An International Framework Agreement on Scientific and Technological Innovation and Regulation

This paper - written for an edited volume addressing how law and policy can keep pace with highly dynamic scientific and technological innovation - proposes an international framework to coordinate and facilitate national responses to innovations that may create significant risks or pose social, cultural or ethical challenges, and to steer national regulatory responses toward greater effectiveness, efficiency, legitimacy and public-interest orientation. The paper suggests an international framework convention on innovation and regulation, which could be supplemented by specific protocols in particular areas, such as nanotechnology or synthetic biology, or on particular cross-cutting issues. It also suggests a set of institutions and procedures to encourage the production, sharing and assessment of early-stage information, steer national systems for science policy-making and regulation, and coordinate concrete regulatory responses. Of necessity, these institutions would operate at all three levels of global governance: inter-state, trans-governmental and transnational