Scientists and the Sovereigns: The Distributive Justice Implications of Digital Sequence Information Governance Under the Convention on Biological Diversity

This chapter presents an insight into current negotiations of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) regarding the digitalization of genetic resources, from an ethics of technology perspective. The chapter gives an overview of the transition towards data-centric biological research and open science, and its implications for Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) policies, which consist of mechanisms that ensure fair access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable benefit-sharing from their utilization in research and development. Here, we examine value conflicts at the knowledge-governance interface, conceptualizing the CBD negotiations as a site that can be analyzed to provide a better understanding of the relationship between science, technology, and innovation policies, values, and distributive justice. In particular, we suggest that values regarding utilitarian notions of open science clash with sovereignty claims over so-called Digital Sequence Information (DSI) on genetic resources. We then apply a distributive justice lens to current debates about the modalities of a benefit-sharing system for DSI, illustrating how different normative approaches to distributive justice and criteria for the fair allocation of benefits underlie states’ and stakeholders’ political positions. The analysis concludes by discussing the need to consider the unequal scientific capabilities in the production of knowledge and calls for deeper reflection on value divergence in international Science, Technology, and Innovation policy-making processes.