Genetics, Robotics, Law, Punishment, 2014

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Nella Sezione scientifica della Collana IusQuid sono pubblicate opere sottoposte a revisione valutativa con il procedimento in «doppio cieco» (double blind peer review process), nel rispetto dell’anonimato dell’autore e dei due revisori. I revisori sono professori di provata esperienza scientifica, italiani o stranieri, o ricercatori di istituti di ricerca notoriamente affidabili. Il revisore che accetti l’incarico di valutazione, formula il suo giudizio tramite applicazione di punteggio da 1 a 10 (sufficienza: 6 punti) in relazione ad ognuno dei seguenti profili: struttura (coerenza e chiarezza dell’impianto logico, metodologia); riferimenti normativi, dottrinali e giurisprudenziali; correttezza espositiva; argomentazione critica e propositiva; bibliografia; rilevanza scientifica nel panorama nazionale (e internazionale, se ricorre l’esigenza relativa a questo profilo). Precisa se l’opera sia pubblica- bile senza modifiche o previo apporto di modifiche, o se sia da rivedere, oppure da rigettare, e comunque dà opportune indicazioni. Nel caso di giudizio discordante fra i due revisori, la decisione finale sarà assunta dal direttore responsabile della Collana e dal comitato scientifico, salvo casi particolari in cui il direttore medesimo provvederà a nominare un terzo revisore cui rimettere la valutazione dell’elaborato. Le valutazioni sono trasmesse, rispettando l’anonimato del revisore, all’autore dell’opera. L’elenco dei revisori e le schede di valutazione sono conservati presso la sede della Collana, a cura del direttore. Il termine per lo svolgimento dell’incarico di valutazione accettato è di venti giorni, salvo espressa proroga, decorsi i quali, previa sollecitazione e in assenza di osservazioni negative entro dieci giorni, il direttore della Collana e il comitato scientifico, qualora ritengano l’o- pera meritevole, considerano approvata la proposta. Sono escluse dalla valutazione opere di componenti del comitato scientifico e del direttore responsabile. A discrezione del direttore responsabile e del comitato scientifico sono escluse dalla valutazione opere di indubbia meri- tevolezza o comunque di contenuto da ritenersi già adeguatamente valutato in sede accademica con esito positivo, per esempio scritti pubblicati su invito o di autori di prestigio, atti di particolari convegni, opere collettive di provenienza accademica. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

JusQuid sezione scientifica

Comitato scientifico Paolo Benciolini, Lorenza Carlassare, Marcello M. Fracanzani, Manuela Mantovani, Francesco Moschetti, Elisabetta Palermo Fabris, Paolo Patrono, Silvio Riondato, Rino Rumiati, Daniele Rodriguez, John A. E. Vervaele, Paolo Zatti

Direttore responsabile Silvio Riondato

• E. Pavanello, La responsabilità penale delle persone giuridiche di diritto pubblico, 2012 (e-book). • S. Riondato (a cura di), Dallo Stato Costituzionale Democratico di Diritto allo Stato di Polizia? Attualità del "Problema penale". Nel trentesimo dall'Ultima Lezione di Giuseppe Bettiol, 2012. • L. Pasculli, Le misure di prevenzione del terrorismo e dei traffici criminosi internazionali, 2012. • S. Riondato, R. Alagna (a cura di), Diritto penale della Repubblica di Turchia. Criminal Law of the Republic of Turkey, 2012. • R. Borsari, Reati contro la Pubblica Amministrazione e discrezionalità amministrativa. Dai casi in materia di pubblici appalti, 2012. • C. Sarra, D. Velo Dalbrenta (a cura di), Res iudicata. Figure della positività giuridica nell’esperienza contemporanea, 2013. • R. Alagna, S. Riondato (a cura di), Studi sulla riforma penale post-socialista. Studies on the Criminal Law Reform in the Post-Soviet Countries, 2013. • R. Borsari (a cura di), Profili critici del diritto penale tributario, 2013. • R. Borsari, Diritto penale, creatività e co-disciplinarità. Banchi di prova dell’esperienza giudiziale, 2013. • S. Riondato, Cornici di «famiglia» nel diritto penale italiano, 2014. • I.G. Antonini, La duplice natura della società pubblica: tra garanzia della concorrenza e alternativa all’appalto, 2014. • D. Provolo, S. Riondato, F. Yenisey (eds.), Genetics, Robotics, Law, Punishment, 2014. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

The publication of this volume has been funded by the University of Padua, within the Young Scholars Project (Progetto Giovani Studiosi) on “The impact of genetics on criminal law: the protection of genetic identity and genetic privacy” hosted by the Department of Public, International and Community Law of the same University

Prima edizione 2014, Padova University Press

Titolo originale Genetics, Robotics, Law, Punishment

Redazione Francesca Moro

Progetto grafico Padova University Press

Immagine di copertina “Collegio dei dottori giuristi padovani che rende parere al Doge”. Dall’affresco di Gino Severini nella Sala della Facoltà di Giurisprudenza - Palazzo del Bo, Padova.

Prima edizione digitale dicembre 2014.

ISBN 978-88-6938-019-8

Tutti i diritti di traduzione, riproduzione e adattamento, totale o parziale, con qualsiasi mezzo (comprese le copie fotostatiche e i microfilm) sono riservati. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

GENETICS, ROBOTICS, LAW, PUNISHMENT

edited by

Debora Provolo - Silvio Riondato - Feridun Yenisey

PADOVA UNIVERSITY PRESS File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

To the beloved memory of Joachim Reinhardt Vogel File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Table of Contents

Debora Provolo Presentation of the research p. 13

PART I HUMAN GENETICS AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES BETWEEN LAW AND SCIENCE

Carlos María Romeo Casabona Genetics and biotechnology: an overview of criminal law in a global legal p. 17 perspective

Mario Zatti Are we truly free? p. 43 Siamo veramente liberi? p. 69

Carlo Casonato, Marta Tomasi Genetics and constitutional rights: perspectives and criticalities p. 93 Genetica e diritti costituzionali: prospettive e profili problematici p. 111

Emrah Nikerel Small DNA, big wonder: an overview of DNA sequencing technologies p. 127

Gülay Bulut Law and genetics p. 137

Stefano Canestrari “Bio-penal law” and issues of beginning of human life p. 145 “Biodiritto penale” e questioni di inizio vita p. 159

Adelmo Manna The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character and the so-called criminal paternalism p. 171 File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Lorenzo Pasculli Genetics, robotics and crime prevention p. 187

Debora Provolo Protection of personal data and penal instruments to contrast the new forms of genetic discrimination p. 205 Protezione dei dati personali e strumenti penalistici di contrasto alle nuove forme di discriminazione su base genetica p. 229

Feridun Yenisey Genetics related regulations in Turkish criminal law and criminal procedure p. 253

Natalya Krylova, Gleb Bogush Genetics: general overview of Russian criminal law p. 261

Zsolt Szomora The protection of human genome by means of criminal law in Hungary and related issues on the punishability of incest p. 269

Leonardo Mazza The new frontiers of criminal law p. 277 Le nuove frontiere del diritto penale p. 281

PART II BEHAVIORAL GENETICS, NEUROSCIENCES AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY

Andrea Manfrinati, Rino Rumiati Morality and immorality: a neuroscientific perspective p. 287

Giuseppe Sartori, Cristina Scarpazza, Pietro Pietrini The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia: neuroimaging and forensic consideration p. 293

Francesca Zanuso In search of Mister Hyde. A few reflections on forensic genetics and the penal rationalism p. 313 Alla ricerca di Mister Hyde. Alcune considerazioni sulla genetica forense e sul razionalismo penale p. 325 File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Roberto E. Kostoris Genetics, neurosciences and criminal trial: short sparse considerations p. 337 Genetica, neuroscienze e processo penale: brevi considerazioni sparse p. 343

Riccardo Borsari Neurosciences, genetics and criminal law. Rhapsodic reflections p. 347 Neuroscienze, genetica e diritto penale. Considerazioni rapsodiche p. 359

Deborah W. Denno Genetics: overview of United States criminal law p. 369

Óscar Morales García Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings p. 411

PART III HUMAN ENHANCEMENT, ROBOTICS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Francesco Salerno International protection and limits to the right to self-determination for the bio- technological strengthening of one’s own person p. 437 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione per il potenziamento bio-tecnologico della propria persona p. 459

Maria Beatrice Magro Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law p. 477 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale p. 499

Paolo Moro Biorobotics and fundamental rights. Issues and limits of artificial intelligence p. 517 Biorobotica e diritti fondamentali. Problemi e limiti dell’intelligenza artificiale p. 533

Amedeo Santosuosso If the agent is not necessarily a human being. Some legal thoughts p. 545

Eric Hilgendorf Modern technology and legal compliance p. 563 File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ugur Tumerdem Telerobotic surgery: a look back at the dawn of a new era p. 577

Silvio Riondato Robotics and criminal law (robots, hybrids, chimeras and “technological animals”) p. 589 Robotica e diritto penale (robots, ibridi, chimere e “animali tecnologici”) p. 599 File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Presentation of the research

Debora Provolo

The research Genetics, Robotics, Law, Punishment springs from the Young Scholars Project (Progetto Giovani Studiosi) entitled “The impact of genetics on criminal law: the protection of genetic identity and genetic privacy” which I got funded by the University of Padua. The contributions collected here are the outcome of a fertile path of common reflection that involved, with an inter-disciplinary and comparative approach, authoritative scholars of different scientific extraction, to whom goes the most vivid appreciation. Fundamental moments of this research, rich of precious stimuli, have been two international conferences, “Genetics, Robotics, Law, Punishment”, from September, 30th to October, 1st 2013 (University of Padua, both branches of Padua and Treviso), which I organised and co-directed together with professor Silvio Riondato, and “Genetics, Robotics and Criminal Law”, on April, 18th 2014 (Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi Istanbul), organised and directed by professor Feridun Yenisey, the proceedings and contributions of which are also collected in this volume. Special thanks to Lorenzo Pasculli for the masterly work of translation. The Authors dedicate the research published here to the memory of the dear friend and colleague Joachim Reinhardt Vogel, professor of criminal law at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, who, on August, 17th 2013 in Venice, has been taken away from the love of his dear ones and from the friendship and respect of us all. The papers offer an overview on several and complex aspects of “impact” that genetics and robotics have on law, and on criminal law, in particular. It is therefore an apparatus that aims at inter-disciplinarity both within the legal field and out of it. Indeed, the subject lends itself to be dealt with from different perspectives, capable of reciprocal interaction, especially from that of biology and medical science, that of the various technologies, that of philosophy, that of law. From a strictly legal point of view, the suggestions are many. The problems related to genetics and robotics interest, to keep within the main fields, international and European law, constitutional law, private law, criminal law, civil and criminal procedure, administrative law. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

14 Presentation of research

Genetics and robotics are characterised by strong developmental dynamics, in which reaching extraordinary achievements goes together with the constant proceeding towards ever more advanced results. These two sectors are unavoidably destined to fuel both ethical-philosophical reflection and the debate on the legal implications of the most recent scientific achievements. The hopes with which the many, potential and effective, benefits connected to the “genetic revolution” and to the new technologies of biorobotics are welcomed are accompanied by the strong worries for the prejudicial effects for the fundamental rights of the human being and the future generations. A thorough reflection on the role of law in the regulation of science and on the adequacy of the “traditional” legal instruments (and especially of criminal law) is demanded in order to face the new forms of aggressions to the rights of the person, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to protect “new” fundamental rights emerging as a consequence of scientific and technological developments, or to catch new modalities of harm, and also to assess the validity of classic penal institutes. For instance, we need to discuss the influence of the most recent achievements of neurosciences on imputability. Thus, a “vital organ” of criminal law is interested: culpability. However, it is an impervious ground, not only for the underlying bioethical implications, but also because of the possibility of intervening on the individual genetic inheritance – by manipulating it, by altering it, even by performing man- machine hybridisations –, as well as the possibility of “reading” its characters – by establishing the presence of genetic variations responsible of present pathologies or of pathologies which might appear in the future, or of a predisposition of the individual to engage in certain behaviours – forces lawyers to confront the complexity and the uncertainties of biomedicine and of the most modern technologies. The above-sketched multiform framework is reflected in the variety of the writings collected here. These range from medically assisted procreation to behavioural genetics and neurosciences, to forensic genetics, to the penal protection of genetic data also in the light of new computer technologies, to artificial intelligence, to the biotechnological strengthening of the person, to discrimination based on genetics. The asset offered by the plentiful contributions of many illustrious scholars coming from different Countries is precious. Some of them dedicated most of their studies precisely to the subjects of this research. This provides us with interesting cues for reflection in a comparative perspective. Given the interdisciplinary vocation of this meeting, authoritative scholars of extra-legal fields explain the strictly scientific aspects of the relevant topics. Thus, all this turns into a profitable occasion to stimulate the critical reflection on a central theme for contemporary criminal law. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Part I Human genetics and new technologies between law and science File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Genetics and biotechnology: an overview of criminal law in a global legal perspective1

Carlos María Romeo Casabona

Table of contents: 1. Criminal policy in relation to genetics and biotechnology. – 1.1. Preventive Criminal Law or merely symbolic Criminal Law on genetics and biotechnology. – 1.2. Is the punishment of future-oriented crimes a symptom of a merely symbolic Criminal Law? – 1.3. Criminal Law on biotechnology, going beyond its symbolic value. – 1.4. Reasonably satisfying the preventive role of Criminal Law in relation to human biotechnology. – 2. Relaxing the principle of maximum certainty in defining offences. The influence of International Law on the configuration of “biotechnological” crimes. – 2.1. The United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning. – 2.2. The legal regulatory framework established by the Council of Europe on the in vitro embryo. – 3. Adapting the description of criminal action techniques and penal sanctions as a preventive way or mechanism for a merely symbolic Criminal Law. – 3.1. The identification or configuration of legal goods that are worthy of protection by Criminal Law. – 3.2. Delimitation of the material object of the offence.− 3.3. Selection of actions or omissions deserving punishment. – 3.4. Selecting the offence’s technical structure.– 3.5. The specific description of the criminal action or omission. – 3.6. Unlawfulness. – 3.7. Fixing legal penalties: proportionality and suitability. – 3.8. Special Criminal Law versus common penal code.

