Let’s start with a really basic proposition: emerging technologies often represent unknown risks to human health and the environment; before these technologies are introduced into the body or environment, the safety of these new technologies and products must be...
Patent law is a regime of intellectual property, which provides exclusive rights regarding scientific inventions, which are novel, inventive, and useful. There has been much debate over the limits of patentable subject matter relating to emerging technologies. The...
On 6 May 2004, the then prime minister of Australia, John Howard, and the then industry minister, Ian Macfarlane, were participating in a meeting of the Lower Emissions Technology Advisory Group, which comprised CEOs of the major fossil fuel producing and consuming...
I recently attended an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) seminar on the risk assessment and risk management of nanomaterials. This was an eye-opening experience that graphically illustrated the extent of corporate influence over...
Corporations are involved in every area of our lives. In our education, health, welfare and criminal justice systems, they are ever-present. So obvious is this ‘fact’ of life that it is often only in moments of crisis – such as the recent Hazelwood coal...