Taking Revolutions Seriously: Rights, Risk and New Technologies
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X0901600102 |
| Published date | 01 March 2009 |
| Date | 01 March 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
16 MJ 1 (2009) 15
TAKING REVOLUTIONS SERIOUSLY:
RIGHTS, RISK AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES
T M*
ABSTRAC T
is paper uses ‘revolution’ a s a frame for examining rights and new technologie s. It
begins by try ing to pin down the meaning of key term s, principally ‘new technologie s’ and
‘revolution’. It fails in this task; nonetheless, it goes on to argue that something revolutionary
does se em to be underway in how human rig hts are viewed and valued. Describing thi s
phenomenon a s a new (anti-rights) ‘r ights revolution’, it call s for a ght-back by human
rights advocates. Two strategies to assist the ght-back are described in some d etail: the
rst focuses on bringing out ‘the dignity of choi ce’; the second on b ringing out ‘risk within
rights’.
Keywords: human rights; new technologies ; revolution; choice; dignity ; risk
§1. INTRODUCTION
My topic, revolution, is not the obvious choice for a lawyer; certa inly not for a lawyer
who works within a legal sys tem – the English one – known for its att achment to the
incremental and the pragmatic. My arg ument is not the most obvious eit her. ere
is, I will suggest, a revolution that needs to be taken seriously. However, it is not the
technological revolution or one of its component par ts (say, for example, the genet ic
revolution, the IT revolution or the reproductive revolution). Nor is it the st andard
rights re volution – in other words, the ascent of human r ights and t he enthusiasm for
the idea of law a s a system of rights t hat took hold around the world in the nal decade
of the 2 0th century. It se ems to me that these two revolutions are taken seriously : they
are ‘ in the open’ – they are label led as revolutions and we quibble about w hether and
* Professor of Law, University of Notti ngham, UK (therese.murphy@not tingham.ac.u k). I am grateful
to the Arts and Human ities Resea rch Counci l for f unding a broader res earch project on healt h and
human rights t hat kick starte d my interest in this a rea.
érèse Murphy
16 16 MJ 1 (2009)
why they deserve t his label, and about their consequences. W hat interests me is another
revolution, one that is inex tricably linked to t he technological revolution and the rights
one, but which has not been recognize d as revolutionary or, to be honest, much noted at
all outside crim inal justice circles. is ot her revolution is a new (anti) rights revolution
and, in thi s article, I aim to show not just that it ex ists but also that, if le un- or u nder-
recognized and therefore under-address ed, it could be the undoing of the original rights
revolution and the promise of rights as a tool for the regulat ion of new, or revolutionary,
technologies.
e argument develops as follows. Section 2 looks into the question of what counts as
a revolution, using the technological revolution and the original rights one as its subject-
matter. Sect ion 3 describes the new (anti) rights revolution, outli ning its sta nding and
explaining why it needs to be taken seriously. Section 4 addresses how human rights might
ght back, drawing out two particular possibi lities. e rst of these focuses on how we
– by which I mean human rights advocates – might bring out the dignity of choic e, the
idea being that thi s would challenge the claim that di gnity and choice are in a zero-sum
relationship a nd, moreover, that only the relentlessly selsh and the foolhardy choos e
choice. e second proposa l calls on human rights advocates to bring out risk within
rights – that is, to prioritize the task of exploring and explaining how risk is de signed-
into, or part of, human rights law, rather tha n always and everywhere in conict w ith it,
as we have recently been encouraged to believe.1 One nal introductory comment is in
order. If these suggestions concerning the dignity of choice and risk within rights sound,
in a ny way, revolutionary, let me say very clearly at the outset that they are not. ey
are part a nd parcel of the human rights way of thinking a nd, if they seem tinged by the
radical or new, the second rights revolution must be da ngerously strong.
§2. SHOULD WE TAKE THESE REVOLUTIONS SERIOUSLY?
References to revolution are ubiquitous in commentaries on new technologies; they
also crop up, albeit less frequently, in commentaries on rights and on the relationship
between rights and technologies. What should we make of this? Should we begin by
trying to gauge what cou nts as a revolution, and then look to see to what extent this
matches t he views being presented on rights, on technologies and on the relationship
between these two th ings? One tried and trusted strategy when den itions are needed is
to reach for a dictionary but that isn’t especial ly helpful here given t hat in the Compact
1 For a suggestion of cha nge, see President Oba ma’s inauguration add ress: ‘As for our common defense,
we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals . Our founding fathers…, faced with perils
we can scarcely imagine, draed a charter to assure the ru le of law and the rights of man, a charter
expanded by t he blood of generat ions. ose ideals still light the world, and we wil l not give t hem
up for expedienc e’s sake.’ Available at ww w.nytimes.com/2 009/01/20/us/politics/20te xt-obama.html
(accessed 17 March 200 9).
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