Science and the New Constitution of Health and Environment

<p>NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:<br/> This project concerns justice, institutions and the life sciences, but focuses on international regulation and trade. I seek to examine the role of science in the development of global administrative regimes of health and environment, studying science and technology as both the subject of international disputes, and as a resource for settling them. Despite trends toward global standardization, strong regional and cultural differences have emerged around new technologies in the biomedical and agricultural life sciences: Europe refuses to import GMOs without strong labeling and traceability requirements; developing countries demand, on humanitarian grounds, the right to import cheaper pharmaceuticals from India and Brazil in apparent violation of trade rules. In the face of regulatory harmonization at the global level, how are these differences
manifesting themselves, and how are science and law used to resolve them Focusing on the World Trade Organization and the Codex Alimentarius Commission, I seek to examine how science and expertise affect the distribution of power across multiple scales of governance and theorize the relation between science and law in international health and environmental regulation. I seek to provides an account of the policy trade-offs happening within the technical discourses of law and science, in order to address issues of global equity and political culture in the face of globalization. From a policy point of view, the project will provide innovative ideas for the appropriate use of science and expertise within regulatory institutions at the global level. To date, this stream of work has centered on the regulation of food safety and the international trade regime. Intense trade wars and recent
scandals have made food safety an especially important topic for analysis and policy.<p>
APPROACH: <br/>A. Legal research. First, this project will involve traditional methods of legal research, which entails the close reading and analysis of legal treaties, case opinions and other legal materials. In this project, analysis of the role of science and scientific experts in regime formation at the international level, especially involving the WTO, and will require the review and analysis of: (1) secondary literature - I will continue to review secondary literatures on legal globalization, trade constitutionalism, international environmental and health law, WTO and health, environment and science. Reading will focus special attention on treaties and contexts around climate change and climate remediation technologies such as carbon sequestration and capture, solar radiation management technologies. (2) treaty texts and negotiating history - a thorough review of
international legal texts that explicitly address the use of science and experts. (3) case law - a thorough analysis of the legal opinions to date within the WTO dispute settlement system in which scientific experts have been appointed and used by adjudicatory tribunals at the lower court (Panel) and upper court (Appellate Body) levels. (4) scientific testimony - thorough comparative analysis of appointment, testimony, use of expert testimony, and amicus briefs in the cases enumerated above. (5) function and use of international scientific agencies within international case law, such as the IPCC and the Codex Alimentarius Commissions. I will analyze how standards from these bodies are imported into international treaties, and also whether the new status of these organizations in the trading regime has shifted their structure and function. This latter set of questions will be examined not
only through document research, but also interviews and fieldwork at those bodies. b. Interviews and fieldwork. Traditional legal research methods will be supplemented with traditional qualitative research methods drawn from the social sciences, especially interviewing and field research at the organizations at issue. Interviews will target judges and scientific panelists who have played roles in the adjudication of science-based disputes at the WTO, organization officials, and other experts. Interviews and fieldwork will also center on various non-governmental organizations that have emerged as participants in international legal processes, such as the Center for International Environmental Law and the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, both in Geneva. c. Write-up and output. I will produce a series of peer-reviewed articles on this work, leading up to a book.
This work product will have immediate relevance for actors in California dealing with agricultural biotechnology, food safety, environmental, and health policy.</p><p>
PROGRESS: <br/>2013/01 TO 2013/09 <br/>Target Audience: My target audience includes other scientists, students, and policy makers, whom I reached through a variety of activities and events. These included the following research talks and other presentations: Governing Geoengineering Research: Are New Institutions Necessary?� Invited presentation to the National Research Council Committee on Geoengineering Climate: Technical Evaluation and Discussion of Impacts (11 September 2013) �Epistemic Jurisdictions: Science, Courts and the New Federalism,� Research Talk, Science and Democracy Network Annual Meeting, Harvard, University (2 July 2013) Invited Commentary, Facts and Futures: Science and International Law, Harvard Law School (17 April 2013) Epistemic Jurisdictions: Science, Courts and the Formation of New Federalisms, Invited research talk, University of Kent Law School, U.K. (20 March 2013) Geoengineering Research Governance: The View from