1. Criminal policy in relation to genetics and biotechnology2 1.1. Preventive Criminal Law or merely symbolic Criminal Law on genetics and biotechnology The convenience and even the efficacy of Criminal Law as a resource to fight

1 The departure point of this work is another which was first published at the “Revue Internationale de Droit Pénal”, nr. 82, 2011, p. 83 ff. 2 Abbreviations: AIDP: International Association of Criminal Law. AP: “Actualidad Penal”. CHRB: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine. ECHR: European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. ECtHR: European Court of Human Rights. PC, PCs; Penal Code, Penal Codes. NFP: “Nuevo Foro Penal” journal. RIDP: “Revue Internationale de Droit Pénal”. LawHuGenRev “Law and the Human Genome Review/Revista de Derecho y Genoma Humano”. ZRP: Zeitschrift für Rechtspolitik. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

18 Genetics and biotechnology against socially undesirable conduct that may arise from biotechnology has been put into question. This discussion needs to be viewed from within another wider debate as to whether Criminal Law is a legitimate means of intervening against the new dangers and risks linked to more complex activities within society3. These include economic and financial activities controlled by secret criminal organisations that make it impossible to identify the individuals responsible; industrial and biotechnological activities, with their supposedly unpredictable risks to human health and life and the environment; the growth of new information and communication technologies related crimes, etc. The perception exists that it is difficult to outline concrete or comprehensible legal goods or values (“legal goods”) in relation to many of these activities. Instead, the profile of these goods or values is more vague or imprecise, especially if they are of a collective nature (“fuzzy legal goods”). It is further perceived that the intention is only to prevent acts involving mere or undetermined risk and not injury to legal goods, thereby distancing Criminal Law from the harm principle, that is, Criminal Law should be reserved for actions and omissions that produce or are capable of producing damage to legal goods. There is also a belief that in this way Criminal Law has merely become a punitive means of managing general risks and, thus, would function in this arena as more of a form of “Administrative Law”4, since these duties are actually such that belong to a true Administrative Law. All of this has led to the rejection of Criminal Law as a suitable instrument for preventing the new risks that post-modern societies face. It is argued that if Criminal Law proceeds in this manner, it will lose its preventive effect and the confidence of society in its role. It will become relegated to a mere symbolic task and with this, relinquish its authenticity5. Within discussions on decriminalisation, there is an insistence by a number of authors that the paths that need to be taken within the abovementioned sectors (and consequently within human genetics and biotechnology) are very different. They include social, formal and informal controls of a very diverse nature with legal

3 Criminal Law has been condemned as inoperable in relation to the new manifestations of crime. It has been suggested that Criminal Law should be maintained as a “nucleus”, with proposals for a “third approach” which would guarantee fewer civil rights and have less serious legal consequences. This is known as the “Frankfurt School”. See, W. Hassemer, Kennzeichen und Krisen des modernes Strafrechts, in “ZRP”, 1992, p. 378 ff; also, Perspektiven einer neuen Kriminalpolitik, in “Strafen in Rechtsstaat”, Baden-Baden, 2000, p. 271; F. Herzog, Gesellschaftliche Unsicherheit und strafrechtliche Daseinvorsorge, Heidelberg, 1991; C. Prittwitz, Strafrecht und Risiko. Untersuchungen zur Krise von Strafrecht und Kriminalpolitik in der Risikogesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main, 1993; also some chapters from the book published by the Institute for Criminal Sciences of Frankfurt, La insostenible situación del Derecho Penal, Granada, Ed. Comares, 2000. 4 J.M. Silva Sánchez, La expansión del Derecho penal. Aspectos de la política criminal en las sociedades postindustriales, 2nd ed., Madrid, Civitas, 2001, p. 123. 5 In relation to current debate, see in detail L. Arroyo Zapatero, U. Neumann, A. Nieto Martín (Coords.), Crítica y justificación del Derecho Penal en el cambio de siglo, Ediciones de la Universidad Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, 2003. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 19 recourse fundamentally linked to Administrative Law. In taking this approach, only a little room would remain, for the most resistant aspects of Criminal Law, or perhaps no room for Criminal Law at all. The convenience and even the efficacy of Criminal Law as a resource to fight against socially undesirable conducts that may arise from genetics and biotechnology has been put into question. This discussion needs to be viewed from within another wider debate as to whether postmodern Criminal Law is a legitimate means of intervening against the new dangers and risks linked to more complex activities within society. The following sections will discuss whether there might be a way that the points mentioned above could be incorporated into Criminal Law in order to prevent certain activities linked specifically to genetics and biotechnology. From there, I will discuss protective legal instruments and the legal recourse offered, or that should be offered, by the legal system. At the same time, I will summarise newly constituted legal goods in relation to human genetic engineering and biotechnology, giving several examples taken from Comparative and International Law.

1.2. Is the punishment of future-oriented crimes a symptom of a merely symbolic Criminal Law? Evaluating the suitability of Criminal Law (those worthy and in need of punishment) as a method of intervening in the sphere of human genetics and biotechnology and, above all, whether it can effectively take a preventive role, is not limited to the difficulties that this sphere shares with other activities within the post-industrial era. An example of these difficulties is identifying the legal goods that could be affected as precisely as possible. Neither does the problem solely revolve around producing a practicable description of the punishable conduct that would need to be incorporated into the corresponding criminal offence and the suitability of traditional fault attribution procedures, for use in these new spheres. In the context of biotechnology, there is a further specific problem, which is not irrelevant to other fields, as I will explain in the following considerations. Numerous ways of genetic manipulation (genetic engineering) described in scientific literature are considered possible from a hypothetical perspective. However, they are still not technically feasible, which raises the question as to whether this preventive role of Criminal, Law should extend to include the manifestation of these crimes. This peculiarity could form the basis of a possible objection to the intervention of Criminal Law in this sphere: creating “future-oriented criminal offences” (i. e., reproductive human cloning). It would be inappropriate to anticipate the seriousness of these offences since this would involve creating criminal acts which, at the time of promulgating the law, technically cannot be committed. How can preventing the undertaking of an activity that cannot be undertaken per se, raise objection? Is File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

20 Genetics and biotechnology this not the clearest example of the inefficacy of Criminal Law, where it provides a substitute response to a problem that could perhaps arise in the future (e.g. to reassure society in the face of frightening biotechnological scenarios)? In view of the above, the controversial question, therefore, is whether Criminal Law will not be reduced to merely fulfilling a symbolic role rather a preventive one6. Furthermore, whether in this way, it will become ineffective and result in loss of confidence among citizens regarding its protective role and leading to its loss of legitimacy. It has been pointed out that if «symbolic legislation, with its stigmatisation of the corresponding action, and the relevance of the good that is in question, also constitutes an especially clear manifestation of a Criminal Law with an ‘educative’ or ‘social-ethical’ connotation... the provisions having exclusively symbolic roles can be considered illegitimate, and should be eradicated from the legal system», since this symbolic element lacks the preventive function needed to make it legitimate7. A further matter of criticism has been the recourse to criminal punishments for these acts assuming its inefficacy in the foreseeable scenario (included here as an argument) that if these acts are committed, generally speaking they are not going to be discovered. As a consequence, they cannot be legally pursued, since the potential perpetrators belong to the scientific community and the crimes are likely to remain hidden within the secretiveness of their laboratories.

1.3. Criminal Law on biotechnology, going beyond its symbolic value In the first place, it must be accepted that Criminal Law always involves symbolic content and scope, through its expression of the social rejection and disapproval of the forms of conduct included in the law that crimes entail. Furthermore, the educational and social-ethical role of Criminal Law mentioned above that forms part of its symbolic effect does not seem to me objectionable8. On the contrary, this is an effect that exudes from criminal legislation itself, as part of its evaluative facet (positive, in relation to legal goods that are being protected, negative in relation to

6 Cf. J.L. Díez Ripollés, El derecho penal simbólico y los efectos de la pena, in “AP”, 2001, p.16 ff, who condemns this characteristic in relation to cloning crimes; J. García González, Límites penales a los últimos avances de la ingeniería genética aplicada al ser humano, Edersa, Madrid, 2001, p. 228 ff, where a certain amount of scepticism is shown regarding the suitability of the criminal approach; D.M. Luzón Peña, Función simbólica del Derecho Penal y delitos relativos a la manipulación genética, in C.M. Romeo Casabona (Ed.), Genética y Derecho Penal. Previsiones en el Código Penal español de 1995, Cátedra Interuniversitaria Fundación BBVA – Diputación Foral de Bizkaia de Derecho y Genoma Humano, Universidad de Deusto y Universidad del País Vasco – Ed. Comares, Bilbao – Granada, 2001, p. 49 ff (he considers that this effect is unavoidable in these crimes). 7 In relation to this, J.M. Silva Sánchez, Aproximación al Derecho Penal contemporáneo, Barcelona, J.M. Bosch, 1992, p. 306. 8 Remember the objections given above in this regard that were raised by J.M. Silva Sánchez, Aproximación al Derecho Penal contemporáneo, p. 306. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 21 acts that may threaten these goods because they have been labelled as criminal). It does not lose or abandon its primary preventive aim as a result of this, since it is still a procedure or mechanism for promoting actions that respect legal goods. For that reason, it is not distanced from the role of Criminal Law, which is still essentially understood to be the protection of legal goods9. Certainly this should not be the sole or principal role of Criminal Law, so that lawmaker feels it has accomplished its task by simply configuring and introducing in PC new crimes, in spite of being conscious of the inoperable and ineffective aspects of the Criminal Law. Their main task is to anticipate the most serious attacks on legal goods that have important social value, even if they appear to have been relegated to secondary importance. This is the case with crimes involving an “abstract danger” -or dangerous action related crimes-, where the protection of the goods is the reason of the law (ratio legis), but where for the act to constitute a criminal offence, there is no requirement for the injury or endangerment of such goods10. As Hassemer has correctly pointed out, the real question is not whether Criminal Law should or should not have symbolic effects, but up to what point these effects are acceptable11. «‘Symbolic’ in a critical sense is therefore a Criminal Law where latent functions predominate to those that are manifest. It may be expected that through this norm and its application, objectives other than those provided for therein also may be achieved»12. In other words, we will only find ourselves facing symbolic effects that ought to be rejected, when other effects that the legislator has not consciously confessed to, or advised of, other than preventive effects for the protection of legal goods from certain attacks, are dominant in the intervention of Criminal Law. Consequently, the question is whether in the biotechnological sphere it is possible to construct new criminal offences through which Criminal Law can reasonably satisfy its preventive role, without other “symbolic” aspects or interests becoming predominantly overriding or controlling. Of course, it is essential to differentiate two plains in order to obtain acceptable answers to the above question. Firstly, by studying proposals for legislative reform (de lege ferenda perspective) in view of criminal policy that has been previously adopted in relation to biotechnology, the question of whether it is really possible to achieve the manifest function of protecting legal goods should be resolved. This would entail identifying these legal goods and the conduct that is apt to injure them. Secondly, the conclusions drawn from these studies should be compared with the real legislative representations of these crimes

9 J. Cerezo Mir, Curso de Derecho Penal Español, Parte General, I, Tecnos, Madrid, 5th ed., 1996, p. 13 ff (15);C. Roxin, Strafrecht, Allgemeiner Teil, I, 3. Aufl., München, C. H. Beck, 1997, p. 19 ff. 10 C. Roxin, Strafrecht, cit., p. 19. 11 In this respect W. Hassemer, Derecho penal simbólico y protección de bienes jurídicos (trad. Larrauri), in “NFP”, No. 51, 1991, p. 17 ff (p. 23 and 24). 12 W. Hassemer, Derecho penal simbólico y protección de bienes jurídicos, cit., p. 24. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

22 Genetics and biotechnology offered by comparative Law. This would allow us to check whether any scepticism existing in relation to the efficacy of Criminal Law in biotechnology is actually due to the defective approach of the lawmaker (de lege lata perspective). To these ends, important aspects for achieving a correct legal description of offences are also presented below. My own proposals relating to guidelines on the intervention of Criminal Law and the design of legal goods will be dealt with in later sections.

1.4. Reasonably satisfying the preventive role of Criminal Law in relation to human biotechnology In principle and without creating any motive for objection, it can be assumed that the symbolic facet of Criminal Law increases considerably with the introduction of crimes such as some of those related to human biotechnology. Also, it may be said that the novelty of this to Criminal Law lies precisely in that these crimes relate to acts that in some cases are still not feasible, but which the legislator has identified as being especially serious in the future. In this respect, Mantovani correctly states that the jurist needs not only to rationalise the present, but also to programme the future. This is because the accelerated progression of biomedicine always tends to transform “hypothetic future scenarios” into the “future” and the “future” into the “present”13. If this diagnosis is true in relation to human Biomedicine, Genetics and Biotechnology, it would justify deliberating recourse to legal instruments, including criminal instruments. Here, the problem lies in knowing how to anticipate which of those scientific events considered to be feasible are going to evolve into present reality in the short-middle term, and therefore, from which the state of scientific advancement of Criminal Law should begin its intervention. Criminal Law will not be limited to having symbolic effects on biotechnology once actions considered to be especially serious and dangerous to key legal goods are criminalised, since it does not lack relatively and reasonably important preventive significance14. Furthermore, if the potential for these acts to become practicable in the future is reasonably high this must constitute an inalienable minimum for punitive intervention to become legitimate15. Therefore, in essence the possibility and validity of creating “future-oriented crimes” cannot be discarded. This statement

13 F. Mantovani, Manipolazioni Genetiche, in Digesto, vol. VII, Penale, 40 ed., Torino, UTET, 1993, p. 6. 14 D.M. Luzón Peña, Función simbólica del derecho penal y delitos relativos a la manipulación genética, 2001, p. 49 ff. 15 In this respect, S. Romeo Malanda, Intervenciones genéticas sobre el ser humano y Derecho penal, Cátedra Interuniversitaria Fundación BBVA – Diputación Foral de Bizkaia de Derecho y Genoma Humano, Universidad de Deusto y Universidad del País Vasco – Ed. Comares, Bilbao – Granada, 2006, p. 221 ff., for whom the intervention of Criminal Law in biotechnology (in certain cases, since he also assumes the principles of subsidiarity and of minimum criminalisation) is necessary in order for it to become modernised. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 23 is compatible with the observation that due to the nature of these techniques, a more modest or limited role corresponds to Criminal Law in this sector16. This is especially true in comparison with the roles of preventive control that correspond to other social agents, in particular through Administrative Law, without forgetting the multidimensional use to which the precautionary principle may be put17. In relation to this, it should be remembered that the International Association of Penal Law (IAPL) came to its conclusion on the convenience of introducing crimes in relation to reproductive genetic manipulation and cloning at its Vienna Congress in 198818. This occurred at a time when not even the scientific community believed that the technique, which several years later led to the birth of Dolly, a cloned sheep (transferring the nucleus of a somatic cell to a previously enucleated ovule), could be applied to mammals. Regarding other more traditional crimes that are never or very rarely committed (as is the case for instance with crimes against the exterior security of the State, which could hypothetically be committed), there is no doubt as to the important preventive role played by Criminal Law. My earlier comment about some lawyers who argued on the relative impunity of the authors of these crimes due to the competent authorities’ inability to detect and pursue them, betrays a lack of knowledge as to how scientists from this sector behave. These scientific researchers are under pressure to reveal their achievements to the public in order to avoid other scientists doing so before them. Their results could decide whether they achieve notoriety, recognition, prestige and the possibility of obtaining support and funding in order to be able to continue with their research. Although it is possible that the earlier stages of research projects remain unknown (e.g. manipulating at the laboratory gametes or even human embryos obtained in vitro), it is unlikely that the results will be forever, or perhaps even for very long, buried in obscurity. This is because the results provide the most undeniable proof of the scientific “success” that has been achieved. In conclusion, there is a warning issued here by Criminal Law that from this moment forward research, or more accurately put, certain biotechnological applications that are the fruit of research, are prohibited from continuing in a specific direction or having certain aims. If this warning is not heeded, it will signify a need for the general criminalisation of research in this sector. Here, Criminal Law finds its appropriate framework - or legitimacy to be more exact - within the legal system as a whole and in particular, among non-criminal regulatory dispositions that specifically

