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Precautionary Principle Urged (Again?)

Friday, June 15, 2007

A news from the EU (but it turned out to be not so new):
"Current scientific risk-assessment methods [for nanomaterials] are really not reliable. We don't have the knowledge. Nanomaterials are so small and reactive and we don't have natural defences in the body against them," said Eva Hellsten, from the Commission's DG Environment, Directorate Water, Chemicals and Cohesion.
EU are still debating as to whether nanomaterials/nanoparticles would be sufficiently regulated in its REACH directive. To sum up, their position on regulating engineered nanoparticles remans the same:
1. IS REACH enough or not?
2. We don't have "sufficent knowledge"
3. More money required for research
4. Precautionary Principle vs 'non' Precautionary Principle

So in this part of nanotech regulation, there is really nothing new in any part of the world. Boring!

 

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Synthia's Patent Application at the USPTO

Saturday, June 9, 2007

For those of you who are curious, here's a link to Venter Institute's "synthetic life" patent application at the USPTO:
The present invention relates, e.g., to a minimal set of protein-coding genes which provides the information required for replication of a free-living organism in a rich bacterial culture medium, wherein (1) the gene set does not comprise the 101 genes listed in Table 2; and/or wherein (2) the gene set comprises the 381 protein-coding genes listed in Table 3 and, optionally, one of more of: a set of three genes encoding ABC transporters for phosphate import (genes MG410, MG411 and MG412; or genes MG289, MG290 and MG291); the lipoprotein-encoding gene MG185 or MG260; and/or the glycerophosphoryl diester phosphodiesterase gene MG293 or MG385.

 

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Patenting new lifeforms: more than just Harvard Mouse Part II

Thursday, June 7, 2007

"For the first time, God has competition," adds Pat Mooney of ETC Group. "Venter and his colleagues have breached a societal boundary, and the public hasn't even had a chance to debate the far-reaching social, ethical and environmental implications of synthetic life," said Mooney
Harvard Mouse Part one was a collaboration between Harvard and Du Pont to create a gene that can make mouses susceptible to cancer. USTPO granted the patent application but both Canada and Europe rejected it as they deem it contrary to the the public ordre.

Now we have another patent application from the Venter Institute. A new bacteria not previously existed on the nature. So this is more than just the Harvard Mouse, I suppose there is a new set of 'novelty' being offered here.

The problem is, if we patent the lifeform, the descendant and its variant may be subjected to ownership of the patent owner, I mean, the genetic information. ANother problem entangled with this patent application, the ETC said, is its environmental concerns:
Action Needed: Before syns are allowed to go forward, society must debate whether they are socially acceptable or desirable: How could their accidental release into the environment be prevented or the effects of their intentional release be evaluated? Who will control them, and how? How will research be regulated? In 2006 a coalition of 38 civil society organizations called on synthetic biologists to withdraw proposals for self-governance of the technology.
ETC group is trying to block this patent application for public ordre reasons:

ETC is also writing to WIPO and the U.S. PTO, asking them to reject the patent on the grounds that it is contrary to ordre public (public morality and safety). Later this month ETC Group will attend Synthetic Biology 3.0 (an international conference of synthetic biologists) in Zuerich, Switzerland June 24-26 where it will call upon scientists to join in a global dialogue on synthetic biology. ETC will organize meetings with governments and civil society during the upcoming scientific subcommittee meetings of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Paris, July 2-6, in order to discuss the implications of the creation of synthetic life forms for the Biodiversity Convention and for its protocol on biosafety. ETC Group will convene a global meeting of civil society actors on this and related issues within the next year.



 

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Compliance towards Berkeley's Nano Regulation

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

From the Berkeley Daily Planet:

By the June 1 reporting date the only business following the formal reporting procedure was Bayer Laboratories, according to Toxics Manager Nabil Al-Hadithy. The other two local users of the technology, UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) responded, but did not include the specific data required by the ordinance.