the U.S., Invited talk, University of Oxford, U.K. (19 March 2013) The Collective Ideal in Biobank Governance, Keynote conference talk, University of Sheffield, U.K. (18 March 2013) Patent Pending: The Supreme Court Myriad Litigation. Presenter. Hastings College of the Law (20 February 2013) Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? I continued to work with and train five PhD students under this project: Abigail Martin, Kendra Klein, Daniel Sarna, Javiera Barandiaran, Daniel Suarez. I also helped mentor and train one post-doctoral student, Chris Jones. Kendra Klein successfully completed her PhD in May 2013. Chris Jones was hired into a tenure-track position at Arizona State University. Project helps support this group in numerous ways. My lab group meets every two weeks for building skills in analysis, article drafting, presenting work in public audiences, and teaching. I hold frequent meetings with these
advisees How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Yes, I frequently disseminate
my work at academic conferences, public workshops, and community meetings. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported
PROGRESS: 2012/01/01 TO 2012/12/31OUTPUTS: 1. Co-organized international meeting on the intersection of scientific expertise, intellectual property law, and bioethics (Kobe, Japan, February 2012). This meeting convened an international group of scientists and scholars to discuss coordination of intellectual property law in biotechnology. The event produced a report that was disseminated widely to policy communities in the U.S., Japan, and China. 2. Tutored and mentored five PhD students, three of whom stand to graduate this year, and also mentored two postdoctoral fellows working in environmental history. I also taught 130 undergraduate students in ESPM 162 ("Bioethics") and the capstone class in the Society and Environment major at Berkeley. 3. Founded a new "designated emphasis" or graduate minor in Science and Technology Studies at U.C. Berkeley. Built a
faculty group of twenty people, and admitted our first class of seven PhD students in March 2012. This has fomented lots of work at the intersection of ethics, science, and public policy on campus. 4. Helped organize and participated in the Science and Democracy Network (SDN) meeting and related activities in June 2012. SDN is network of scholars established in 2002 to enhance the quality and significance of scholarship in science and technology studies (STS) by training young professionals and by forging links between STS and related fields of study and practice. I continue to be on the governing council of SDN. The primary goal of the STS meeting is to strengthen and deepen STS scholarship on science and democracy, and to provide training opportunities for young STS scholars to enable them to participate more effectively in decision processes and public affairs. 5. I gave a number of
public lectures on my work: Berkeley (1 October 2012) University of California, Santa Cruz (8 May 2012), Stanford Law School (21 February 2012), Kobe, Japan (30 January 2012) PARTICIPANTS: Organizational liaisons. Bipartisan Policy Center. After working closely with this Washington group in geoengineering the previous year, I continue to collaborate on the generation of policy papers. Center for Genetics and Society. Collaborative research and writing on international bioethics issues. Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS). University of Oxford. Research partnership and in-kind exchange (research visits). New collaborators. Daniel Farber, Berkeley Law School Jane Long, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Steve Rayner, University of Oxford Ralph Bodle, Ecologic Institute, Berlin Matthew Watson, University of Bristol Jim Dratw, The European Commission Sebastian Haye, The
Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels Steve Hamburg, Chief Scientists, Environmental Defense Fund Training and development. I continued to work with and train five PhD students under this project: Abigail Martin, Kendra Klein, Daniel Sarna, Javiera Barandiaran, Daniel Suarez. Project helps support this group in numerous ways. We meet as a group every two weeks and have frequent individual meetings. TARGET AUDIENCES: Taught 135-person undergraduate course entitled, ""Bioethics and Society"" Taught 12-person ""capstone"" seminar for seniors in the Society & Environment major at U.C. Berkeley Developed a new course entitled, ""Bioethics, Law and the Life Sciences"" to be taught at the Law School in Spring 2013. Helped organize international workshop on intellectual property in stem cell research in Kobe, Japan. The Scientist and Society. Presentation to campus researchers as part of the U.C.
Berkeley Responsible Conduct of Research Seminar Series (9 April 2012) PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.<br/>
PROGRESS: <br/>2011/01/01 TO 2011/12/31 <br/>OUTPUTS: My research and work under this grant led, this past year, to deepening involvement with the Bipartisan Policy Committee Task Force on Climate Remediation in Washington DC. This year, our report (which I co-authored) was made public through a national press conference and has been broadly disseminated, in print and online, to policymaking communities in NSF, OSTP, and Department of Energy. In a related vein, I presented my work on geoengineering research governance at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco (8 December 2011) to a large public audience. PARTICIPANTS: Funding helped support four graduate students on the following projects: A comparison of biofuel innovation programs across Brazil and the U.S.; The role of environmental impact assessment in major international controversies in Chile; The
regulation of nanotechnology; the rise of ecosystem services as an international management paradigm. The students are Javiera Barandiaran, Abigail Martin, Daniel Suarez, Mark Philbrick. TARGET AUDIENCES: Ultimately, my work is targeted at healthcare consumers, citizens concerned with a clean environment and interested in being involved in governance, policymakers at different levels of governance, and NGOs. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.<br/>
