Resources

The Global Observatory will bring together a curated collection of work centrally related to genome editing and other technologies bearing on the human future. These include scholarship, reports, significant media events, legal cases and expressions of creative thought that probe the meaning of humanness in light of advances in science and technology.

This collection serves the Observatory’s purpose of making accessible the diverse range of responses emerging around the world to developments in science and technology that have tended to be cloistered within a handful of countries and research communities.

This section is currently under development, with curated content and an interactive database to come. The following entries are examples only.

Key reports

National Academies (USA)/Royal Society, Heritable Human Genome Editing (2020)

Council of Europe Committee on Bioethics, Guide to Public Debate on Human Rights and Biomedicine (2019)

Deutscher Ethikrat (German Ethics Council), Intervening in the Human Germline (2019)

Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Genome Editing and Human Reproduction: Social and Ethical Issues (2018)

Council of Europe Committee on Bioethics, Statement on Genome Editing Technologies (2015)

Policy interventions

Andorno et al, “Geneva Statement on Heritable Human Genome Editing” (2020)

Comité Consultatif National d’Éthique, Deutscher Ethikrat, and Nuffield Council on Bioethics, “Joint Statement on the Ethics of Heritable Human Genome Editing” (2020)

Lander et al, “Adopt a Moratorium on Heritable Genome Editing” (2019)

Montoliu et al, “ARRIGE Arrives: Toward the Responsible Use of Genome Editing” (2018)

Chan et al, “Genome Editing Technologies and Human Germline Genetic Modification: The Hinxton Group Consensus Statement” (2015)

Baltimore et al, “A Prudent Path Forward for Genomic Engineering and Germline Gene Modification” (2015)

Scholarship

John H. Evans, The Human Gene Editing Debate (2020)

Françoise Baylis, Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing (2019)

Hudson et al, “Indigenous Perspectives and Gene Editing in Aotearoa New Zealand” (2019)

Public events

Advancing Human Rights in Biomedicine: Public Debate as a Tool for the Governance of New Technologies (2019)

Ethical, Societal, and Policy Issues in Germline Gene Editing (2019)

Second International Summit on Human Gene Editing (2018)

International Summit on Human Gene Editing (2015)

Opinion

Sufian and Garland-Thomson, “The Dark Side of CRISPR” (2021)

Fox et al, “Rewriting Human History and Empowering Indigenous Communities with Genome Editing Tools” (2020)

Editorial Board, New York Times, “Opinion: Should Scientists Toy with the Secret to Life?” (2019)

Legal texts

The “Oviedo Convention” — Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (1999)

Media

Television program: Human Nature (2020)

Limited series: “Unnatural Selection” (2019)

Creative arts

Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun (2021)

Emilia Tikka, ÆON: Trajectories of Longevity and CRISPR (2018)