Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-86b6f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-09T16:30:21.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 5 - Legal Regulation of Technology

Supporting Innovation, Managing Risk, and Respecting Values

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2019

By
Roger Brownsword
Edited by
Todd L. Pittinsky
Todd L. Pittinsky
Affiliation:
Stony Brook University, State University of New York
Get access

Summary

Legal and regulatory responses to emerging technologies vary from one technology to another, from one legal system to another, and from one time to another. Although under some legal systems, the response to a particular technology might be restrictive, under others it might be permissive; even facilitative. Sometimes the regulatory focus is a novel process; at other times, it is a novel product or a particular use or application. Some regulatory cultures tend to be precautionary, others tend to be proactionary, and others respond case by case, providing no simple pattern or stock response.

Different technologies, moreover, elicit different kinds and different degrees of concern. Fukuyama (2002) famously expressed deep moral concern about millennial developments in human biotechnology (that threatened to compromise human dignity), but much less concern about the possible threats to privacy and equality presented by information technology.

Type
Chapter
Information
Science, Technology, and Society
New Perspectives and Directions
 , pp. 109 - 137
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annas, G. J., Andrews, L. B., & Isasi, R. M. (2002). Protecting the endangered human: Toward an international treaty prohibiting cloning and inheritable alterations. American Journal of Law & Medicine, 28, 151–178.Google Scholar
Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 US 576 (2013).Google Scholar
Beyleveld, D., & Brownsword, R. (1993). Mice, morality and patents. London, England: Common Law Institute of Intellectual Property.Google Scholar
Beyleveld, D., & Brownsword, R. (2001). Human dignity in bioethics and biolaw. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Beyleveld, D., Brownsword, R., & Llewelyn, M. (2000). The morality clauses of the Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions: Conflict, compromise, and the patent community. In Goldberg, R. & Lonbay, J. (Eds.), Pharmaceutical medicine, biotechnology and European law (pp. 157–181). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bhuta, N., Beck, S., Geiss, R., Liu, H-Y., & Kress, C. (Eds.) (2016). Autonomous weapons systems: Law, ethics, policy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Biobank, . (2017). About. Retrieved from www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/about-biobank-uk/Google Scholar
Bonnefon, J.-F., Shariff, A., & Rahwan, I. (2016). The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles. Science, 352, 1573–1576. doi:10.1126/science.aaf2654CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brownsword, R. (2003). Bioethics today, bioethics tomorrow: Stem cell research and the dignitarian alliance. Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, 17(2), 15–51. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/98ae/1999aabf0d9cec3168acebf12cef007cf120.pdfGoogle Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2006). Cloning, zoning, and the harm principle. In McLean, S. (Ed.), First, do no harm (pp. 527–542). Aldershot, England: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2008). Rights, regulation and the technological revolution. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2009). Property in human tissue: Triangulating the issue. In Steinman, M., Sykora, P., & Wiesing, U. (Eds.), Altruism reconsidered: Exploring new approaches to property in human tissue (pp. 93–104). Aldershot, England: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2010). Regulatory cosmopolitanism: Clubs, commons, and questions of coherence (TILT Working Paper No. 18). Tilburg, Netherlands: Tilburg University.Google Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2011). Lost in translation: Legality, regulatory margins, and technological management. Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 26, 1321–1365.Google Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2013). Human dignity, human rights, and simply trying to do the right thing. In McCrudden, C. (Ed.), Understanding human dignity (pp. 345–358). Oxford, England: British Academy/Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2014a). Patents and intellectual property rights. In Moellendorf, D. & Widdows, H. (Eds.), The handbook of global ethics (pp. 354–367). London, England: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2014b). Regulatory coherence—a European challenge. In Purnhagen, K. & Rott, P. (Eds.), Varieties of European economic law and regulation: Essays in honour of Hans Micklitz (pp. 235–258). New York, NY: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2016a). Law as a moral judgment: The domain of jurisprudence, and technological management. In Capps, P. & Pattinson, S. D. (Eds.), Ethical rationalism and the law (pp. 109–130). Oxford, England: Hart.Google Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2016b). Technological management and the rule of law. Law, Innovation and Technology, 8, 100–140. doi:10.1080/17579961.2016.1161891Google Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2017a). Field, frame and focus: Methodological issues in the new legal world. In van Gestel, R., Micklitz, H., & Rubin, E. (Eds.), Rethinking legal scholarship (pp. 112–172). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2017b) From Erewhon to Alpha Go: For the sake of human dignity should we destroy the machines? Law, Innovation and Technology, 9, 117–153. doi:10.1080/17579961.2017.1303927CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2017c). Law, liberty and technology. In Brownsword, R., Scotford, E., & Yeung, K. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of law, regulation and technology (pp. 41–68). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brownsword, R. (2018). The e-commerce directive, consumer transactions, and the digital single market: Questions of regulatory fitness, regulatory disconnection and rule redirection. In Grundmann, S. & Kull, I. (Eds.), European contract law in the digital age (Vol. 3). Cambridge, England: Intersentia. Retrieved from https://oigus.ut.ee/sites/default/files/oi/brownsword.pdfGoogle Scholar
Butenko, A., & Larouche, P. (2015). Regulation for innovativeness or regulation of innovation? Law, Innovation and Technology, 7, 52–82. doi:10.1080/17579961.2015.1052643CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carr, N. (2015). The glass cage. London, England: Vintage.Google Scholar
Collingridge, D. (1980). The social control of technology. New York, NY: Frances Pinter.Google Scholar
