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UNSW Law & Justice’s Initiative for Biolegality (IBL) examines the entanglement of law and biology in the 21st century. We research how this relationship orders our knowledge and regulates, allows or limits what can legally be done – or undone. 

We’re interested in how developments in the biosciences redefine what legally establishes nature, property, personhood, evidence, ³¾±ð²Ô²õÌý°ù±ð²¹, citizenship, community, reproduction, health, kinship and ‘life’ (or nonlife). Recent court cases – such as property claims on human genes (Myriad), the harmful impact of RoundUp weed-killer (Monsanto), or the CRISPR-Cas9 ‘editing’ of embryonic DNA – are examples of what’s at stake in this space.

We take a cross-disciplinary perspective on the changing boundaries between law and biology by interrogating how biology influences our common understanding of legality, morality and science in the age of biotechnology.

A few urgent examples of this development are:

• the rewriting of rights and privacy regarding access to global bio-banks of human DNA by insurance companies, governments and biotech companies 

• redefining ownership of human bio-material regarding population research, potential suspects or pharmaceutical patent regimes 

• shifting legal protection regimes of modified plants, living animals and CRISPR-Cas9 interventions in human embryos 

• increasing biosecurity risks of dual-use research. 

Members

• Dr Marc De Leeuw, Associate Professor
• Dr Gary Edmond, Professor
• Fleur Johns, Professor
• Dr Jennifer Moore, Associate Professor