16 C. Roxin, Strafrecht, “AT”, I, cit., p. 22. 17 See C.M. Romeo Casabona, Aportaciones del principio de precaución al Derecho Penal, in Modernas tendencias en la Ciencia del Derecho Penal y en la Criminología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, 2001, p. 77 and ff.; C.M. Romeo Casabona (Ed.), El principio de precaución, Cátedra Interuniversitaria Fundación BBVA – Diputación Foral de Bizkaia de Derecho y Genoma Humano y Editorial Comares, Bilbao –Granada, 2004. 18 See AIDP, Droit Pénal et techniques biomédicales modernes, in “RIDP”, 1988, p. 1327 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

24 Genetics and biotechnology regulate research19. This intimidating prospect is compatible with the objectives of general positive prevention. It generates confidence within the population regarding the consequences that will be faced by particular lines of research that have certain implications for human beings, and those involving experimentation on humans or future human beings through their creation in vitro. Human reproductive cloning is, or at least appears to be, a clear example of effective prevention. Criminal prohibition and general institutional and social rejection of this technique have meant that anyone stating that they are in a technical position to undertake cloning of human beings, or even claiming that they have already successfully used these techniques, hide the actual crimes that they are attempting to carry out or claiming to have committed. Furthermore, they always state that their activities are being undertaken in a territory where they are immune to any kind of prosecution (for the time being and in view of the major technical difficulties involved in human cloning, those proclaiming themselves authors of this infraction would be more likely committing the crime of fraud, with gullible benefactors or even clients constituting their victims). From a global perspective and in view of the crimes introduced by the legislators of the most exemplary countries, it does not appear that the requirements derived of the minimum criminalisation have been infringed upon, at least not to any great extent. In any case, comparative law provides examples that show a reprehensible lack of rigour by lawmakers. These examples not only reflect a complete lack of background or scientific knowledge regarding the acts that have become object of criminal prosecution, but at the same time a lack of basic legislative technique due to having dispensed with the most elemental rules required by this technique. On occasion the limit derived from the principle of minimum criminalisation has been patently exceeded: in Germany20, Italy21 and France22, where criminal infractions related to these matters and serious penalties have been introduced into their laws23. The enormous comprehensive scope bound by the defective transcription of some criminal offences is not still included in this evaluation. For instance, with

19 This is the case in Spanish Law, art. 20 of the Constitution, and Laws 14/2006 of 26 May, on Assisted Reproduction Techniques, and 14/2007 of 3 July, on Biomedical Research. 20 Embryonenschutzgesetz, 13 December, 1990. 21 Legge 19 febbraio 2004 n. 40, Norme in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita. 22 Law 2004-800, of 6 August, 2004. This Law has been modified by Law n. 2011-814, 7 July 2011, relative à la Bioéthique. The focus on this has been changed: from a temporary exception to the prohibition to research with embryos in vitro to a permission to do it when some legal requirements are met (see art 41 of the Code de la santé publique). 23 In Brazil the situation has undergone a remarkable change with the abolition of the Law of 1995, and the promulgation of the Law of 2005. It now exists uncertainty as to whether they have exceeded the principle of minimum criminalisation regarding the punishments envisaged: Lei núm. 11.105, de 24 de março de 2005, que establece normas de segurança e mecanismos de fiscalizaçao de atividades que envolvam organismos geneticamente modificados e seus derivados, art. 26. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 25 crimes relating to genetic manipulation in the strict sense of the Spanish PC, or reproductive cloning in the Peruvian PC, which I will deal with later. On the other hand, the same criminal policy objectives that have presumably led lawmakers from many countries to introduce these crimes, must have driven them to incorporate as crimes some acts that are still considered to be administrative infractions or which materially are not unlawful. This issue will also be discussed in the following section.

2. Relaxing the principle of maximum certainty in defining offences. The influence of International Law on the configuration of “biotechnological” crimes If we have now arrived at the conclusion that preventive Criminal Law is compatible with the punishment of some acts related to genetic interventions involving human beings, which are going to be difficult to repress and which could even result in criminalising acts that are still not feasible but which will probably become so in the future. The definitive answer for or against the existence of these crimes will depend on the evaluation of how the legislator expresses them in legal texts. With this observation, I wish to briefly consider legislative criminalisation techniques. This matter remains scarcely observed by the legislator24. Focusing on this objective, it is interesting first to mention the pernicious influence that can, on occasion, be wielded by International Law. I refer in particular to the influence of legal instruments that promulgate or impose the prohibition of some acts linked to biotechnology, but which fail to rigorously observe the need to provide concrete specification of the prohibited acts. This is known in Criminal Law as the principle of maximum certainty, as a part of the rule of law principle. However, it is important to remember that, given the strict validity of the rule of law principle in criminal matters (principle of legality), it is the exclusive responsibility of the legislator (the legislator of the States) to correctly define offences for crimes that are to be incorporated into a domestic Criminal Law. Usually this will be based on the provisions of the international legal instrument, which is used for reference in each case. It should also be remembered that such an international instrument could have strictly criminal or a more general content. If the latter is the case, it logically follows that the description of the acts that are to be prohibited may be more generic and less precise. Furthermore, it could be binding on the States party to a given instrument (e.g. a treaty or convention) or simply be indicative (e.g. a declaration). Given the great productivity of International Law in relation to biomedical sciences and human biotechnology in particular, I plan to offer two examples to aid comprehension of the

24 This issue is dealt with from different perspectives and involving different interests J.L.by Dièz Ripollés, La racionalidad de las leyes penales, Madrid, Trotta, 2003; I. Navarro Frías, Mandato de determinación y tipicidad penal, Granada, Ed. Comares, 2010; F.G. Sànchez Lázaro, Política criminal y técnica legislativa, Granada, Ed. Comares, 2007. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

26 Genetics and biotechnology reflections I have included here. Since the nineties, International Law has been paying progressively more frequent and more detailed attention to the varied and novel aspects relating to human rights and the continual development of biomedical sciences. In this respect, I should remind the reader once again of the importance of the proposals adopted by the IAPL in 1988, on possible interventions of Criminal Law in the sphere of human biomedical sciences and biotechnology. Up to now, in order to achieve approval of appropriate international legal instruments, there has been a need to reach an agreement on certain points regarding the scope of their contents, aspects of the human rights involved that should to be emphasised and the limits, whether permanent or temporary, to which these rights should be respected in scientific activities and clinical or other kinds of applications. As a consequence, in matters relating to human biotechnology, State lawmakers can take inspiration from the recommendations, restrictions or prohibitions established in International Law. We have examples of international legal provisions regulating certain matters within this sector, such as human reproductive and non- reproductive cloning, and the creation and use of human embryos for purposes other than human reproduction, which demonstrate the vagueness, ambiguity and on occasion inaccuracy with which the acts being prohibited are described, or in respect to which, strict conditions are being imposed (limitations). Even though attention should be paid on that I am referring to international legal instruments that are not strictly criminal legal instruments, I must stress the influence that these instruments could have on State lawmakers. They could contribute to creating a lack of precision in descriptions of the facts established in crimes relating to these matters, which would defy the especially rigorous requirement for legal security in criminal matters, although it is the task of State lawmakers to avoid propagating these defects in any case.

2.1. The United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning The example of human reproductive cloning is one, practically the only one, where all of the parties involved, in particular the scientific community, agreed that it should be rejected. Notwithstanding this unusual unanimity, which some considered suspect, international institutions have also endorsed this rejection. Examples include the UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights of 1997 (art. 11) and the Additional Protocol of the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine of the Council of Europe concerning cloning in 1998, discussed later. Within the supranational scope of the European Constitution (EU), the total prohibition of human reproductive cloning has likewise been envisaged. Furthermore, numerous States have approved legal provisions with the same objective and on some File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 27 occasions they have even considered cloning to be a criminal offence. It is likely that this favourable climate led the authorities of the United Nations to rightly take the initiative to approve a Convention aimed to a universal prohibition of cloning human beings (“reproductive cloning”). However, in the course of its drafting, delegates of some States argued that the scope of the future Convention should be amplified to encompass all kinds of human cloning. This would also entail the prohibition of what is known as “therapeutic cloning”, which refers to cloning for research purposes not for human reproduction. This created a transition from attempting to regulate a matter on which there already existed wide consensus, towards including another topic, which to date remains the subject of intense debate: scientists, experts in human and social science, lawmakers and public opinion were and are still greatly divided and take opposing standpoints on this matter. As a consequence of amplifying the initial objectives, the creation of this United Nations instrument on human cloning underwent a tortuous process before it was finally approved as a Declaration by the UN General Assembly, on 8 March, 2005. The document was effectively approved as a Declaration after having renounced the status of Convention, and everything that this change of model of legislative instrument entailed from a legal perspective. The approval was preceded by various unsuccessful attempts (since when previous attempts were made at introducing any form of human cloning into the document, great opposition was raised), which led to having to postpone its approval on several occasions. The voting distribution when it was submitted to the vote that led to its approval is pertinent in itself: there were 84 votes in favour of its approval, 34 against and 37 abstentions, as well as the absence of 37 member States delegates. From our point of view, this voting was a clear reflection of insufficient consensus to move forward and force approval on a point of such importance. For this reason, it would have been wise to continue with the negotiation efforts to achieve a consensus. The most appropriate solution would certainly have been to limit the document to the explicit prohibition of reproductive human cloning and to have allowed, for the moment, the states to take internal legal measures in relation to the other forms of cloning, in accordance with their own criteria. The terms of prohibition are expressed in the Declaration in the following way: «b) Member States are called upon to prohibit all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life; c) Member States are further called upon to adopt the measures necessary to prohibit the application of genetic engineering techniques that may be contrary to human dignity». If the first criticism of this declaration is that it was unable to achieve the desirable wide consensus among the states, the second observation is that in spite of a desire File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

28 Genetics and biotechnology to close every door to any kind of human cloning, the approved text was far from achieving this goal. Taking an interpretative approach to the legal regulations, it can be observed that the prohibition of any kind of cloning will only apply “inasmuch” (“dans la mesure qu’il serait” in French) as it is incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life. This means accepting, at least theoretically, that the hypothetical existence of a scenario where no incompatibility with human dignity and the protection of human life exists remains open. Remains the nuclear issue on how to determine what that scenario might be and under what circumstances there would be no prohibition. In any case, this margin for interpretation reveals the lack of precision on this point in the wording of the legal text. This is an instance of the vagueness that we rejected earlier due to the negative influence that it could have on State lawmakers. Finally, in relation to the obligations that this Declaration could entail for the states, it should be remembered that a declaration is not as strictly binding as a treaty (or convention) and does not generate the same obligations as the latter, as seen earlier. However, the principles of the Declaration will guide the activities of the State lawmakers. In conclusion, the United Nations probably missed its opportunity to achieve the unanimous approval of a legal instrument that would have increased its prestige and desirable leadership in the sphere of human rights related to biomedical sciences. On the contrary, based on the confrontation between certain states to the extent that some wanted to impose a certain general position on human cloning onto others (regarding the said position no declaration was envisaged), added to the foreseeable lack of effect of the approved Declaration, it seems there has been a failure to augment the credibility and unifying capability that such an important Institution should possess in this sector.

2.2. The legal regulatory framework established by the Council of Europe on the in vitro embryo The Council of Europe has vocalised its position on amplifying protection of the in vitro embryo on many occasions, notwithstanding the modifications it has made over time. In any case, the 1997 Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (CHRB)25 reflects a substantial turn in relation to the legal treatment of human life, in particular the in vitro embryo. It is the first time that International Law on treaties has established an explicit legal framework on this matter, meaning it has binding force on the States that are party to it. However, as frequently occurs in International Law, its provisions relating to the in vitro embryo and specifically to scientific research into it, are perhaps too ambiguous to enable them to be employed

25 Presented for signature in the City of Oviedo (Spain) 4 April, 1997. At present it is in force in nearly thirty European States, and it is also open for signature by other non-European states. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 29 literally by State lawmakers for criminal matters. The CHRB26 does not declare whether the embryo enjoys the legal status of a person or the possession of rights. Neither does it mention whether prenatal life can be considered to be a human being for the purposes of the Convention, e.g. when it alludes to this in article 1. It is usually considered that these sorts of difficult or controversial issues have been left for the States that are party to decide in their own legislation27. Notwithstanding this interpretative conclusion, which appears to be correct, it can also be held that, based on the various precepts of the CHRB that affect the embryo in some way, as well as the Additional Protocol on the prevention of human cloning28, a set of governing norms and principles can be deduced which form a legal status of or for the embryo in vitro. The Convention could not be indifferent to the possibility of using embryos for research with the aim of advancing knowledge of the biological processes linked to the commencement of human life, fertility, the human genome itself and, over time, to treat the illnesses of other individuals (regenerative medicine via the cultivation and development of embryonic stem cells). This matter provoked some of the widest controversy during the preparation of the Convention, which led to some intermediate versions of this precept to simply opt for its elimination, leaving its regulation (the approval of a specific protocol on the status of the embryo) for the future. This was an attempt to avoid creating an insurmountable obstacle that would prevent the definitive adoption of the Convention. For this motive, a more or less open solution involving a compromise was chosen, having failed to achieve wide consensus on the subject within the European sphere. It was one of the matters that evoked the largest number of discrepancies and probably the main reason why some of the key European States have still not subscribed to or ratified the Convention (the Federal Republic of Germany, the United Kingdom and Russia have not subscribed, and it is still pending ratification by Italy29, although the respective positions of these countries are based on different grounds). As regards Spain, with the incorporation of the CHRB to the domestic legal system30 has established a legal framework on this matter which, in spite of its

26 Cf. in relation to this, see the Convention Explanatory Report, par. nº 18, see specifically the terms “everyone” and “toute personne”, which the Convention employs in its official languages. 27 This is expressly stated in theExplanatory Report, par. nº 19. However, it also indicates a general acceptance that human dignity and the identity of the human species should be respected from the commencement of life. 28 Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine, on the Prohibition of Cloning Human Beings, Paris, 12 January, 1998. 29 France has ratified it on 13th December 2011, and Spain on 1st September 1999. Both and Italy signed the Convention in Oviedo, the 4th April 1997. 30 It went into force in Spain on 1 January, 2000, and the Protocol with regard to the prohibition of human cloning was also ratified, going into force on March st1 , 2000. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

