ABSTRACT
The CHM concept has been emptied out and filled in time and again through the centuries. The normative version found in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 1979 Moon Treaty is but one version of the CHM. To flesh out the concept of the CHM for the human genome the background behind the Convention’s framework would be instructive on two counts. First, similar concerns on health and the economy prevail in the twenty-first century as did during the postwar years. Second, seeing beyond the elements of the CHM into the problems and issues that motivated States to take collective action to address systemic economic changes leads us to human rights approaches. As alluded to in the last section of the previous chapter, human rights play a central role in the governance of the human genome. In order to place a human genome CHM framework on a human rights scaffold, an investigation into how the CHM is connected to human rights is useful, and this is elaborated on in this chapter. In the next chapter, the notion of the hierarchy of human rights is taken up. Such a hierarchy exists in practice, in the existence of stronger civil and political rights and weaker economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR). It will be argued that, theoretically, a hierarchal system of human rights is acceptable, but the current hierarchical system is not justifiable.
