BATAAN HEROES MEMORIAL COLLEGE

GE 106 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

SEMIFINAL TOPICS

Topic No.4 WHEN TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANITY CROSS

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES:

1. Explain a human rights-based approach to science, technology, and development;
2. Identify key documents and their principles that ensure the well-being of humans in the midst
of scientific progress and technological development; and
3. Discuss the importance of upholding human rights in science, technology, and development.

This section discusses quintessential documents that protect human rights and ensure the well-being of
the human person in the face of scientific and technological developments. Indeed, if humans are to journey
toward living the good life, they have to make informed choices in dealing with science and technology.

 Human rights in the face of scientific and technological advancement are critical factors in one’s journey
toward eudaimonia.
 Protecting the well-being and upholding the dignity of the human person must be the core of continued
scientific and technological progress and development.
HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED APPROACH TO SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND DEVELOPMENT

 Seeks to place a concern for human rights at the heart of how the international community engages with
urgent global challenges;
 leads to better and more sustainable outcomes by analyzing and addressing the inequalities,
discriminatory practices and unjust power relations which are often at the heart of development
problems;
 provides a framework for confronting important global issues — from gender biases to food and water
safety to misuses of science and technology — grounded in a set of principles, developed through
international consensus, that clarify the relationship between 'rights holders' and 'duty bearers’. -
Gender equality and food security are among the issues addressed by human rights principles;
- Duty-bearers are those actors who have a particular obligation or responsibility to respect, promote
and realize human rights and to refrain from human rights violations.
- A right holder refers to a legal entity or person with exclusive rights to a protected copyright,
trademark or patent, and the related rights of producers, performers, producers and broadcasters.
A right holder may license a portion or all of a protected work through international legal and
licensing provisions.
 help to re-orient NGOs and the UN system away from professionalized philanthropy and towards
capacity-building; that they promise sustainable interventions and reduce dependency on aid and help
to redefine the responsibilities of governmental authorities, local actors, NGOs, and the UN system.
 requires scientists to go beyond knowing how their work relates to human rights, and demands that they
strive to secure and affirm human rights through the knowledge they produce.
- For instance, a rights-based approach to virus studies — in potentially creating an ethical framework
that guides research as it evolves — would not only push the frontiers of medicine and seek medical
benefits, but actively guard against the potential to create new biological weapons. There is a
question, here, of whether this is the responsibility of virologists (e.g. by contributing to dual-use
debates) or the scientific community in general.
USEFUL DOCUMENTS FOR A HUMAN-RIGHTS BASED APPROACH TO SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND
DEVELOPMENT

DOCUMENT KEY PRINCIPLES

 UNIVERSAL  Everyone’s right to participate in and benefit from scientific advances, and be
DECLARATION OF protected from scientific misuse; and
HUMAN RIGHTS  The rights to the benefits of science comes under the domain of culture, so it
ARTCLE 27 is usually examined from a cultural rights perspective.
UNESCO  All advance in scientific and technological knowledge should be solely geared
RECOMMENDATION towards the welfare of the global citizens, and calls upon member states to
ON THE STATUS OF develop necessary protocol and policies to monitor and secure this objective;
SCIENTIFIC  Countries are asked to show that science and technology are integrated into
RESEARCHERS- 1974 policies that aim to ensure a more humane and just society.
ARTICLE 4
UNESCO DECLARATION  "Today, more than ever, science and its applications are indispensable for
ON THE USE OF development. All levels of government and the private sector should provide
SCIENTIFIC enhanced support for building up an adequate and evenly distributed
KNOWLEDGE- 1999 scientific and technological capacity through appropriate education and
ARTICLE 33 research programmes as an indispensable foundation for economic, social,
cultural and environmentally sound development. This is particularly urgent
for developing countries."

CONCLUSION
Human rights should be integral to the journey toward the ultimate good. They should guide humans not
only to flourish as individual members of the society, but also to assist each other in flourishing collectively as a
society. Human rights are rights to sustainability, as Mukherjee put it. They may function as the ‘golden mean’,
particularly by protecting the weak, poor, and vulnerable from the deficiencies and excess of science and
technology. By imposing upon science and technology the moral and ethical duty to protect and uphold human
rights, there can be a more effective and sustainable approach to bridging the gap between poor and rich
countries on both tangible and intangible aspects. Ultimately, all these will lead humans to flourish together
through science and technology.

https://www.scidev.net/global/human-rights/feature/linking-science-and-human-rights-facts-and-figures.html