30 Genetics and biotechnology lack of precision, cannot be exceeded by the Spanish legislator31. The CHRB establishes the following on experimentation with human in vitro embryos: 1. Where the law allows research on embryos in vitro, it shall ensure adequate protection of the embryo. 2. The creation of human embryos for research purposes is prohibited (art. 18). It is not easy to determine the scope of this important provision. Although it should not be forgotten that it is the first precept in International Law that regulates a protection of in vitro embryos, it should also be recognised that it is difficult to determine what these guarantees for the suitable protection of embryos might be. The doubt about what might be considered, according to the Convention, the suitable guarantee framework for an embryo that is going to be submitted to research or experimentation remains unresolved. For this reason, there should also be insistence in the international sphere that an appropriate legal statute on the preimplantation embryo (in vitro or in utero) is consolidated, putting an end to the present ambiguity and lack of definition. At this moment it is necessary to refer to the Additional Protocol of the CHRB regarding the prohibition of cloning human beings, since it completes the legal sphere on the protection of the in vitro embryo envisaged in the aforementioned art. 18: 1. Any intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead, is prohibited. 2. For the purpose of this article, the term human being “genetically identical” to another human being means a human being sharing with another the same nuclear gene set (art. 1). Independent of the scope of this prohibition, specifically as to whether it encompasses non-reproductive cloning (also known as “therapeutic” cloning), the main doubt that has arisen from this precept is determining the significance of “human being”. That is to say, whether “to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead, is prohibited” refers only to a being that has been born or to one that has been conceived but not born. In reality, this question goes beyond the Protocol. As I indicated earlier, the CHRB takes a general perspective, mentioning the human being but without explaining what should be understood by this term32. This is what was understood by the Netherlands when it

31 For a more detailed discussion of this subject see C.M. Romeo Casabona, The status of the Extracorporeal Embryo in Spanish Law, in Interdisziplinäres Verbundprojekt der Status des Extrakorporalen Embryos. International-Interdisziplinäres Expertenkolloquium, Freiburg in Breisgau, 14-16 October, 2004. 32 This is expressly mentioned in the Explanatory Report of the Protocol: «6. (…) it was decided to File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 31 ratified this Protocol on cloning: a note of clarification is included in this instrument explaining that human being is understood by the Kingdom of the Netherlands as referring to a human being that has been born. Based on the above reflections, a sufficiently defined, broad view of the basis of the CHRB’s legal treatment of the in vitro embryo may be inferred. Following in the footsteps of the CHRB and the ECHR, interpreting the latter upon the declaration of its jurisdictional decisions, noted the new Convention also alludes to taking a defined position on the legal situation of prenatal human life, in particular, the in vitro embryo. Here again, the question as to whether prenatal life is or is not a person, or what significance should be attached to “human being”, has been consciously left open. It is left to the States that are party to the Convention to make their own decisions regarding criminal policy within their respective legal systems. Consequently, it cannot be held that the CHRB expressly recognises that prenatal life is considered to be a human being, but neither does it oppose States (being members of the Convention) that qualify this prenatal life as such, and consequently protect it by domestic law. It is less complicated to deduce the position of the CHRB in relation to certain specific situations that may affect the in vitro embryo. Here, it can be clearly deduced that the in vitro embryo is protected in relation to these situations. With the intention of establishing an evaluative scale going from the most restrictive to the most permissive level33, and using as a reference the highest, lowest or non-existent grade of acts that can affect the embryo, below is a summarised list of instructions or principles that can be extracted from the CHRB and its Additional Protocol on the prohibition of the cloning of human beings34: 1. Any intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead, is prohibited, that is to say, creating in vitro embryonic clones for reproductive purposes (art. 1 of the leave it to domestic law to define the scope of the expression “human being” for the purposes of the application of the present Protocol». 33 The vast majority of these criteria were proposed in my own previous work. See C.M. Romeo Casabona, La investigación y la terapia con células madre embrionarias: hacia un marco jurídico europeo, in “LL”, nº 5467, 2002, pp. 1-6; the same in “Iter Criminis. Revista de Ciencias Penales” (Mexico), nº 2, 2002, pp. 101-124; Embryonic stem cell research and therapy: the need for a common European legal framework, in “Bioethics”, 16 (6), 2002, pp. 557-567; La recherche et la thérapie avec des cellules souches embryonnaires. Quel est le cadre juridique pour l’Europe?, in “RGDM”, nº 9, 2003, pp. 151-166; Investigação e terapia com células-mãe embrionárias. Qual regulamento jurídico para europa?, in M. de F. Freire De Sá & B. T. De Oliveira Naves (Coords.), Bioética, Biodireito e o novo Código Civil de 2002, Ed. Del Rey, Belo Horizonte, 2004, pp. 125-154; Informe a la Ministra de Sanidad y Consumo: La cuestión jurídica de la obtención de células troncales embrionarias humanas con fines de investigación biomédica. Consideraciones de política legislativa (published in “LawHuGenRev”), nº 24, 2006, p. 75 ff.). Based on the criteria incorporated into this work, an attempt is made to broaden the overall vision to include other aspects that were then secondary to the main objective being pursued. 34 Note that only activities that could be permitted or prohibited according to the CHRB are described below, not their technical feasibility or scientific interest. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

32 Genetics and biotechnology

Protocol on Cloning). 2. The creation of in vitro human embryos for research purposes is prohibited, whatever technique is used to produce them (art. 18.2). 3. It is necessarily deduced from the Convention, although not expressly mentioned, that the creation of in vitro human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes is also prohibited, whatever technique is used for their creation (arts. 2 and 18.2). 4. The creation of in vitro embryos for procreative projects seeking to modify the genome of any of their corresponding genetic descendants is prohibited (art. 13). 5. The use of medically assisted procreation techniques in order to choose the sex of the embryo is not permitted, except when it is undertaken to avoid the transmission of serious hereditary sex-related disease (art. 14). 6. States party to the Convention are expressly permitted to authorise research on in vitro embryos, as long as they have not been specifically created for this purpose and as long as the law guarantees adequate protection of the embryo (art. 18.1). These are specifically frozen surplus in vitro embryos from medically assisted reproductive techniques. 7. Any intervention seeking to modify the human genome may only be undertaken for preventive, diagnostic (preimplantation diagnosis) or therapeutic purposes and only if its aim is not to introduce any modification in the genome that would be inherited by any genetic descendants (art. 13). 8. Interventions in embryos in vitro for preventive, diagnostic (preimplantation diagnosis) or therapeutic reasons may be undertaken (arts. 12 and 13). 9. It is necessarily deduced that, in view of present technical resources for assisted human reproduction, domestic legislation may envisage the possibility that surplus embryos are produced as an after effect. That is to say, it refers to embryos that cannot be destined for their initial purpose of human reproduction (art. 18.1)35. 10. From the above evaluative conclusion, it can also be deduced that in view of current technical resources for assisted human reproduction, the legislation of the States party to the Convention may permit that more embryos than are needed for a single transfer into a woman may be generated for reproductive purposes, and that those that are not used during the first attempt may be cryopreserved for subsequent reproductive requirements (successive repetitions of attempts to impregnate the woman if previous attempts have failed) (art. 18.1).

35 From the general evaluation that the CHRB makes of the in vitro embryo, it may also be deduced that the deliberate creation of embryos is not acceptable when there it is expected that a large number of them will not be able to be destined for reproduction, that is to say, that they will become superfluous. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 33

11. Thecreation of human embryos with direct therapeutic purposes for a person is permitted, since it is not expressly prohibited (arts. 2 and 18.2). 12. Obtaining embryonic clones for direct therapeutic purposes for a person or for research purposes, such as deriving stem cells, is permitted since it is not expressly prohibited by the Protocol (arts. 2 and 18.2 of the CHRB and art. 1 of the Protocol which prohibits cloning of human beings). 13. Obtaining stem cells (pluripotent, multipotent and even totipotent cells) which will be functionally similar, using cellular reprogramming techniques for research purposes is permitted, since it is not expressly prohibited (art. 2, 18.2 and 1 of the Protocol). 14. The use of supernumerary or surplus human embryos or their cells for direct therapeutic purposes for people is permitted, since it is not expressly prohibited (art. 18.1). 15. The creation of human embryos for reproductive purposes using assisted human reproduction techniques that do not involve cloning is permitted (art. 18.1 and art. 1 of the Protocol).

3. Adapting the description of criminal action techniques and penal sanctions as a preventive way or mechanism for a merely symbolic Criminal Law In spite of the difficulties presented by new crimes in the biotechnologies sector, the legislator cannot give up proceeding with the utmost scrupulousness. Precisely, the spectacular impact and alarm raised in public opinion regarding the mere announcement of some actions regarding biotechnology have in some occasions caused the legislator to act immediately and precipitately, sometimes without even knowing or understanding what it must prohibit and sanction, without perceiving or even asking itself what might be the legal interest, which has to be looked after, and being content with just appeasing the community (symbolic effect of Criminal Law in its most strict acceptance). The effectiveness of preventive measures regarding these crimes, their political- legal justification and the fact that they may or may not be disregarded due to their merely symbolic effect will ultimately depend on whether or not legislative technical premises have been properly managed for description and punishment of these kinds of offences36. Some reflections and proposals regarding this issue are noted below.

36 Regarding this issue, see C.M. Romeo Casabona, Los genes y sus leyes. El Derecho ante el genoma humano, Cátedra Interuniversitaria BBVA Fundación BBVA - Diputación Foral de Bizkaia de Derecho y Genoma Humano, Universidad de Deusto y Universidad del País Vasco – Ed. Comares, Bilbao – Granada, 2002, p. 227 ff; J.García González, Límites penales a los últimos avances de la ingeniería genética, cit., p. 189 ff; A. Jorge Barreiro, Los delitos relativos a la manipulación genética en sentido estricto, en C.M. Romeo Casabona (Ed.), Genética y Derecho Penal. Previsiones en el CP español de File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

34 Genetics and biotechnology

3.1. The identification or configuration of legal goods that are worthy of protection by Criminal Law The legal good or goods to be protected, as a criminal-policy response, must have been clearly identified beforehand. This task is essential because it constitutes the only method of establishing what is to be protected and the timely definition of the criminal action must be carried out for this purpose at the time of describing the conduct that lawmakers want to be prohibited: only when it appears clearly configured, it is possible to predict what actions may include material content of risk that may be harmful to a legal good. Specificity or lack of vagueness is necessary for proper «substantive due process» or legality. It may be sustained without exaggeration, that the configuration of legal goods, which are sufficiently specific and perfected such as the embodiment of social values in a determined historic moment, is one of the primary challenges currently faced by Criminal Law. The success or failure of this goal will determine, in a large measure, the success or failure of Law as a regulatory instrument for biotechnology and its protector, if applicable. At the same time, we must identify the individual or the supra-individual titleholders of these legal goods. A consequence of the legal good determination will be the identification of other crimes that share the protection provided for this legal good or those which are related. Similarly, in a parallel way, it is necessary to have a systematic classification of the new crime, which must be grouped with those crimes that share that identity or proximity of protected legal goods, without prejudice to what will be said later on regarding the advantage or not of including any or all of these crimes into a special legislation. Even in the case that it is not possible to find a certain similarity in these characteristics, the ownership of the legal good may be used as a complementary criterion for entering it in the legal text. A defective classification of the crimes, grouped under the same title, even though different legal goods can be identified, may be found in the Spanish PC of 1995: next to the genetic integrity (art. 159, on genetic manipulation) we find the security of the State against the manufacturing of biological weapons by means of genetic engineering (art. 160), to the procreative freedom regarding the crime of using non consensual assisted reproduction techniques (art. 162). For example, an example in the far past was the Schema di Delega Legislativa of 1992 for a new PC in Italy did not seem sensible either when it hat previewed a Title under the heading “Crimes against human dignity”, which included genetic manipulation crimes, since apart from the fact that very heterogeneous crimes were grouped from a different way of understanding the different affected legal goods. In this way, human dignity as an

1995, cit., p. 63 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 35 autonomous legal good displays or may display an excessive vagueness and amplitude contrary to the principle of maxium certainty37.

3.2. Delimitation of the material object of the offence The material object of the action will also be set for the purpose of a better delimitation of the different modes that the action subject to be punished as a crime may include. The material object of the action is not well defined in the crime relative to genetic manipulation in the Spanish PC38. What human genes are included? That is, regarding what human genes will the definition of the criminal action fall upon? Who do these genes belong to?39 The question regarding what should be understood as “embryo” in German Law regarding the Protection of embryos40, is also of such a nature. The question that rises is whether this definition can be considered, including the so called therapeutic cloning, since it does not require sexual reproduction; in other words, the fusion of male and female gametes in a laboratory and even though, the product of the cloning is classified by this law as an embryo (paragraph 6). Also the meaning of embryo in the Italian current Law is broader than from a scientific approach, but also here the binding concept is determined by the legal understanding of such different entities, as embryos, clones, hybrids, etc.41.

3.3. Selection of actions or omissions deserving punishment Likewise, the actions or omissions that have a greater potential for damaging those legal goods must be selected. In fact, the unawareness that usually accompanies the facts regarding biotechnologies, may generate confusion regarding the characteristics and potential of these facts with greater ease. This, in turn, which may result in an exaggeration of the importance of the harmful effects of some actions, or that the intrinsic danger of others, is undervalued. Moreover, this causes the real possibility

37 This problem has been partially solved through the Law 2004 n. 40, but it poses other very complex questions. 38 According to art. 159.1 Spanish PC: «Those that manipulate human genes in a way that alters the genotype for a purpose other than the elimination of or reduction of defects or serious illnesses will be punished…» 39 See on these concerns, J.L. La Cuesta Arzamendi, The so called ‘genetic manipulation’ offences in the new Spanish Criminal Code of 1995, “LawHuGenRev”, No. 5, 1996, p. 60 f. 40 Embryonenschutzgesetz, paragr. 8: «In this Law, embryo is defined as the human fertilised ovum capable of developing from the moment of the nuclear fusion so the multipotent cells taken from the embryo may develop into a person as long as the rest of required conditions are present». This definition may have been modified (at least expanded upon) by theStammzellegesetz , paragr. 3.4: «An embryo is any multipotent human cell with the ability of dividing itself and developing into a person, as long as the required conditions are present». 41 See Italian Law 2004 n. 40, Chapter VI, art. 13. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

36 Genetics and biotechnology that certain facts are technically practicable in the near future are not properly assessed. On the other hand, the risk that the description of the specifically defined criminal conduct and its modes may be coming too close to a determined technical procedure must be prevented, because it may leave out others that may be incorporated in the future. This produces a difficult balance with legal security (principle of maximum certainty). An opposing procedure, but one that may produce similar ineffective results, is to opt for an extreme casuistic and tedious regulation, which would be equally reproachable. This is what occurs in Japanese Criminal Law on the matter42. In fact, in some cases we see that certain technical advances can compromise the validity of the definition of the objective (external) part of the criminal conduct description or essential, material and elemental definition (these words should be deleted). This is the case with the creation of definitions relating to (these words should be deleted) embryos, where creation uses the nuclear transfer technique for non reproductive purposes (because if this was the purpose of the author of the fact, the technique or conduct should be transferred to the crime of creating human beings by cloning). In fact, the Spanish and Mexican State PCs indicate that a crime exists when human ova are fertilized for purposes other than human procreation (arts. 161.1 and 154.II, respectively). In that regard, it is arguable that a cloned embryo obtained using the aforementioned nuclear transfer technique can be considered as the fertilization of an ovum; a practice that in its own sense requires that a spermatozoid enter an ovum, and fertilize it (in summary; while the cloning is a form of asexual reproduction since two gametes, one male and one female do not participate, the word fertilization could refer to sexual reproduction also when performed in a labour). It is true that in any case, the aim of the protection of the regulation consists in preventing human embryos from being created for non reproductive purposes (e.g., for research or industrial purposes), but the doubt created by whether or not the written law encompasses any procedure for creating human embryos, including cloning, this is not consistent with the requirements regarding the rule of law principle. Another example is constituted by the definition of an embryo in the aforementioned German law of 1990; since a possible difference with the possibility of obtaining a clone through nuclear transfer in this law is perceived, which was discovered prior to the promulgation of said law.

