LAW 829: Emerging Technologies and the Law Short Course
This course will study the legal response to emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, personalized medicine, biotechnology, human enhancement technologies, surveillance technologies, neuroscience, synthetic biology, and virtual reality. The course will examine how the legal system attempts to manage the risks, promote the benefits and address social and ethical concerns presented by these various new technologies. While exploring and drawing on specific examples from each of these technologies, this course will seek to draw some general lessons on how the legal system, as well as individual attorneys, can best address such new technologies. Some of the generic lessons that will be considered include the need to make decisions about uncertain risks, develop more flexible and innovative governance models, balance expert versus public perceptions, incorporate a broader range of factors and concerns into regulatory decision-making, and address issues on a global scale. [1]
