Synthetic Biology: A Driving Force of Innovation in Law?

Abstract

Law is changing. Although both specialists and society as a whole often act as if it is an un-changing monolith, any rational commentator must note that it has evolved over time. Changes do occur, in doctrine, in procedure, in jurisprudential understanding, and in legal education. The factors which drive innovation in law include social transformation, cultural change, and, importantly, the technological possibilities of the times for creating, storing and applying legal information. New technologies can also require new doctrinal developments. Such changes often do not come easily for the legal system. The myth of stability is maintained in part because the acceptance by the public rests on this assumption. It remains a myth, nonetheless. The impact of innovation on law is clearly two-fold: on the one side, innovation invests the way law is created, managed, and applied. On the other side, the emersion of new technologies calls for a reshaping of existing legal norms in specific fields. The book is divided into two parts. The first one offers a general overview on the systemic technologically-driven change law is going to face in the next few years. In the second part, issues like robotics, genetics, ICTs, Internet, protection of intellectual property rights, synthetic biology are presented as a laboratory bench of scientific and technological innovation which calls for legal innovation. This book, together with the course Innovating Legal Studies and Practice, established at the University of Pavia, is one of the principal outcomes of a two-year project funded by Cariplo Foundation (Fondazione Cariplo, Milan). ; Peer reviewed