Science benefiting society: the role of the right to science

The expansion of scientific knowledge has led to breakthroughs on some key challenges and to important societal evolutions. Yet, science’s full potential will remain untapped unless there is a steadfast commitment to a human rights-based approach, with the right to science at the centre. Currently, this right to science is being undermined by two worrisome trends: the persisting inequalities of access to scientific knowledge and the applications of scientific progress; and the vicious circle of erosion of trust in science and infringements on scientific freedom and the safety of scientists.

How protecting the right to science can benefit society was the subject of the fifth UNESCO Chairs Seminar. The debate took place against the backdrop of commemorations of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), celebrated throughout 2023, in which the right to science is enshrined in Article 27. This right is also reinforced in another of the foundational documents of the international human rights, the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, article 15).

Ângela Melo, Director of the UNESCO Division for Research, Ethics and Inclusion, Social and Human Sciences Sector, opened the debate by underscoring that the right to science still needs to earn an equal place along with other rights: a point further reinforced by subsequent panelists who lamented that political and civil rights are still prioritised over economic, social and cultural rights. Since the 1990s, she highlighted, UNESCO has been working to strengthen the foundations of this right. Among others, she highlighted the 2017 UNESCO Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers and the 2021 Recommendation on Open Science. Recently, the Organization has collaborated with researchers to develop policy briefs on the right to science and a massive open online course (MOOC) on science and human rights – the first educational content of its kind.

Waking the “sleeping beauty”

It is time to translate rights into obligations as regards this right, opined Monika Plozza, Research Associate and PhD Candidate at the University of Lucerne, Advisor on the Human Right to Science for the Geneva Science Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA), Switzerland. She highlighted that article 15 of the ICESCR was flexibly worded to evolve (as with many human rights instruments) and that “benefits” and “applications” are broad terms. In her opinion, recent developments meant that the right to science was about to exit its “sleeping beauty state”, thanks to the 2020 General Comment of The Committee for Economic Social and Cultural Rights, which elaborated on how Article 15 can become effective. However, whilst this general comment should be seen as a catalyst, according to Plozza, state-led pathways under the UN auspices were still to be employed, including the Universal Periodic Review, as well as monitoring before UN human rights treaty bodies.

The second speaker, Helle Porsdam, Professor of History and Cultural Rights, UNESCO Chair in Cultural Rights, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, drew attention to the nature of the right to science as a cultural right. At a very minimum, Article 15 entails: the protection of researchers from undue influence on their independent judgement; that researchers can define the main aims of their research and methodologies; the freedom to question the ethical value of and the right to withdraw from projects if researchers’ consciences so dictate; the right to collaborate with other researchers; and the sharing of scientific data and analysis amongst researchers, with policy-makers and the public. She also acknowledged that there is a tension between the right of citizens to participate in science and the freedom of researchers – posing the society-wide question of where the line should be drawn and which should be the defining considerations.

Democratic participation: key to the right to science

Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, Researcher at the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina addressed the democratic participation in science. He drew attention to at least two areas in which scientific freedom is linked to participation. The first is how the benefits of scientific progress are distributed. Open parliamentary discussions with greater citizen involvement lead to stronger knowledge and transparent decision-making, which in turn raise the degree of trust in ensuing policies. The other area is how scientists participate in public discussions. Research on COVID-19 response committees found that economists, sociologists, anthropologists, lawyers and human rights scholars were largely absent from the composition of those bodies to the benefit of experts from biomedical and public health fields - resulting in a narrow public policy response. Furthermore, these committees were not independent from government and their discussions not made public.

The rich discussion with participants, moderated by Konstantinos Tararas, Programme Specialist for the Section for Inclusion, Rights and Intercultural Dialogue, highlighted examples of co-creation of knowledge with local communities through a rights-based approach, as well as surfacing issues such as artificial intelligence, scientific literacy, traditional knowledge, intellectual property and ethics. Speakers further touched on the need for transdisciplinary approaches for robust science policymaking, as well as the need for the academy to better communicate findings with the public, particularly in current times of populism and anti-expert sentiment. Challenges – such as the anti-vax movement and contrarians to climate change – call for scaling up efforts. The teaching of human rights, including the right to science whose existence is insufficiently known, underpins this work. Informing future scholars will help them defend their own academic freedom and be able to better disseminate science, as a human right.