42 It seems as though the Japanese legislator has opted for these tedious technical definitions and maybe for an excessive dependence on concepts and scientific techniques. Law dated 30 November, 2000, relative to the regulation regarding human cloning techniques and other similar techniques (art. 2, including legal definitions). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 37

3.4. Selecting the offence’s technical structure The next step is established by the timely technique for defining the criminal offence option in relation with the action, whose commission is deemed to require preventing and with the degree of punitive intervention more or less advanced. This analysis will drive lawmakers to chose whether the offence is structured as a “result crime” (resulting in injuries or damage) or, to the contrary, as a simple or mere activity crime, with no connection to a damage result - abstract endangerment or dangerousness crimes. As is known, the appeal for one or another structure of the criminal conduct will be determined by criminal-policy considerations based on the advancement of the Criminal Law intervention as well as for structural reasons. For example, when the proof of a casual relationship with a damage result is highly problematic. This last reason might make more adequate abstract endangerment crimes or the configuration of crimes of omission (purely of omission or of commission by omission) in relation with biotechnologies and other activities, about which there is little knowledge regarding their different causal processes, since the casualty issue is ruled out. However, from a prevention point of view, these crimes are not objectionable, since they are susceptible of remaining focused on protection, albeit, it is true that this is less evident with regard to abstract endangerment of legal goods types of crimes. The problem may then consist in the combining of this political-criminal decision with the configuration of legal goods that are excessively vague and indefinite. The defining of crimes as mere procedural infractions and therefore remotely damaging to legal goods can be seen in the French PC. The previous Brazilian penal legislation43, also displayed an improper point of view on the protected legal good and, consequently, on the description of proscribed conduct and defined results. It included results that were already part of crimes such as homicide, abortion and injuries, which could hardly be derived from the actions that have been criminally defined (v. art. 13, I, II and III). In general, these failures were reviewed and corrected by the new Law of 2005. In the subjective (internal) part of the crime definition structure we must decide whether, not only intentional but also negligent actions are punished, in accordance with the exceptional punishment of negligence principle. Regarding the definition of criminal conduct that inflicts harm or damage, we must assess whether it should include any unjust subjective element, since it has an ambivalent effect. In fact, including this in the crime definition limits the scope of the punishable conduct. If it is included, the concurrence in the specific case must be added to the rest of the crime definition requirements and, therefore, its proof. But this will not be easy. On

43 Law No. 8974 of 1995, regarding the use of genetic engineering techniques, replaced by Law 11.105 of 2005. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

38 Genetics and biotechnology the other hand, a crime of this kind usually does not require the objective presence of a determined result to which the intention of the active subject is directed, but proving the crime does not require to prove that a given harm result was effectively caused.

3.5. The specific description of the criminal action or omission We must check whether the constructed definition is understandable to the potential target audience: the prohibited or mandated conduct must be clear. This is precisely one of the defects that are more frequently found in crimes related with genetics and biotechnologies. For example, lack of clarity or inaccurately delimiting an assumed fact from a technical point of view can be found in the Spanish PC (art. 159.1, aforementioned; art. 161.2: «The same punishment [prison term of one to five years and specific barring from public or professional employment or office for a period of six to ten years] will be applied to the creation of identical human beings by means of cloning or other procedures focused on race selection»). Here, it is not clear whether the law includes one conduct or two alternatives. The Colombian PC of 2000 (art. 132, used very similar terminology as that in the Spanish crime of art. 159 and, therefore, suffers from the same problems, in spite of having included a clarifying clause. However, in art. 133, regarding reproductive cloning, this Colombian law clears the highlighted ambiguities, regarding the equivalent crime in the Spanish PC. The defective wording of the Spanish PC art. 159 was also included in the Mexican PC of 2002 (art. 154.I), and in the Peruvian PC (art. 324): «Any person that makes use of any genetic manipulation technique for the purpose of cloning human beings will be punished with incarceration for a period of no less than six and not greater than eight years and barring in accordance with article 36, sections 4 and 8».44 The later denotes a lack of knowledge on the part of lawmakers of current cloning procedures; since basically none of the current techniques strictly requires any form of genetic manipulation. In matters of a certain technical nature it is common to use a legislative technique known as “incomplete criminal provisions” (“normas penales en blanco” in Spanish law, a Criminal Law that defines a penalty for a criminal offence that is in turn completely or partially defined in another law). This consists in the referring of criminal precept to a non-penal Law (e.g. an Administrative Law) to complete the description of the defined action, i.e., of the prohibited action. In general, and as required by the principle of legality, it is usually deemed necessary that the corresponding legal offence contain the description of the core of the prohibited action. On the other hand non-Criminal Law to which the criminal law is referred

44 Introduced by Law no. 27636 of 2002. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 39 will provide elements that are complementary to the defined conduct (action or omission). These references may be explicit or implicit of a specific law. In any case, the law referred to must be easily identified by the interpreter of the law (the judge). In this regard, it is not compatible with the principle of legality, because the definition of the prohibited conduct does not follow the maximum certainty requirements nor the clarity of implicit referral to another law, the amplitude involved in carrying out «genetic engineering procedures for illegal purposes» (art. 154.III, second section of the Mexican PC), without determining what these may be, or without referring to a law that defines which are legal and which are illegal. If the no-penal referral law did not exist (as seems to occur in Mexico), it would be empty and the crime would not be never applicable.

3.6. Unlawfulness The cases that may exceptionally be authorized - in other words, situations that are considered legal must be clearly defined by the law. Normally, the legal scope will be established by a no-penal law, although it may also be established by the criminal precept itself. When the Criminal Law refers to a no-penal law, the destination law must be easily identifiable and the legal scope of the referral must be well delimited. Sometimes, the Criminal Law allows a penal offence for lawful exceptions, that may be described in an administrative law. In the human biotechnology sector, it may occur that no legal margin for lawfulness is left for the offence defined. This means that the definition of the criminal offence will already bear its complete unlawfulness. This is the case, for example, of human reproductive cloning, which does not currently include any exceptions for a lawful reproductive cloning. In the scope of unlawfulness we find some examples of comparative law, where a given law has no clarity issues regarding the prohibited norm and aspects of the given conduct, in specific circumstances may be allowed, - be considered legal through a justification of the offence. Yet, we find in some of these laws a contradiction on the part of lawmakers, who, by searching for legal ins and outs that, in the end, mocks the main goal of the prohibition. A specific example of this is found in the possibility of using in vitro embryos for scientific research which are surplus from assisted reproductive techniques. Some countries have opted for a rigorous prohibition, even under threat of prosecution, as is the case of Germany45 for example. However, the German legislator has authorized by law the importing and use of embryonic stem cells under certain circumstances46. The paradox in this lies in the fact that research with embryos left over from in vitro fertilisations from German health centres is not permitted, but research is permitted if «left-over» embryos have been imported

45 Embryonenschutzgesetz, paragr. 7. 46 Law dated 28 June, 2002, Stammzellegesetz, paragr. 13 in relation to paragr. 4 and 5. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

40 Genetics and biotechnology from foreign centres outside Germany. In 2004 France established a moratorium regarding the legal prescription which prohibited at that time carrying out research with embryos left over from in vitro fertilisations47. France had done that in a way that also seemed to be paradoxical: the legal good was protected or not protected, depending on temporary criteria - not because of the considered social value in itself. These paradoxes have occured because lawmakers of both countries aimed to simultaneously provide two different and contradictory answers directed at different target audiences (trying to achieve the “squaring of the circle” in the legal sense). Thus, to society the law was designed to put them at ease regarding the legal protection granted to the in vitro embryo, and to the scientific community, the law was designed to open the doors to research, in order to not place it at a disadvantage in relation to researchers from other countries and to prevent them from going to other countries that have more permissive laws.

3.7. Fixing legal penalties: proportionality and suitability The penalties and the possible secure preventive measures –whatever the nature of the latter- or, if applicable, other accessory consequences must be precisely evaluated by lawmakers. This must be done, while in all cases maintaining the principle of proportionality. To accomplish this, attention should be paid to the issues delimited in the previous paragraphs of this contribution: specifically, the legal good that is intended to be protected ; the greater or lesser dangerousness or harmful of the conduct that is intended to be prohibited; and the configuration of the crime as a harm result or as mere endangerment activity; and the nature of the fact regarding the condition of the active subject of the crime (professional, authority or government employee). In summary, lawmakers must consider the greater or lesser seriousness of the disvalue of the action and the result, the last one if required by law. Additionally, it must weigh the level of dominating punitive repression present in the whole reference PC. Disproportionate sentences are present in several pieces of penal legislation, such as the French PC, where the sentences may reach twenty and thirty years of imprisonment, even life in prison48. Another example is found in the Japanese law49, which includes severe sentences for crimes related to overstepping the boundaries regarding assisted reproductive techniques, cloning, chimeras or hybrids. On the other hand, we must recognize that the indirect criminal-policy objective is to protect the preimplantational human embryo without entering into contradictory

47 The Decree dated 6 February, 2006 established a moratorium of five years. As it was said before the legal situation en changed since Law of 2011. 48 The most severe sentences refer to specific eugenic practices and reproductive cloning (arts. 214-1ff. of the PC). 49 Act 30 November 2000, in which prison up to ten years or a fine have been established (art. 16). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. M. Romeo Casabona 41 assessments regarding the protection of preimplantational and gestational human life, and the permitted exception mentioned in the previous section, as has been reported on occasion in the German doctrine. Even more serious is the criminal sanction included in the Italian law for human reproductive cloning by nuclear transfer: ten to twenty years in prison and a fine ranging from six hundred thousand to one million euros as well as being barred from practicing medicine for life (art. 12.7)50.

3.8. Special Criminal Law versus common penal code After having made the decisions discussed above, lawmakers must adopt still another. This decision, in reality and in time, will be positioned first, even though from a logical point of view, it is dependent on the others. The purpose for the lawmaker is to decide whether the new crimes should be incorporated into the PC or into a special Criminal Law. One aspect that may be of help in making this decision is if the activity is already regulated in a regulative type law, which establishes the requirements, conditions and limits to which the activity is subjected. A point to reflect upon relates to which procedure is the most ideal. This refers to the question of whether the criminal definition is strongly dependent on the non criminal regulation of the activity and, in particular, when it includes highly technical contents. If these circumstances are present, it will be advisable to include these crimes into a special law, as was done in Germany with the Embryo Protection Law of 1990. It does not seem like the goals of general prevention through punishment regarding these crimes will be negatively affected, just because the offence is listed outside the PC. This seems so, because even though these crimes are usually drafted without referencing certain personal conditions, which the subject of the crime must meet. In other words, these are special crimes, meaning that the law establishes what is the necessary personal profile of the perpetrator for him to be punished and that this criterion is correct. In fact, the target audience for the law is usually very small and coincides with the target audience for the non-penal regulations of the law51. In comparative law we find examples of both of these legislative approaches: either in the PC (e.g. Colombia, Spain, France, Mexico, Peru), or in a special Criminal Law (e.g. Germany, Australia, Canada, Japan, Italy, United Kingdom).

50 “Norme in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita”, Law 10 February, 2004, n. 40. Cfr. Also art. 13. 51 Also in favour of the special Criminal Law process is S. Romeo Malanda, Intervenciones genéticas sobre el ser humano y Derecho penal, cit., p. 260, who remembers that it will always be easier to modify the law than the PC (in both cases by organic law, although in the first it would suffice if it were the criminal part of the law). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Are we truly free?

Mario Zatti

Table of contents: 1. Soul, freedom and truth. – 2. Truth and provability. – 3. Ego’s freedom and physics. – 4. A step under some shadow of metaphysics: evolution as creation and non-created pain.

