Synthetic Biology and Human Rights in Europe. A Comparison between the EU and the Council of Europe Systems, in the Fields of Health and Environment

The development of SB arises many legal and ethical issues. This paper analyzes the possible legal implications of use of SB in Europe from the point of view of human rights, especially of the right to health and the right to healthy environment. In the European context SB will meet the system of protection of human rights set forth both by EU law and by the instruments of the Council of Europe (mainly the Oviedo Convention, the European Social Charter and the European Convention of Human Rights). In those two systems human rights may be enforced by the Court of Luxembourg (CJEU) and the Court of Strasbourg (ECtHR). After analyzing the main case law of both courts on the health and the environment, I argue that EU law will not probably interfere with the development of SB, whereas the ECHR and the ECtHR show a perfectly operative system of protection of H.R. which may intersect the journey of SB in the future.