work of a Russian "whistleblower" in his role as nuclear safety inspector); ⁷ the Southern Center for Human Rights (litigating deplorable health conditions in Atlanta, Georgia prisons); ⁸ and the Center for Support of Native Lands (training Bolivian Indians as para-cartographers to document their...