1. Soul, freedom and truth Neuroscientists face with some difficulty the problem of conscience-brain relationships, which in fact has been defined by D. J. Chalmers1 and is generally known as the “hard problem” of neuroscience; philosophers too consider conscience as a hard problem, due to the hindrance of evocating doubtful immaterial phenomena. Theories apparently well consolidated, which believed to have identified three brain’s regions as specific of self-awareness, which is central to human consciousness (insula, anterior cingulate, medial prefrontal cortices), are now falling. It has been recently demonstrated that human self-awareness is correlated with neurological processes involving diffuse cerebral webs and not specific limited regions2. Another problem must be taken into consideration, the complex type of causality between neural functions and conscious processes, these being emergent as “top down” influences in a sort of circular causality, owing to the reciprocity of the relations. According to R. Wurzman and J. Giordano3 the hard problem exists because an explication is searched only considering an efficient cause of events and only in the sense of the mechanisms

1 D.J. Chalmers, Facing up to the problem of Consciousness, in S.R. Hameroff, A.W. Kazniak, A.C. Scott (eds.), Toward a Science of Consciousness, Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 1996, p. 5. 2 C.L. Philippi, J.S. Feinstein, S.S Khalsa, A. Damasio et al., Preserved Self-Awareness Following Extensive Bilateral Brain Damage to the Insula, Anterior Cingulate, and Medial Prefrontal Cortices, in “PloS ONE”, 2012, 7(8), e38413. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038413. 3 R. Wurzman, J. Giordano, Mind, matter, neuroscience and physics, in “NeuroQuantology”, 2009, 7, pp. 368-81. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

44 Are we truly free? through which consciousness could arise from the processes of the neural substrate. In this matter, the efficient mechanism is inextricable from formal and final causes: every type of cause is involved, in a convergence and reciprocity which imply that the designation of the events as causes or effects may be ambiguous. In spite of the above complexity, particularly in view of the circularity of causal actions, let us attempt some exploration of the theme of the possibility of free choices by the system. It is well known that conscious activity is connected to biochemical and electrical manifestations of cerebral function. Such function is not subject to determinism: the variations of activity of neurons combined with the secretion and the bond to receptors of the neurotransmitters show that cerebral functions take place far from thermodynamic equilibrium, and in such conditions entropy production can entail a not deterministic character of the cerebral function corresponding to self- determination. Quantum indeterminacy and nonlinear chaotic dynamics account for the extreme sensibility and the instability of the entire cerebral hardware, i.e., the necessary, though not sufficient, condition for the exercise of freedom by human beings. The action of turning to the right or to the left in the case of a flying mosquito has a physical cause: for instance, the stimulus of a light radiation mechanically followed by the transmission of a series of signals and consequential movements. In the case of man, similar phenomena can be observed, movements caused by stimuli activating a sensorial receptor which travelling along sensorial neurons and synaptic connexions carries the information to the central neural system; herein action potentials are generated and, following efferent neurons, eventually stimulate effector organs, for example some muscular movement, without any intervention of voluntary acts. Simple spinal arc (short) reflexes don’t imply encephalic involvement. In the above mentioned cases the energy that at the beginning promotes the action is supplied by a physical agent. But let us consider the case of an autonomous choice of the will: where does the energy come from to induce action potentials of cerebral neurons and synaptic networks? If volition acts on synaptic events, the power of choice between to do or not to do, for instance to choose between two states corresponding to two desires of equal force, requires that the act of will can result in a compression of the entropy of the synaptic states, due to the furnishing of information, reducing uncertainty. The information amount I)( must be generally inversely proportional to the probability (p) of an event, therefore

I = f 1/p File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 45

The minimal amount of information is needed when a choice is made between two simultaneous options of equal probability: this is the binary digit, the unit of information called bit

1 = f 1/1/2

The functionf is therefore log2

1 = log 2 2

L. Szilard published (1929) a study entitled: “On the reduction of entropy in a thermodynamic system caused by an intelligent being”, giving examples of application of Maxwell’s idea (Maxwell demon): procedures of reduction of entropy by means of a memory. Owing to the mathematical relation between physical entropy and uncertainty or informational entropy, the reduction of entropy of synaptic states, caused by a mental choice acting within the competence of physical laws, always will represent removal of uncertainty, that is information supply, necessarily supported by an energetic cost paid by the system4. The problem of free choice has to do with the possibility that a system possessing indeterminacy or fundamental instability, such as the neural network, may be oriented in such a way that, after the choice has been made, it may find itself in one of its 2n possible states, inasmuch as this compression (reduction of entropy) correspond to the act of free will. Every time a reduction of entropy of the synaptic state, operated by a mental choice, takes place, it will necessarily be accompanied (as the laws of thermodynamics dictate) by heat exchanges with the environment or by equivalent variations of the entropy of a memory. If the system is material, in fact, it has to expend energy to effect the instability orientation (reduction of entropy), which should correspond to the act of free will. That is to say, the system should want to expend energy, and this free act would be prior to and different from the instability orientation: this decision in turn requires energy dissipation which in turn requires an act of will…; one would have to resort to infinity.

4 In a cylinder containing one molecule of gas and divided into two halves by a partition/piston, if a demon determines which side the molecule is on, he could obtain work without any expenditure of energy. If the force of the molecule colliding with the piston is kBT/L (kB Bolzmann constant, T absolute temperature, L distance between the piston and the extremity of the cylinder), the work of the molecule to double L is kBTloge 2. But to make afresh such space in demon’s memory, the minimal energy needed (at room temperature), being in question 1 bit of information to be removed, must -27 be just kBTloge 2 =10 KWh in the appropriate units. Not even a demon, if physical laws are not violated, could operate net reductions of entropy. L. Brillouin, Scientific Uncertainty and Information, New York, Academic Press, 1964. R. Landauer, Dissipation and Noise Immunity in Computation and Communication, in “Nature”, 1988, 335, pp. 779-84. A. Bérut et al., Experimental verification of Landauer’s principle linking information and thermodynamics, in “Nature”, 2012, 483, pp. 187-89. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

46 Are we truly free?

This could only be avoided if a system does not require physical means in the act of choosing: what is needed is an uncaused causality, an immaterial intelligence that any exclusively physical system (in which for every bit of information transferred a corresponding amount of energy must be dissipated) does not possess. Or man is not free. K.R. Popper and J.C. Eccles5 explain that an immaterial causality does not violate any physical law because it acts upon what, in the realm of quantum mechanics, is indeterminate. According to E. Boncinelli6 one’s self can be willing, but it is no other than the brain. I believe he/she should differ since, remaining on the field of physical efficient causes, a free responsible act cannot obtain. At least if we don’t want to look upon some biochemical reaction as free and responsible. It also seems that the scientific reasoning has to stop here, acquainted with the necessity of metaphysics. What has been discussed so far means that: - the brain shall be endowed with a certain measure of indeterminacy, necessary to be suitable to give hospitality to free will; - this is not sufficient however, because an immaterial form must be in act. C. Darwin7 wrote that, although great, the difference between the human mind and that of highest animals is one of degree and not of quality. This is half a truth: the brain in fact, as far as the immaterial self is not involved, performs functions of receptivity, association, memory, stimulation, that in man and in animals take place without qualitative differences. In view of the above considerations, even without an exhaustive philosophical discussion, we may infer that a free action must have an immaterial principle, some complement of a mere physical causation (mechanical, rational, computational, algorithmic). Today’s physics gives an incomplete comprehension of causality in the real world since it does not take into consideration human volition, which is clearly causally efficient8. On this matter philosophy offers a number of different perspectives9. An interesting idea has been put forward by A. N. Whitehead10 - analogously to those

5 K.R. Popper, J.C. Eccles, L’io e il suo cervello.Dialoghi aperti tra Popper e Eccles (1977), Roma, Armando, 2001. 6 E. Boncinelli, Quel che resta dell’anima, Milano, Rizzoli, 2012, p. 137. 7 C. Darwin, L’origine dell’uomo (1871), Milano, Ermanno Bruciati & C., 1913, p. 89. 8 G.F.R. Ellis, Physics and the Real World, Metanexus Institute, “Science and Religion: Global Perspectives”, 2005, Philadelphia, PA, USA, www.metanexus.net; Id., Physics, complexity and causality, in “Nature”, 2005, 435, pp. 743-45. 9 S. Gibb, E.G. Lowe, R.D. Ingthorsson (eds.), Mental Causation and Ontology, Oxford Univ. Press, 2013. E. Berti, M. Ivaldo, G. Mura, V. Possenti (eds.), L’Anima, Milano, Mondadori, 2004. 10 A.N. Whitehead, quoted by R. Penrose, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind,Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997, p. 158. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 47 of P. Teilhard de Chardin11, and of the theologian J. Ratzinger (1985)12 who defined matter as “prehistory of spirit” – according to whom something psychic pertains to all nature, but a high level psychical emergence (“reflexive thought” of Theilhard) is conditioned to the evolution of special complexes of occasions: in particular, the power of actualizing potentialities modifying quantum mechanical linear dynamics may be pervading all the nature, although non-negligible only in systems with high psychical excellence. We must in fact take into account a fundamental condition for freedom: the presence of chance, albeit a limited one, which seems to give form to a sort of “freedom” of nature. The human freedom requires an all important immaterial subject; and that of nature? On the matter of fact, we shall also take into consideration some philosophical and theological aspects. Considering a creative choice by an omnipotent Divinity, it appears to have been doubly limiting with respect to the full omnipotence because 1) it introduces free beings capable of good and evil and 2) permits in nature a degree of casualty bearing contingence, and limits to the action of fixed mathematical laws and to the Laplacian identification of causality and determinism. Introducing stochasticity at a fundamental level (the inherent statistic character of atomic-subatomic events) implicates that “…every individual quantum event may be genuinely unpredictable”, although, P. Davies says13, a collection of such events conforms with the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics. Statistical laws are in fact deterministic while concerning a collection of objects. As far as Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason14 is concerned, P. Davies argues that if some space exists in nature for genuine, inherent stochasticity, there the outcome of any particular throw of the die is undetermined by anything. “Imagine an electron colliding with an atom. Quantum mechanics tells us that there is, say, equal probability that the electron will deflect to the left as to the right. […] If the electron actually deflects to the left, there will be no reason whatever why it has done so…”. This sentence finds a philosophical resonance in the D. Antiseri’s remarks15 about “the insufficient defence” which could be rationally brought to the principle. However it is not possible to deliver up the principle of sufficient reason without relinquishing reason tout court, neither on the basis of Davies’s explanation,

11 P. Teilhard de Chardin, Il fenomeno umano, Milano, Il Saggiatore, 1968; Id. quoted in: O. Rabut, Incontro con Teilhard de Chardin, Milano, Borla, 1958, p. 28. 12 J. Ratzinger – Benedetto XVI, Progetto di Dio (1985), Marcianum Press, 2012, p. 133. According to M. Heller (The New Physics and a New Theology,Templeton Prize, 2008) it does not seem correct to believe that in the human knowledge science and theology (or philosophy) could be independent, though recognizing their different epistemological registers. 13 P. Davies, The Mind of God, London, Simon and Schuster, 1992, pp. 192-93. 14 G.W. Leibniz, Scritti filosofici,Torino, UTET, 1967. 15 D. Antiseri, Gloria o miseria della metafisica cattolica italiana?, Roma, Armando, 1987, p. 31. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

48 Are we truly free? nor if the principle should be considered as an axiom, which is a reasonable truth even if presupposed to rational systems. As an axiom it was regarded by Spinoza. Anyhow it must be a truth concerning all events (essendi, fiendi) in accordance with one of the definitions given by Leibniz: “Nothing happens without a reason”. The discussion brings us to ask: where does chance come from? In fact it must exist, as an accidental cause, notwithstanding the easiness of believing that in reality it does not exist, being the result of our ignorance or inadequate accuracy of observations of processes and initial conditions. There is, however, a second answer, as I. Ekeland16 observes, which consists in saying that chance is the result of independent causal sets. “This answer seemed idiotic to me when I was a child, and it seems even more idiotic now, inasmuch as there are no independent casual sets in the universe…”. This opinion implies a deterministic view of the universe in which the meeting of causal sets cannot be, by definition, such a thing as a fortuitous case, even if it might appear so. At the root of any real physical contingency, of the creativity of evolution, or of the existence of free, sentient beings, there must be a certain framework of a lack of necessitating causal constrictions: there would be nothing truly fortuitous, or new, if this root of intrinsic indeterminacy were lacking. It does exist, al least in the submicroscopic quantum world, as well as in the bifurcation points of chaotic systems, whose nonlinear dynamics are amplifiers even of only minimal accidental variations. Some claim the acausality (absolute chance) of events of the submicroscopic quantum world. It is fairly obvious that we are talking about a minority. They have to regard as acceptable the hypothesis of events arising from nothing. Yet they have some arguments to support their claim. In the subatomic world the interactions (forces) between particles are transferred by other particles: if motions can exist only as a result of the actions of external forces on the particles, one of these would not be able to move without the action (cause) of a force, but, on the other hand, the force cannot exist if there are no moving particles to transfer it: either everything is immobile, or there are uncaused spontaneous motions17. Some limits to physical causality, in view of the elementary material indeterminacy, must be considered, and the concept of indeterministic causality has been proposed, as we shall see. Nevertheless, it is always difficult to justify this ambiguous concept, as it is in general to admit the existence of truly contingent causes, without coherently reaching the point of accepting some framework of objective physical acausality in nature governed by laws, so much so, indeed, that most of the examples regarding chance, from the creditor who meets at the market-place his debtor (Aristotle, Ph II 5) to the tinman whose hammer falls

16 I. Ekeland, La matematizzazione del caso, in E. Noël (ed.), Aggiornamenti sull’idea del caso, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 1992, p. 171. 17 S. Gao, The Basis of Indeterminism,in “Phil. Sci. Archive”, 2001, ; A possible quantum basis of panpsychism, in “Neuroquantology”, 2003, 1, pp. 4-9. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 49 just when doctor Dupont is passing (Monod, Le hazard et la nécessité), have always been related to human acts, implying the existence of a psychic cause at the origin of the contingent causal set to which a fortuitous event is due. It may be suggestive to compare the macroscopic unpredictability due to causal sets of psychic origin, as in the examples of the type recalled here above, with that of the submicroscopic world where it may also be possible to postulate a psychic cause - instead of a lack of causes - of fortuitous events. The logical basis of indeterminism is provided by the demonstration that the motion of elementary particles is discontinuous, random and spontaneous: self-movement is in fact a typical immanent property of animated beings. And going back to what was said about the powers of the soul and its gradual emergence (causal powers other than physical power), the same could be said also for the inherent root of indeterminacy, which could then be the same of freedom, and may remind us of Teilhard’s great insight18: “We are logically forced to assume in rudimentary form the existence of some sort of psychic form in every corpuscle…”. The concept is still actual: a recent article on NeuroQuantology has an expressive title: Neural Correlate of Cosciousness in a Single Electron…19. Viewing the matter in this aspect does not put away the principle of sufficient reason. These ideas should not be considered as expression of propensity to mysticism or as getting off the lines of the scientific reasoning. It may be enough to remember the title of a book of P. Davies and J. Brown20: The ghost in the atom. N. Bohr, one of the fathers of quantum physics, wrote that anybody who is not shocked by quantum theory does not understand it. In the quantum world a particle is a wave, and a wave is a particle. The famous Schrödinger’s cat can be in a superposition of states, both dead and alive, depending on an earlier random event21. In the notorious doubleslit experiment a photon acts either like a particle or like a wave, but not both. But also one photon can pass through both slits at once and interfere with itself. A subtle connexion can exist between two particles (“entanglement”) whereby a measurement operated on one of them causes on the other, even at a distance of light-years, an instantaneous condition not any longer characterized by indetermination. Physicists have even created quantum links between photons that don’t exist at the same time22. These and similar aspects explain how scientists have spoken of “metaphysics of

18 P. Teilhard de Chardin, Il fenomeno umano, Milano, Il Saggiatore, 1968. 19 V.Y. Argonov, Neural Correlate of Consciousness in a Single Electron: Radical Answer to “Quantum Theories of Consciousness”, in “NeuroQuantology”, 2012, 10, pp. 276-85. 20 P.C.W. Davies, J.R. Brown, The ghost in the atom,Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986. 21 J. Gribbin, In search of Schrödinger’s cat, London, Corgi Books, 1985. 22 A. Cho, Physicists Create Quantum Link Between Photons That Don’t Exist at the Same Time,in “Science NOW”, 22 May 2013. Megidish E., H. Eisenberg et al., in “Physical Rev. Letters” (in press). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

