KEY ISSUES: DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

While proponents of unrestrained technological innovation are often quick to highlight its potential for eliminating world hunger, eradicating pollution, curing disease, providing clean water, and offering cheap alternative energy on a global scale, such possibilities can only become reality if there is the political will, governance structures, and private investment in place to encourage them. If left solely to the operation of market forces, however, innovation in the emerging technologies arena will be driven by the demands and desires of those consumers who are willing and able to pay for them, rather than the public good. And, as a result, developing nations are likely to be shut out, because such novel technologies are generally costly to research and develop, expensive to purchase and implement, and require an adequate infrastructure to create and operationalize. Consequently, the already obvious gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" will broaden and deepen, with humanitarian needs remaining inadequately addressed and economic prosperity and technological benefit flowing to the producers and purchasers of the high-tech, consumer-oriented innovations.

Role of Patents
No discussion of emerging technologies innovation and access is complete without an acknowledgement of the significant role played by intellectual property rights, which act to both promote and discourage research and R&D investment, and, ultimately, access to the resulting innovations. On one hand, patents encourage innovation by enabling the innovator to perfect a property right in the invention, which can then be used in many ways, including generating profits from the invention. On the other hand, patents can also be used to stifle further innovation or inflate the price of innovations, thus limiting access to them, by creating monopolies. For example, as has been most recently seen with HIV drugs, patents influence whether or not much-needed medical breakthroughs are accessible in developing nations. Additionally, patent-created monopolies are of concern when the patent in question is overly broad ­ covering not only the innovation but also other potential innovations and ideas critical to further development - or when multiple patents owned by different individuals or entities exist, creating a "thicket" of overlapping patents - making ownership rights unclear. Furthermore, patents can restrain technological advances when they preclude access to basic building blocks of innovation, such as fundamental scientific facts or naturally occurring products, such as human genes.

Some Specific Examples of Unequal Access and Emerging Technologies
Nanotechnology may be today's most ballyhooed example of an emerging technology that is poised to drive change. As a result, it may contribute to the greatest divide between the "haves" and "have-nots." A 2004 report by the U.K.'s Royal Society, entitled Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties, highlighted the importance of this particular issue and concluded that all levels of society should be engaged in public discussion. While nanotechnology may offer the potential for purifying water to provide instant, inexpensive access to drinkable water, improving drug development and delivery systems to more effectively treat deadly diseases like malaria and tuberculosis, and creating cheap, powerful computing methods to increase global access to information, these public good applications must compete for R&D resources with more lucrative consumer product applications, such as nano-enhanced cosmetics, "self-cleaning" windows, and stain-resistant fabrics.

New developments in neuroscience could cause a divide of a slight different complexion if access to "smart drugs" and human intellectual "enhancements" provide an opportunity for individuals to become "better than well" and exceed "normal" human capacities. As noted in many articles and reports, including a 2004 report entitled Neurocognitive Enhancement: What can we do and what should we do?, neurological pharmaceuticals drugs are being used - or abused - to increase the mental capabilities of healthy individuals. It is not difficult to imagine a potential future where smart drugs and neuro-augmentation become the status quo and those who eschew them become disadvantaged in school and work, and, therefore, become socially marginalized.

In both cases illustrated above, as well as numerous others that have yet to come to light, such concerns should be address through well-informed, ongoing, public discussion and managed by appropriate, proactive governance initiatives that result from such dialogue in order to prevent a widening, deepening, or novel of the gap between "haves" and "have-nots."