PROGRESS: <br/>2010/01/01 TO 2010/12/31 <br/>OUTPUTS: In March 2010, because of my work on this project, I was invited to give the opening plenary talk on the ethics of geoengineering research at the Asilomar International Conference on Climate Change Technologies. This talk was reported out to the national media in places like Mother Jones, and WIRED. As part of a group of international scholars working on the ethics and politics of stem cell research, I produced a consensus statement that had a national press release in Washington D.C. The statement concerned the need to think globally about patterns of intellectual property and regulation in biotechnologies like stem cell research. The statement grew out of prior work I had done in this arena, funded under this program. PARTICIPANTS: Bipartisan Policy Center, and National Commission on Energy Policy. Sponsored task force
where I served and supplied ideas from this project to inform forthcoming report on the geoengineering. Kendra Klein. Graduate student and advisee. Supported to conduct primary and secondary research for her PhD on the possibilities and impediments of taking up locally grown food within hospitals and HMOs. Daniel Sarna. Graduate student and advisee. Supported to conduct research on the resolution of water controversies, and the role of science therein, in the Klamath Basin. California Council on Science and Technology. Served on task force related to assessing the risks and benefits of ""SmartMeters,"" wirelessly connected energy meters being installed in California. TARGET AUDIENCES: For the Geoengineering task force at the Bipartisan Policy Center, it is a national audience with a special target to law makers in Congress. Continued development of cutting edge materials for undergraduate
and graduate students at UC Berkeley, especially the College of Natural Resources, on issues of science and technology governance. Ran workshop for social science scholars working on geoengineering as an offshoot to another meeting, in London UK. Involved 25 mostly US scholars. Classroom audiences of 170 total students enrolled in classes with material deeply shaped by this project. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.<br/>
PROGRESS: <br/>2008/01/01 TO 2008/12/31 <br/>OUTPUTS: In 2008, after the summer research trip to Geneva, Switzerland in summer 2007 (to conduct interviews with World Trade Organization personnel, and interact with legal faculty at University of Geneva, Faculty of Law) work continued on a major research manuscript on the relationship between the Codex Alimentarius Commission (WHO/FAO) and the World Trade Organization, entitled, "Science and Power in Global Food Regulation: The Rise of the Codex Alimentarius." This article has been revised and accepted for publication in the top journal in the field of Science and Technology Studies (Science, Technology and Human Values). The successful training of graduate student Douglas Bushey is another major output of this project. The mentioned research article will be published with Douglas Bushey. The project has supported his training
in this research and has advanced his dissertation project ("Global Knowledges: Science and Power in Global Governance") on the use and uptake of science in World Trade Law and International Environmental Law. Indeed, Bushey's project and career trajectory has been shaped largely by this AES project. With the PI's oversight, Bushey is finishing other articles on the role of science at the WTO, especially with regard to resolving the ongoing dispute between the United States and EU on hormone-treated beef (so-called Beef Hormones case). Bushey's training has been a major success and output of this project. In summer and fall 2008, the AES project supported the hire of graduate student Kendra Klein for help on research and writing of an original research article on comparative regulation of organic agriculture across the US and the EU. The paper also explores the prospects of greater
regulatory harmonization through the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The paper has thus far appeared as a Berkeley electronic working paper entitled, "Food Labels and the Environment: Organic Regulation and Its Problems." Project has resulted in continued curriculum development in courses taught at University of California--Berkeley. Additions include coverage of case law at the World Trade Organization, the international regulation of food safety, and the role of science and technology in globalization. Courses improved include "Bioethics and Society" (130 students, ESPM 162) and a graduate student seminar, namely "Science, Technology and the Politics of Nature" (10 student, ESPM 256). PARTICIPANTS: David Winickoff, PI and assistant professor, UC Berkeley. Grant has supported small research trips, supplies and other expenses related to the proposal. Douglas Bushey, PhD student, UC
Berkeley. Project has been major support for his training and development. Bushey had been supported on this research grant since 2006. No major new expenses in 2008. PI will be Bushey's dissertation chair person. Bushey and PI worked closely on the major research publication noted above, "Science and Power in Global Food Regulation: The Rise of the Codex Alimentarius." Kendra Klein, PhD student, UC Berkeley. Training and development. Klein was supported over Summer 2008 with a full research assistantship, and she prepared report and bibliography on organic regulation across the US and EU. This has helped shape her dissertation work on food labeling and regulation. This work has led to the publication "Food Labels and the Environment: Organic Regulation and Its Problems in the US and EU," IGS Center on Institutions and Governance Working Paper (November 2008)
http://igov.berkeley.edu/papers0809.html#winickoff, mentioned above. PI will be chairing her dissertation, which has been shaped by the Project. Abigail Martin, PhD student, UC Berkeley. Continued training and development. Martin has been supported with small ad hoc grants in 2008. She prepared a bibliography on biotechnology regulation, trade, and development, and this has shaped her dissertation trajectory. PI will be chairing this dissertation, which has emerged from the Project. Collaborating organizations: World Trade Organization, Codex Alimentarius Commission, University of California-Berkeley, University of Geneva (faculty of law), The Science and Democracy Network, Harvard University, Center for TARGET AUDIENCES: Target audience has been developed in this period to include the trans-Atlantic regulatory community through involvement in the conference mentioned above. PROJECT
MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.<br/>
PROGRESS: <br/>2007/01/01 TO 2007/12/31
<br/>OUTPUTS: Project supported a research trip to Geneva, Switzerland (July 2007) to conduct interviews with World Trade Organization personnel, and interact with legal faculty at University of Geneva, Faculty of Law. Research has produced a long research manuscript on the relationship between the Codex Alimentarius Commission (WHO/FAO) and the World Trade Organization, entitled, "Science and Power in Global Food Regulation: The Rise of the Codex Alimentarius" (submitted Nov. 2 to Science, Technology and Human Values). The project also supported two summer months of graduate student research in the following areas: the international regulation of biotechnology and its implications for developing countries; the regulation of food labeling in comparative perspective across the U.S. and the European Union. Written products from this support included detailed and annotated bibliographies and
reports of literature in these areas. Project has resulted in curriculum development in courses taught at University of Califronia--Berkeley. These include adding significant new material to one undergraduate course, namely ""Bioethics and Society"" (100 students, ESPM 162) and one graduate student seminar, namely ""Science, Technology and the Politics of Nature"" (15 student, ESPM 256). These additions include coverage of case law at the World Trade Organization, the international regulation of food safety, and the role of science and technology in globalization. Faculty research time and undergraduate researcher supported the development of a new research talk entitled, "Biotechnology for Development: Promethean Gift or Trojan Horse?" This talk was delivered as an invited guest lecture at U.C Berkeley in a Department of International and Area Studies course (IAS 115) entitled, ""Global
Poverty: Challenges and Hopes in the New Millennium"" (8 November 2007).
PARTICIPANTS: David Winickoff, PI and assistant professor, UC Berkeley. Winickoff's field work and interview trip to Geneva, Switzerland was supported by the Project, where he established working contacts at the World Trade Organization, and a collaborative affiliation with the University of Geneva, Faculty of Law, which formally hosted him for 1.5 months in the summer. Developed expertise through research, interviewing, writing, and networking. Producing written work. Douglas Bushey, PhD student, UC Berkeley. Project has been major support for his training and development. Bushey had been supported on this research grant since 2006, and this project has helped shape his dissertation on international regulatory regimes of food safety, and the role of science therein. PI will be Bushey's dissertation chair person. Bushey and PI worked closely on the preparation and submission of major
research manuscript noted above, ""Science and Power in Global Food Regulation: The Rise of the Codex Alimentarius"" (submitted Nov. 2 to Science, Technology and Human Values). Kendra Klein, PhD student, UC Berkeley. Training and development. Klein was support over Summer 2007 with a research assistantship, and she prepared report and bibliography on food labeling. This has helped shape her dissertation work on food labeling and regulation. She and PI are currently working on a manuscript to write up this work. PI will be chairing her dissertation, which has been shaped by the Project. Abigail Martin, PhD student, UC Berkeley. Training and development. Martin has been supported by this grant in Summer 2007 and also more in 2008. She prepared a bibliography on biotechnology regulation, trade, and development, and this has shaped her dissertation trajectory. PI will be chairing this
dissertation, which has emerged from the Project. Carolyn McMahon, undergraduate, UC Berkeley. McMahon provided research assistant support on an hourly wage basis, to collect books, web materials, and prepare short reports. She received training and professional development in the course of the work. Collaborating organizations: World Trade Organization, Codex Alimentarius Commission, University of California-Berkeley, University of Geneva (faculty of law), The Science and Democracy Network, Harvard University
TARGET AUDIENCES: New target audience has been developed in this period. Direct contacts at the World Trade Organization have made direct policy input a reality, and more likely in the future. Developing audience and contacts among European legal academics has opened up new avenues of exchange and collaboration.<br/>
PROGRESS: <br/>2006/01/01 TO 2006/12/31 <br/>This research project has progressed nicely in year 2006. I had two research assistants working with my over the summer, and in collaboration with them have four article manuscripts some of which will likely be accepted for publication in year 2007. In the summer 2006, I conducted a number of interviews in Geneva, Switzerland, pursuant to this research plan, and will write up that data shortly. I have begun to develop a book proposal for this work. On November 10, 2006, I delivered an invited research seminar based on this work at Stanford University entitled, "World Trade and the Regulation of Life: Science, Power, and International Order,"" in which I reported preliminary results. This was well-received. Here I argued the centrality of scientific expertise and the ""sound science" concept at the World Trade Organization and in
international trade law for understanding the particularities of the emerging global administrative bureaucracy, and the emerging global regulation of environment and health. This work should be highly relevant to environmental and public health policies in California. Furthermore, based on this work I convened a panel for the annual Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) conference in October 2006 under the heading, Between Constitution and Empire: Producing Science and Citizens in Global Institutions.</p>