@article{2021:kunz:opening_ac,
title = {Opening Access, Closing the Knowledge Gap? Analysing GC No. 25 on the Right to Science and Its Implications for the Global Science System in the Digital Age},
year = {2021},
note = {The Corona pandemic as never before shows the advantages of Open
Science and Open Access (OA), understood as the unrestricted access to
research data, software and publications over the internet. It might
accelerate the long-predicted “access revolution” in the academic
publishing system towards a system in which scientific publications
are freely available for readers over the internet. This paradigm
shift, for which the “flipping” of this journal is but one of many
examples, is underway, with major research funding organisations at
the national and international levels massively supporting it. The
call for OA has now also been taken up by the Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, which in its recent General Comment (GC)
No. 25 explicitly asks states to promote OA. Following the line of
argument of the OA movement, the Committee finds that OA is beneficial
to democracy, scientific progress and furthermore a tool to bridge the
“knowledge gap”. The aim of this paper is to critically examine
the GC and its implications for the global science system in the
digital age. It argues that the great merit of the GC lies in
highlighting that “benefitting” from science includes access to
science as such and not only to its material outcomes. This
underscores the independent meaning of the right to science which so
far was primarily seen as an enabler for other social rights. However,
when it comes to OA, the GC has problematic flaws. It simply assumes
that OA is beneficial to the right to science, overlooking that the OA
model which is likely to become the global standard risks to benefit
the already privileged, namely researchers and publishers of wealthy
institutions in the Global North, further sidelining those at the
margins. Rather than narrowing existing gaps, it risks to further
deepen them. In order to remain meaningful in the face of the
fundamental criticism it faces, human rights law needs to address
systemic issues and inequalities – in the science system and beyond.},
journal = {Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht / Heidelberg Journal of International Law},
pages = {23--46},
author = {Kunz, Raffaela},
volume = {81},
number = {1}
}