“I am especially disappointed because LBLN has been engaged in the process [of writing the reporting procedures] for two years and has failed to implement it,” Al-Hadithy said.

The policy requires companies working with engineered nanoparticles—materials one of whose axes is 100 nanometers or less (a nanometer is one-trillionth of a meter)—to submit a report disclosing the toxicology of the nanoparticles used and “how the facility will safely handle, monitor, contain, dispose, track inventory, prevent releases and mitigate such materials,” says the city ordinance.

For my previous post on this issue and my discussion with N. Hadithy with regards to the content of the Berkely regulation, click here and here.

 

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The "right to water" in Indonesia

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

The right to water is guaranteed under Article 5 of the Water Resources Law. It is stated there that the state must guarantee the citizen's access to water. The implementation of such right is not yet clear. The elucidation of Article 5 only said:
This provision shall mean that the state holds the obligation to organize various efforts to guarantee the availability of water for everyone residing within the territory of the Republic of Indonesia. The said guarantee shall become the joint responsibility of the Government and regional government, including guaranteeing access for everyone to the water source to obtain water. The extent of daily minimum basic need for water shall be determined based on the guidance to be stipulated by the Government.

The Constitutional Court in its interpretation of the water law stated that Article 5, jointly with Article 16 (which stipulates that the duties and authorities of every municipalities are to to fulfill the minimum daily basic need for water of the community in its area) and Article 29(3) (which stipulates that The provision of water to fulfill the daily basic needs and irrigation for the smallholder estate crops in the existing irrigation system that became places the provision of water resources as the main priority over all other needs) have "sufficiently reflected the fulfillment of the right to water" under the law.

However, Article 80 of the Law stated:

(1) The use of water resources to fulfill the daily basic needs and for smallholder estate crops shall not be charged with water resources management service fee.

(2) The users of water resources other than those referred to in paragraph (1) shall bear the water resources management service fee.


And its elucidation:

Paragraph (1)

The parties who utilized the water resources to fulfill their daily basic needs and who are not subjected to any water resources management service fee shall mean the user of water resources who utilized water at or who procured water for their personal purpose from the water source that is not used as a distribution channel.

The water resources management service fee shall mean the cost required to manage the water resources so as the water resources may be utilized in a sustainable manner.


On this Article the Court says that water is free so long as people are taking it directly from its water source, but if it is taken from the water network, then the "full cost recovery" applies. The Court noted however that this does not mean that regional waterwork can charge high rates. The Court says that regional waterwork "shall not be established with a view of only seeking for profit, but as an enterprise who performs state functions in materializing Article 5"

The Court holds the law to be "conditionally constitutional" and thus can still be invalidated if its implementation is different from this guideline.

So, I think the right to water in Indonesia does not mean that everyone can get water as a free ticket. If they are taking it from a distribution network, they still have to pay. The minimum quality and quantity of the water per person -- as far as I know -- has not been legislated into a binding regulation.

 

Copyright on the 21st Century: Brussel Copyright Summit 2007

Larry Lessig gave a talk at Brussel's 2007 Copyright Summit. He explained the "sharing" characteristic of the 21st Century internet economy. The video quality is not so good, but in general it is OK.



 

Nanotechnology shifts social convention

Saturday, June 2, 2007

That was explained by Chris Mac Donald in his Health Law Review paper. Here's a quote:
Cheap, high-quality, unobtrusive surveillance equipment of the kind promised by nanotechnology is likely to lower the costs, and increase the benefits, of invading other people’s privacy. We can reasonably expect that the availability of such technology will make it harder to maintain current privacy conventions. You and your neighbours may thus become tempted to shift from a pattern of behaviour under which you both respect each other’s privacy to a pattern under which you both invade each other’s privacy. After all, you’re both likely at least to be tempted to eavesdrop or sneak a peek, once in a while; and besides (or so you may reason), if your neighbour is likely snooping, why shouldn’t you too? Nanotechnology, then, may work to corrode extant social conventions – ethically useful social standards – associated with privacy.
Read the full paper yourself here.