Dau-Schmidt, K. G. (2017). Trade, commerce, and employment: The evolution of the form and regulation of the employment relationship in response to the new information technology. In Brownsword, R., Scotford, E., & Yeung, K. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of law, regulation and technology (Chapter 43). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199680832.013.64Google Scholar
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 US 303 (1980).Google Scholar
Drahos, P. (2002). Information feudalism: Who owns the knowledge economy? London, England: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Duwell, M., Braavig, J., Brownsword, R., & Mieth, D. (Eds.) (2014). Cambridge handbook of human dignity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ellickson, R. C. (1991). Order without law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
European Commission (2016). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Online platforms and the digital single market: Opportunities and challenges for Europe. Retrieved from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52016DC0288Google Scholar
European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (2007). Opinion on the ethical aspects of nanomedicine (Opinion No. 21). Brussels, Belgium: European Commission.Google Scholar
Ezrachi, A., & Stucke, M. E. (2016). Virtual competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friberg, S., & Dufwa, B. W. (2010). The development of traffic liability in Sweden. In Martin-Casals, M. (Ed.), The development of liability in relation to technological change (pp. 190–227). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, F. (2002). Our posthuman future. London, England: Profile Books.Google Scholar
Fuller, L. L. (1969). The morality of law (Rev. ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Heald, P. (2014). How copyright keeps works disappeared. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 11, 829–866. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2290181CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hildebrandt, M. (2015). Smart technologies and the end(s) of law. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubbard, F. P. (2014). “Sophisticated robots”: Balancing liability, regulation, and innovation. Florida Law Review, 66, 1803–1872. Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2027&context=law_facpubGoogle Scholar
Huxley, A. (2007). Brave new world. London, England: Vintage Books. (Original work published 1932.)Google Scholar
Jasanoff, S. (2005). Designs on nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jasanoff, S. (2016). The ethics of invention. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Keen, A. (2015). The Internet is not the answer. London, England: Atlantic Books.Google Scholar
Lee, M. (2009). Beyond safety? The broadening scope of risk regulation. Current Legal Problems, 62, 242–285. doi:10.1093/clp.62.1.242Google Scholar
Lee, R. (2005). GM resistant: Europe and the WTO Panel dispute on biotech products. In Gunning, J. & Holm, S. (Eds.), Ethics, law and society (Vol. 1, pp. 131–140). Aldershot, England: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Lessig, L. (1999). Code and other laws of cyberspace. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Mandel, G. N. (2009). Regulating emerging technologies. Law, Innovation and Technology, 1, 75–92. doi:10.1080/17579961.2009.11428365Google Scholar
Moon, A., Calisgan, E., Bassani, C., Ferreira, F., Operto, F., Veruggio, G. … Van der Loos, H. F. M. (2016). The open roboethics initiative and the elevator-riding robot. In Calo, R., Froomkin, A. M., & Kerr, I. (Eds.), Robot law (pp. 131–162). Cheltenham, England: Elgar.Google Scholar
Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything, click here. London, England: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2002a). The ethics of patenting DNA. London, England: Author.Google Scholar
Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2002b). Genetics and human behaviour: The ethical context. London, England: Author.Google Scholar
Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2012). Emerging biotechnologies: Technology, choice and the public good. London, England: Author.Google Scholar
Oliver Brüstle v. Greenpeace eV, ECJ C-34/10 (2011).Google Scholar
Orwell, G. (1954). 1984. London, England: Penguin Books. (Original work published 1949.)Google Scholar
Pasquale, F. (2015). The black box society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plomer, A. (2012). After Brüstle: EU Accession to the ECHR and the future of European patent law. Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, 2, 110–135. doi:10.4337/qmjip.2012.02.01CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plomer, A. (2015). Patents, human rights and access to science. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, G. (2009). The drafting history of the European biotechnology directive. In Plomer, A. & Torremans, P. (Eds.), Embryonic stem cell patents (pp. 3–26). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut economics. London, England: Random House Business Books.Google Scholar
Reidenberg, J. R. (1997–1998) Lex informatica: The formulation of information policy rules through technology. Texas Law Review, 76, 553–593. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7f22/c171859ac1885ae9afa3afc3373f197aa133.pdfGoogle Scholar
Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, A., Chapin, F. S., III, Lambin, E., … Foley, J. (2009). Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society, 14, 32. Retrieved from www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/Google Scholar
Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering (2004). Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: Opportunities and uncertainties (RS Policy Document No. 19/04). London, England: Author.Google Scholar
Sayre, F. B. (1933). Public welfare offences. Columbia Law Review, 33, 55–88.Google Scholar
Swire, P., & Litan, R. (1998). None of your business: World data flows, electronic commerce and the European privacy directive. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Tran, J. L. (2015). To bioprint or not to bioprint. North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology, 17, 123–178. Retrieved from http://ncjolt.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Tran_Final.pdfGoogle Scholar
Wachter, R. (2015). The digital doctor. New York, NY: Mc-Graw Hill Education.Google Scholar
Wallach, W. (2015). A dangerous master. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Weaver, J. F. (2014). Robots are people too. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. (2015). Genetics, crime and justice. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Wolff, J. (2010). Five types of risky situation. Law, Innovation and Technology, 2, 151–163. doi:10.5235/175799610794046177Google Scholar
Zittrain, J. (2008). The future of the Internet. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Zuboff, S. (2015). Big other: Surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization. Journal of Information Technology, 30, 75–89. doi:10.1057/jit.2015.5CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×