Why the idea of genomic sovereignty should be abandoned

The idea of genomic sovereignty entails that a nation state should control the genomic resources found in its territory as a national asset. This is established international law in the context of non-human genomic resources. However, some have argued that it should also be applied to human biological samples and genomic data. This raises some serious human rights concerns. In Mexico, the idea of genomic sovereignty was indeed applied in public policy on human genomic data. In our recent article, Dr Faith Kabata and I compare Mexico’s public policy experiment with a different approach, namely that of Finland. In contrast with the state-centred nature of genomic sovereignty, the approach adopted by Finland embraces private ownership of genomic data by local biobanks, subject to control of such data by the individual data subjects themselves. We suggest that this approach is more promising than genomic sovereignty, as it better aligns with the rights of individuals — in particular their right to participate in and benefit from scientific progress and its applications.