‘Governing (Through) Rights: Statistics as Technologies of Governmentality’

An increasing amount of attention is being given to the use of human rights measurement indicators in monitoring ‘progress’ in rights and there is consequently a growing focus on statistics and information. This article concentrates on the use of statistics in rights discourse, with reference to the new human rights institution for the European Union: the Fundamental Rights Agency. The article has two main objectives: first, to show that statistics operate as technologies of governmentality – by explaining that statistics both govern rights and govern through rights. Second, the article discusses the implications that this has for rights discourse – rights become a discourse of governmentality, that is a normalizing and regulating discourse. In doing so, the article stresses the importance of critique and questioning new socio-legal methodologies, which involve the collection and dissemination of information and data (statistics), in rights discourse.

A Human Rights Perspective on Citizen Participation in the EU's Governance of New Technologies

This article considers the EU’s approach to citizen participation in the governance of new technologies from a human rights perspective. Noting that there is a dearth of insight on the interplay between citizen participation and human rights, the article sketches the essence of its own human rights perspective as being about empowerment. This perspective is brought to bear on EU discourse on citizen participation in the governance of new technologies. Analysis of the discourse—comprising law, citizen participation in EU governance and citizen/science relations, the ‘public understanding of science and technology’, risk and bioethics—reveals a disempowering ‘deficit model’ of citizens in need of education through their participation in governance. The analysis thus suggests that citizen participation in EU governance of new technologies is not truly informed by human rights, but is instead used as a legitimating technique.

Genomics and the impact of new technologies on the management of colorectal cancer

High-throughput genomic technologies have the potential to have a major impact on preclinical and clinical drug development and the selection and stratification of patients in clinical trials. These technologies, which are at varying stages of commercialization, include array-based comparative genomic hybridization, single-nucleotide polymorphism arrays, and (the most mature example) expression-based arrays. One of the rate-limiting steps in the routine clinical application of expression array-based technology is the need for suitable clinical samples. One of the major challenges moving forward, therefore, relates to the ability to use formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded--derived tissue in expression profiling-based approaches.

Technologies of Knowledge and Governance on the Front Lines of Emergency Services.

Using institutional ethnography, a sociology and critical method of inquiry used primarily in North America, this presentation discusses new forms and technologies of knowledge and governance – “forms of language, technologies of representation and communication, and text-based, objectified modes of knowledge through which local particularities are interpreted or rendered actionable in abstract, translocal terms” (McCoy, 2008: 701) on the front line of emergency medical services. I focus specifically on technologies central to health reforms that attempt to reshape how health care is delivered, experienced, and made accountable (Anantharaman, 2004; Ball, 2005; Alberta Health Services, 2008). In additional to exemplifying how institutional ethnography can be used to answer Rankin and Campbell’s (2006) call for additional research into “the social organization of information in health care and attention to the (often unintended) ways ‘such textual products may accomplish…ruling purposes but otherwise fail people and, moreover, obscure that failure’ (p. 182)” (cited in McCoy, 2008: 709), this presentation will introduce the audience to a critical approach to social inquiry that explores how knowledge is socially organized.

‘Symposium: New Technologies, European Law and Citizens’

This special issue seeks to draw attention to the relations between new technologies and European law (encompassing EU law and the law of the Council of Europe and its institutions), and some of the implications for citizens.

A New Analysis of Mars "Special Regions": Findings of the Second MEPAG Special Regions Science Analysis Group (SR-SAG2)

A committee of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) has reviewed and updated the description of Special Regions on Mars as places where terrestrial organisms might replicate (per the COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy). This review and update was conducted by an international team (SR-SAG2) drawn from both the biological science and Mars exploration communities, focused on understanding when and where Special Regions could occur. The study applied recently available data about martian environments and about terrestrial organisms, building on a previous analysis of Mars Special Regions (2006) undertaken by a similar team. Since then, a new body of highly relevant information has been generated from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (launched in 2005) and Phoenix (2007) and data from Mars Express and the twin Mars Exploration Rovers (all 2003). Results have also been gleaned from the Mars Science Laboratory (launched in 2011). In addition to Mars data, there is a considerable body of new data regarding the known environmental limits to life on Earth—including the potential for terrestrial microbial life to survive and replicate under martian environmental conditions. The SR-SAG2 analysis has included an examination of new Mars models relevant to natural environmental variation in water activity and temperature; a review and reconsideration of the current parameters used to define Special Regions; and updated maps and descriptions of the martian environments recommended for treatment as “Uncertain” or “Special” as natural features or those potentially formed by the influence of future landed spacecraft. Significant changes in our knowledge of the capabilities of terrestrial organisms and the existence of possibly habitable martian environments have led to a new appreciation of where Mars Special Regions may be identified and protected. The SR-SAG also considered the impact of Special Regions on potential future human missions to Mars, both as locations of potential resources and as places that should not be inadvertently contaminated by human activity. Key Words: Martian environments—Mars astrobiology—Extreme environment microbiology—Planetary protection—Exploration resources. Astrobiology 14, 887–968.