50 Are we truly free? quantum theory”23, although there are incontestable experimental confirmation of it. B. D’Espagnat24, considering that a quantum measurement of an object can give a multiplicity of possible results, so that the original quantum state must be considered indetermined resulting therefore impossible any definite scientific description of reality as it really is, spoke of “veiled reality” that science will not be able to know exhaustively. Asked whether this could bear to some sort of mysticism he said in reply that science is not all. In a philosophical prospect, it is not difficult to see in the veiled reality an analogy with the noumenon of the kantian Critique of Pure Reason. According to E. Husserl (Logische Uuntersuchungen) “…with regard to their matter, objects remain fully not determinate, being determined only by the form of their connections”. Husserl’s notion of ‘object’ seems to correspond to that of ‘particular’ of analytical metaphysics or to that of ‘individual’ of logic, and the notion of ‘law which regulates a connexion’ to that of ‘property of a relation’25. The concept of a particular and not universal property having existence of its own has lead to introduce a new name for it: ‘trope’. According with this ontology, things are nothing but bundles of properties. What does really exist is represented by properties and relations. This is an old problem. What physical reality can have the fundamental particles of matter26? The problem is not whether they do exist, but what are they made of. If they are really fundamental, what matter could they be made of? On a more technical plane the theory of hidden variables postulates that the wave-function represent an objectively real field, in a state of rapid casual fluctuation deriving from a deeper subquantum level, much in the same way as the fluctuations of the Brownian motion of a droplet of liquid derive from the underlying atomic level. The behaviour of the field appears to be indetermined, but the precise dynamics of the fluctuations is caused by a hypothetical “implicate order”, which may also be understood as the primary reality of the substance of consciousness27. Bohm’s theory, often quoted and seldom partaken, has been also recently submitted to a rather radical criticism as far as mental/material interrelations are concerned28. Bohm affirmed: “Quantum physics sees mind and matter as implicated…”; and already N. Cusano29 used the latin word “implicatio” putting forward a rather similar idea some centuries ago, also denying the possibility of knowing the “quidditas” of things. In conclusion, the existence of chance as we have outlined it can be traced to an

23 H. Krips, The metaphysics of quantum theory,Oxford, Clarendon press, 1987. 24 B. D’Espagnat, On Physics and Philosophy, Princeton Univ. Press, 2006. 25 C. Masolo, A. Oltramani et al., La prospettiva dell’ontologia applicata, in “Rivista di estetica”, 2003, 22, pp. 170-83. 26 M. Kuhlmann, What Is Real?, in “Sci. American”, 2013, 309(2), pp. 32-9. 27 D. Bohm, Universo Mente Materia, Como, Red, 1996. 28 R. Maleeh, P. Amani, Bohm’s Theory of the Relationship of Mind and Matter Revisited,in: NeuroQuantology 2012, 10, pp. 150-63. 29 N. Cusano, La dotta ignoranza (1440), Roma, Città Nuova, 1998. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 51 intrinsic indeterminacy of matter, for which two hypotheses can be propounded: 1. that at the elementary level the relationships correspond to an indeterministic physical causality, as was first claimed by Sommerfield, de Broglie and Born, which requires the separation of the notion of causality from that of determinism30, and the use of the concept of “probabilistic causality”, perhaps better interpreted as deterministic cause of probabilities31; 2. that a psychic causal power operates at the elementary level, in the single particles of the quantum world, already present albeit without any claim of awareness, capable of blindly influence quantum events inducing random effects. Chance as we know it in physics and by common sense must in any event be referred to a fundamental, though very limited framework of physical acausality. It is, in any case, important to note that the inherent stochasticity of quantum mechanics, a condition of total randomness, – the equity of the quantum game of dice – is itself a fairly restrictive law of nature. As for the accusation of vitalism that could be brought against some of the possibilities described, it may be useful to consult the article entitled Quantum Vitalism by S.H. Hameroff32: “…functional descriptions fail to capture an essential self-organizing “unitary oneness” present in living systems. To nineteenth-century biologists this quality was ascribed to a “life force”, “élan vital”, or “energy field”. Then, as molecular and cell biology began to reveal the biochemical and physical processes involved in cellular activities, the apparent need for a life force waned, and “vitalists” or “animists” were vilified. In modern reductionist science the notion of life force or energy or information field has remained almost taboo. However a new wrinkle has recently appeared. Whereas nineteenth-century vitalism was based completely on forces outside the realm of science, a “vitalist” perpective has emerged in which life derives by direct extension from the most fundamental level of reality. In “quantum vitalism”, life is intimately linked to self-organizing processes at the most basic level of the universe”. The appearance of life is therefore programmed in the elementary particles of the universe, and this implies a set of laws using chance and putting it into effect in the only possible way, comprising an immaterial psychic field. In the course of evolution this field accompanies matter up to complexity and freedom. In this hypothesis it is worth noting that evil and pain would be due directly or indirectly to psychic causes, both at the level of the blind calamity produced in the action of a rudimentary psyche and at the higher level of the free action of consciousness. Be that as it may, we must realize that when we appeal to chance in nature we cannot escape identifying it with a framework of physical acausality. Within which

30 M. Born, Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1949. 31 F. Weinert, Quantum mechanics: The Physicist turns Philosopher. Conference Proceedings of 100 Years of Quantum Theory,Madrid, 2000, http://www.staff.brad.ac.uK/fweinert. 32 S.H. Hameroff, Quantum Vitalism, in “Advances”, 1997, 13, pp. 13-22. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

52 Are we truly free? we happen to find creativity, novelty, and freedom; and, along with these, calamity. In an assay published in 1967 the theologian K. Rahner33 had this to say about the presence of spirituality in matter in the course of evolution:

“If effectively the process of becoming is really one of self-transcendence which, depending on the circumstances, can go so far as to yield a new essence […] and if matter and spirit are not simply disparate entities, but matter is somehow a frozen spirit (“fri- gorifié”), the only meaning of which is to make the spirit proper possible, and if, lastly, created spirituality always remains spirituality in matter up to its absolute realization, then the evolution of matter into spirit is not an unrealizable concept, provided only that the concept of evolution is understood in the sense of this essential self-transcendence subject to the dynamism of the absolute being”. This opinion, which is shared by others, open up a vast horizon in natural philosophy, which today addresses the study of evolutionary processes, including biological and psychological ones, with new conceptual instruments, such as the theories of complex systems, self-organization and emergent properties. Animated beings distinguish themselves particularly in that they are capable of autonomous activity (self-movement) and, in the case of human beings, in their consciousness, power of abstraction, of constructing forms and grasping universals, in their freedom to choose and causing effects which cannot be explained solely on the basis of neuronal behaviour. The emergent properties in the course of cosmic evolution, particularly life and consciousness, as such (i.e. qua emergent) would appear to come from nothing. When Rahner talks about the evolution of matter toward spirit and indicates the way it comes about, i.e. “self-transcendence”, what he means is that the emergence does not come from nothing, but comes into being as a form contained potentially in things and actuated in adequate causal conditions. This, as well as other forms, is known philosophically as degrees of being. These include the human soul as the only full ontological emergence of the “image and likeness” (Gen 1, 26), the last rung of a ladder whereby the psychic potentials of nature gradually manifest themselves. This line of thought is shared and clearly expressed by the theologian J. Ratzinger in his Carinthian lessons [1985]34: “…spirit is not added to matter as something extraneous […]; rather its coming forth denotes that a movement which makes use of an outrider arrives to destination. Finally we should say that the creation of spirit is just what, less than anything other, could be represented as an handicraft of God, who should have begun hereabouts, suddenly, to bustle in the world”. Within such perspective, different from that of thomistic philosophy, it is easier,

33 K. Rahner, Science, évolution et pensée chrétienne, Paris, Desclée De Bouwer, 1967, p. 111. 34 J. Ratzinger – Benedetto XVI, Progetto di Dio, cit., p. 134. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 53 notwithstanding the difference, to comprehend the anthropological view of spirit and matter as constitutive principles of one being, that is, one substance35. One can then admit that soul is an emergent property potentially present since the beginning of cosmic evolution but one which36 “…is actuated, triggered as J. Searl puts it, only in the presence of certain conditions, i.e. of a certain level of organization […] that is to say, a real leap forward in ontological level – well, in this case it is possible that such an event may occur several times in the course of evolution, at different levels and also with different outcomes, with a gradual growth of its own powers and its own independence from the material substrate […]; this therefore paves the way for a truly non-reductionist explanation of unconscious life, as well as of those intentional behaviours we may well encounter, albeit in attenuated form, in species other than our own […]. If the very laws of nature oblige us to admit the existence of phenomena that they cannot explain, and consequently to postulate that they are grounded in a different, non material type of reality, it would be simply contradictory to claim that the related causal powers cannot be attributed to them for the reason – or rather the tautological argument – that they cannot be explained in materials terms”. Dealing with these arguments, it is difficult to understand the attitude of V. Mancuso when, in his book L’anima e il suo destino37, certainly in a pleasing literally manner, he affirms for example that “…the body is energy under the aspect of matter, the soul is energy in a free state” or that “an elephant has a bigger amount of energy than a man [because of its body mass] but man’s energy is higher, that is, can do more work, thanks its better order”. And he wrights on the newspaper Il Foglio (10-2-2008): “Science is necessary to speak of soul… [and] on this ground I got to found the concept of soul as surplus of energy, free energy with respect to the mass. For a live being …the soul[A] results from the total energy, taking away the energy like mass: E – M = A. In the case of a stone, on the contrary, E – M = 0”. In my opinion, the Author has lost his way. Free energy is scientifically defined as that which is utilizable, for instance heat developing in a chemical reaction: two molecules of HI (2HI), compound made of hydrogen (H) and iodine (I), have a free energy higher than that of the sum of one of hydrogen (H2) and one of iodine (I2), separated in the reaction which takes place yielding 610 calories per mole in standard conditions, without any change of mass between the reagents and the products. Therefore the inorganic chemical compound HI, with its surplus of free energy, according with Mancuso’s rule, should be an animated living being. In any case as a biochemist I should not be very happy if my soul could be measured in calories. Why the conscious free choice, which our Ego is able of, could not be made by

35 C. Fabro, F. Ocariz, in: Le ragioni del Tomismo, Milano, Ares, 1979, pp. 50, 96. 36 P. Musso, Filosofia del Caos, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1977, p. 174-75. 37 V. Mancuso, L’anima e il suo destino, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2007, pp. 97, 105. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

54 Are we truly free? an exclusively material agent, whether part of deterministic or of indeterministic systems? Beside the thermodynamic problem, as we said above, in the first case it is unimaginable that a rigid causal set might give free scope to anything outside its own laws, and in fact those who identify psychical and cerebral states, F. Crick for example38, are often inclined to consider as an illusion, in spite of its immediate evidence, the interior sensation of freedom; in the second case, our choices couldn’t be but the result of quantum events carried out with casual arbitrariness, since indetermination implies constant fluctuations, also in the absence of any measuring operation. Not even by means of the dynamics of non-linear systems (chaos), notoriously active in the brain, this one could do autonomously a choice and cling to it, because of the typical instability of chaotic dynamics. The indeterministic aspects of matter, which are also present in neurons, are just those that justify the possibility of a causal action of the soul on the brain without violating the laws of physics39. J. Eccles described the quantum uncertainty demonstrable in the junctions between neurons (synapses) in which the stimulus passes from one neuron to another via the release of biochemical quanta of neurotransmitters. These are contained in vesicles whose membrane can fuse, as a result of the actions produced by the nerve stimulus, with that of the junction (presynaptic membrane) causing the emptying of the vesicle and the emission of the neurotransmitter. The mass of the vesicle, in fact, is not such as to exceed the limits of Heisenberg uncertainty equation and therefore could be affected by the magnitude of the effect produced by a quantum mechanics probability wave. Hameroff and Penrose suggested that consciousness might be related to a quantum wave function collapsing in structures in the brain’s neurons called microtubules40. According to Penrose, Swinburn and others, if the only source of indeterminacy in the physical world were that of quantum states, this would be enough to guarantee scope for non-computability, the possibility unrelated to algorithmic processes allowing the exercise of human intelligence and freedom. This basically echoes the attempts made by the ancients Epicurus and Lucretius to describe an indeterminacy of the atomic motions (clinamen) as a justification of free will. About this matter there are many different philosophical opinions, from hard determinism incompatible with the existence of free will, to compatibilism or semicompatibilism, to the impossibilism with regard to moral responsibility, until to

38 F. Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, London, Simon e Shuster, 1994. 39 J.C. Eccles, A unitary hypothesis of mind-brain interaction in the cerebral cortex. Proc. Royal Soc. London B 240, pp. 433-51; F. Beck, J.C. Eccles, Quantum Processes in the Brain: A Scientific Basis for Consciousness, in N. Osaka (ed.), Neural Basis of Consciousness, Amsterdam, J. Benjamins, 2003, pp. 141-66; S. Hameroff, R. Penrose, Orchestrated reduction of quantum coherence in brain microtubules: a model for consciousness, in “J. Consciousness Studies”, 1996, 3, pp. 36-53. 40 S. Hameroff, R. Penrose, Orchestrated reduction of quantum coherence in brain microtubules: A model for consciousness, in “Mathematics and Computers in Simulation”, 40, 1996, pp. 453-480. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 55 supporters of the preservation of the public illusion of free will, in order to contribute to the maintenance of public morality41. There is also, on the other side, the so- called libertarianism, variously and sometimes vaguely defined. The very extensive researches can find some synthesis in the work of L. Doyle42. The human psyche is much more than a computer. It was to K. Gödel’s credit that he explained as early as 1931 his “incompleteness theorems”, accepted since then by all logicians43. The first theorem states that for logics higher than that of first order predicate calculus, in every logico-mathematical system which is coherent there are propositions that cannot be demonstrated within the system, but that we can see to be true. The consequence was to take note in the mathematical spheres of the difference of the concepts of demonstrability and truth; and of the impossibility of deriving all truths with mechanical procedures. For any rational system founded on axioms and rules of logical inference, and coherent, there are infinite truths which are not demonstrable within the system (and this has been proved). Therefore the set of demonstrable propositions is not coincident with that of true propositions. “Gödel seems to give back to the human mind, fit for abstraction and hence able to get out of the system, a status quite different from that of any machine, unable to be self-conscious”44. A detailed exposition of the theorems cannot be done here: the demonstration requires the prior analysis of 46 propositions and 5 preparatory theorems. Let us try to grasp some knowledge by intuition. 1. Among the infinite truths not belonging to whatever consistent axiomatic system A, one of these truths is represented by the statement G which, within A, is demonstrably equivalent to the following assertion: “G is not a theorem of A”. Since the set of axioms is effectively given, the correctness of any proof can be verified by arithmetical methods. So if, contrarily to the above truth, we say “G is a theorem of A”, there should be a proof GG of our assertion such as to be able to prove in A that “GG is a proof of G”, thereby proving in A that “G is a theorem of A” which means proving the opposite of G in A. Therefore, if A is consistent, G is not a theorem of A. But this is what G asserts, so G is true. Consequently, there are true propositions which are not demonstrable. 2. It has been said in A that “if A is consistent, G is not a theorem of A”. This proposition contains the theorem “A is consistent” and the theorem “G is not a theorem of A”, i.e. in this proposition G should be just what it states not to be. But then the entire proposition, and particularly the first part (the theorem “A is

