Do the goals of human rights conflict with the current trends in biotechnology development and regulation?
Perhaps the single most important answer that Francioni – and, one might argue, the whole book – gives to the fourth question is his statement that “in addressing these questions one cannot overlook the reality that international law, and especially international human rights law, presents conflicting principles and policy goals”. This is a recurring element of all the contributions: biotechnology, as indeed all technologies, put lawmakers in the difficult position to strike a balance between competing goals and constraints. As Francioni notices, above and beyond the antinomy between the principle of states’ sovereignty over resources found in their own territories and the “common heritage”/”common concern” principles, lie even more fundamental confrontations, such as between “the need to preserve freedom of research and the right of everyone to benefit from the advances in science and technology” on the one hand and the “fundamental concept of human dignity and integrity of the human
