ABSTRACT
This chapter debates the future of human rights in light of new technologies, and addresses in particular the impact of digital technology, artificial intelligence, the pandemic, and bioengineering. The right to health must be enjoyed without discrimination on the grounds of race, age, ethnicity or any other status. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet addressed the perils of human rights in the digital age in a 2019 keynote speech in New York. “Elemental human rights” considers the implications of surveillance capitalism and its instrumentarian power for the prospects of human freedom. Genome editing should, at the minimum, be subject to compliance with human dignity and human rights, as well as to a strict risk/benefit analysis which balances the interests of the future individual, of their parents and those of society, humanity and future generations.