41 S. Smilansky, Free will and illusion, Oxford University Press, 2000. 42 R. Doyle, Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy,Information philosopher 2011. 43 K. Gödel, Collected Works, S. Feferman Ed., New York, Oxford Univ. Press, 1986, I, pp. 145-95. 44 F. Bertelè, A. Olmi, A. Salucci, A. Strumia, Scienza, analogia, astrazione, Padova, Il Poligrafo, 1999, pp. 251-65. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

56 Are we truly free? consistent”) cannot belong to A, if A is consistent; namely, if the system is consistent, it cannot prove its consistency. It has been shown that the first theorem is valid for all consistent formal systems, which are therefore incomplete, that is to say, there are formulas that are not demonstrable in them and that we, standing out of the system, can see as truths: our intellect is not confined within the limits of the rational system. Gödel’s theorem must apply to cybernetic machines, since it is quality, essence of their own, to consist of concrete installation of a formal system. Therefore, for a machine (computer) able to manage arithmetic, and coherent, there will always be a formula which cannot be demonstrated in the machine-system but which we can see to be true. In other words, no machine will ever be an adequate and complete model of the human soul, whose essence is different45. The importance of Gödel’s theorems and of others which followed on the argument may be defined as epochal. According to G. Chaitin46, Gödel discovered just the tip of the iceberg of mathematical incompleteness, which concerns an infinite number of theorems that are true but cannot be demonstrated by any finite system of axioms. Certain mathematical facts are true without any logical reason, being impossible to find a theory explaining why they are true: they are irreducible not only from a computational point of view, they are logically irreducible, and can be used solely as axioms. A theory is useful if it represent an algorithmic compression of data: comprehension is compression, which in many cases is unrealizable because one is in front of an irreducible complexity. The example which can demonstrate these limits of logical knowledge is the number that Chaitin has called “omega” and indicates the probability of halting of a computer program chosen by chance among all other possible programs. It is a number which does possess a definite value but one that will never be calculated because the number is irreducible. These theorems have definitively proved that for any logical system there are infinite truths that are not demonstrable in it; but the human intellect sees them just as truths. It is also evident that the truth does not let itself be denied47: “… truth does exist necessarily, is indefectible, cannot be denied without re-proposing in the negation itself”. And it proves itself as “indubitable truth of doubt”, as Augustine said (De vera religione 39, 73): “Anyone who understands to be in doubt sees something that is sure (his doubt), which he is certain of: therefore he is certain of truth”.

45 J.R. Lucas, Minds, Machines and Gödel, in “Philosophy”, 1961, XXXVI, pp. 112-27. 46 G. Chaitin, The Limits of Reason, in “Sci. American”, 2006, 294/3, pp. 54-61. 47 A. Poppi, La Verità, La Scuola, 1984, p. 95. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 57

Much of the above discussion is synthesized by Augustine (De Libero Arbitrio II, 12, 34) in a few words: “…we judge our knowledge by means of truth, but we cannot pass judgement on truth itself. […] Do not get out of yourself, […] it is inside man that truth abides”. In fact, in our inward world we can also find beauty, good, morals… And we see that good is truth, which makes us free. According to J. Maritain48 “…human intelligence, although being a reason that manages its concepts, observant of logical rules (and this depends on its carnal condition) is also an intellect, that is a power able to see in the intelligible order as the eye does […] in the tangible one. The intellect knows the prime principles of any demonstration just through such an insight”. G. Berlucchi49 in the essay Mente e Cervello develops interesting considerations. He uses the term “mind” to indicate a cerebral function, and “soul” to denote a supposed “immaterial essence” (which should be left to metaphysical discussions). In the conclusions he recalls the new ways of intending the active role of conscience and will “in the control of cerebral operations, breaking the apparent causal closure of physical world”. Mental states are seen as emergent properties of cerebral processes, and that in their turn exert an inverse causality on cerebral matter (top-down, as is typical of complex systems). If we conform to these indications and terminology, and to what has been said in the preceding pages about causality in the physical world, we shall put the boundary line of the dualism truth/demonstration at the level and as expression of that soul/mind. Thus we speak of emergent dualism: intellect and reason, freedom and mechanicism, truth and demonstration, soul and mind; but one intended as the composition of the substantial unity of informed matter constitutive of man. On this subject, G.F. Basti50 appropriately quotes a passage of Thomas Aquinas where a qualitative distinction is lucidly made between cognitive operations. In fact, although apparently all of them are alike peculiar to the body-soul compound, they are not: for example, the intellective act which leads to an abstract conception absolutely lacking in physical models cannot be but spiritual. This is why we say that soul is also a subsistent form, in possession of autonomous being, because it accomplishes operations independent of the body. “The thesis of the subsistence of the human soul, together with the thesis of the intellective soul as the only substantial form of the body, is conclusive in the construction of an anthropology…”51. What do we intend while speaking of intellect, or in other words, which relation

48 J. Maritain, Il contadino della Garonna, Brescia, Morcelliana, 1973, p. 166. 49 G. Berlucchi, Mente e Cervello, in V. Andreoli, F. Buzzi (eds.), L’anima e la mente, Cinisello Balsamo, San Paolo, 2012, pp. 137-47. 50 G.F. Basti, Filosofia dell’uomo, Bologna, ESD, 1995, p. 351. 51 A. Ghisalberti, L’anima da Aristotele a Tommaso D’Aquino, in V. Andreoli, F. Buzzi (eds.), L’anima e la mente, cit., pp. 35-36. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

58 Are we truly free? does exist between knowledge of truth and possession of freedom? To have freedom, syntax is not enough, what is needed is semantics which makes the difference between the human intelligence and that of animals and artificial intelligence. Animals lack the concept of logical connexion, and so cannot distinguish induction from deduction, nor can they understand why some sentences are proofs of others (though they can make use of acts of logical succession and therefore operate deductively in point of fact); moreover, lacking the concepts of true and untrue, they cannot refuse an argument raising an objection to the previous statements52. Leibniz (Monadology 29) wrote: “It is the knowledge of necessary and eternal truths that distinguish us from animals, […] letting us know ourselves and God”. So there is a difference between the knowledge of man and animals, difference which expresses an ontological emergence whereby what is meant as ‘soul’ cannot be reduced to the meaning of ‘mind’ or ‘brain’. But even between emergentists there are strong differences. J.R. Searl53 stated that consciousness is an emergent property of brain in the sense, for instance, in which solidity is a property of water molecules when they are frozen. But, if solidity is a property which may be taken back to the behaviour of molecules, consciousness may be attributed to cerebral states. This is certainly not an ontological emergence, and in fact Searle asserts that cognitive phenomena are simply caused by neurophysiological processes of the brain; which however cannot exhaust all the non-reducible emergent reality54. Sperry’s emergentism is more radical, considering mental properties as “configurational and olistic”, different from the neural events of which they are composed but upon which they exercise a regulative control: mental events are causes rather than correlates. To have freedom, either the form of knowledge (νοήσις) and the related substantial substratum must be distinct respectively from the logic (διάνοια) and from the computer. “Man is objectively somebody and in this consists what distinguishes, in the visible world, him/her from the other beings, which are always something”55. The difference can’t be but self-possession that qualifies the person, hence the human soul. But there are still discordant ways of understanding what soul is56. A psychiatrist deeply resolute in his “scientific atheism”, P. Debray-Ritzen57, once wrote of his soul: “…a computer with its fifteen billion transistors and its umpteen billions of connections,

52 R. Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul,Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986, p. 210. 53 J.R. Searl, The Rediscovery of the Mind,Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 1992. 54 R.W. Sperry, Mental Phaenomena as Causal Determinants in Brain Function, in G.G. Globus, G. Maxwell, I. Savodnik (eds.), Consciousness and the Brain, New York, Plenum Press, 1976, p. 163. 55 K. Wojtyla, Amore e responsabilità, Casale Monferrato, Marietti, 1980, c.I. 56 E. Berti, M. Ivaldo, G. Mura, V. Possenti (eds.), L’Anima, Milano, Mondadori, 2004. 57 P. Debray-Ritzen, L’ateismo scientifico: uno psichiatra, in C. Chabanis, Dio esiste? No, rispondono…, Milano, Mondadori, 1974, p. 127. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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in which a unique intellectual and emotional personality has formed…; the assembly of all this on a single tool…is my soul.”

2. Truth and provability A computer is an instrument capable of performing operations in terms of demonstration, and the problem of mind/brain or spirit/matter can be approximated only if we clarify the relationship between truth and demonstration, that we shall try to examine through what the soul itself expresses, i.e., natural language, in which they are actually found in a non-pacific coexistence. The conflict is classically expressed by “the antinomy of the liar”, a well-known paradox representing an obstacle to the definition of truth in natural languages. Imagine58 a book of many pages, each containing only one sentence. On page 1 we read: “The sentence written on page 2 is true”; on page 2 we read: “The sentence written on page 3 is true”; and so on, up to the last page of the book where we read: “The sentence printed on page 1 is false.” Assume that the sentence of page 1 is indeed false: confronting what it says of the following sentence and all the ensuing ones, we must conclude that the sentence printed on page 1 is true in so far as it arrives at confirming the statement of its own falsity, namely it is both true and false. Assuming on the contrary that the sentence of page 1 is true, the conclusion is the same. A number of logical antinomies are known, inducing contradictions. We must take note of a common condition and cause of them: it is the acritical superimposition of the concept of truth upon a system of declarative sentences, which pertain to provability. He who doesn’t recognize this point will expect to exhaust truth in the provability, so as to proceed in the certainty of exact science, but excluding a priori from his knowledge infinite truths (Gödel); those who acknowledge that a system in which antinomies appear denounces a symptom of disease (Tarski) will not found their knowledge on methodological bases that reveal contradictions, but will go deep into the question with scientific rigour. The exposition which follows traces back to Tarski (1969). If we analyse the characteristic elements of language that are the real source of the antinomy of the liar, a fundamental aspect of common language strikes us: its universal, all-inclusive character. In particular it is possible to ascertain that, for each sentence of the common language, it is possible to formulate in the same language another sentence which declares that the first one is true or false. Such universal languages involving logical antinomies are neither necessary nor suitable for the aims

58 A. Tarski, Il concetto di verità nei linguaggi formalizzati, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 1963; Id., Verità e dimostrazione, in “Le Scienze”, 1969, 12, p. 20; Id. in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: papers from 1923 to 1938, J. Corcoran (ed.), Indianapolis, Hackett, 1983. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

60 Are we truly free? of science. For example, in chemistry certain particular objects are studied (atoms, molecules, etc.) and not others: the vocabulary of the theory is meagre, the language suitable for the treatment of this subject is therefore a restricted one. The conditions imposed on the language in order to secure its coherence are: that the vocabulary must be completely determined; that precise formal syntactic rules are used; that this limited language is kept distinct from that in which the notion of truth is used, its definition is formulated, its implications are discussed. The latter will be called “metalanguage” and the former “object language”; the metalanguage must be richer than the object language, since it shall contain all the set of sentences of the object language, that have to be available for the definitions of truth. The exclusion of the definition of truth from the object language or, in other words, the distinction of the notion of truth from the system of provable sentences, results to be a radical condition to avoid antinomies, that is, for a correct foundation of logic. Important deductions can be done. Let us take for example as an object language that of arithmetic. The vocabulary is very limited, including variables, numbers, symbols for relations and operations on numbers, some logical terms and simple rules. The metalanguage will be that in which the theory for the study of arithmetical language is formulated (meta-arithmetic), and it will contain the definitions of truth and of provability. We can therefore define in the metalanguage the set of provable sentences of the arithmetical language, that is the set of its sentences which satisfy the definition of formal proof. It will also possible to arrange all provable sentences in order of complexity, and number them. So it will also be possible to describe the relations between the numbers assigned to the sentences by means of arithmetical operations and relations, that is in the object language itself: since the set of numbers corresponding to provable sentences can be describe in arithmetical terms, it might be said the definition of provability is translatable from the metalanguage into the object language. No such translation can be obtained for the definition of truth, otherwise the logical antinomies would reappear, because the object language would turn out again universal. All this means that the set of provable sentences and the set of true sentences do not coincide, since one of them does not enjoy all the properties of the other (to show that two data sets are not coincident it is enough to indicate one property of one of them not shared by the other). All the axioms of arithmetic being true and all rules unfailing, all the provable sentences must be true; in view of the non-coincidence of the two sets there must be true sentences that are not provable. Just as Gödel said. It is well known that a computer is constructed in such a way as to operate with certain axioms and formalized logical rules, thus obtaining any number of proved sentences. We can define these sentences as true if we place our trust in the axioms and rules of logic, and would be tempted to consider the logical sum of the provable File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 61 sentences as the definition of truth of the computer. Here, however, we run up against the problem of antinomies. The word “truth” and any discussion of it must be excluded from object language if we wish to keep it free of antinomy. Thus the notion of truth must be distinct from the system of provable sentences, and therefore distinct from the computer. The soul, according to Debray quoted before, and many others, is a kind of computer, a “tool”; but it embraces in its language, besides logical expressions, also semantics and truth which are metalogical. We must therefore be aware of what is clearly present in our universal language: a dualistic expression. An essential point is this: any logico-mathematical system requires a non-logical foundation of axioms. W. Stegmüller59 states that it is impossible to disprove the essential intuitions without having just presupposed them. We can’t help establishing our conceptual intuition that permits to catch the relation between abstract concepts, a type of eidetic evidence. Evidence warranted by our capacity of intuition of essences60. Similar opinions are expressed by R. Penrose61: “ability to divine or intue truth from falsity” and also “aesthetic criteria”; and by many others. Some people claim that the paradox of the liar (Epimenide’s paradox) owes its absurdity to the fact that it is an operation of self-reference. As S. Galvan says, “… against a certain reasoning aiming at some demonstration of senselessness of Gödel’s theorem because of its self-reference, hence circularity, [we must make clear that] the formula is certainly self-referential but not senseless as it isn’t circular.” D. Hofstadter62, on the other hand, furnishes the demonstration of the reproduction of Epimenides’s paradox in the Typographical Theory of Numbers, as operated by Tarski, whereby we have a version of the paradox which, at this level, becomes not an affirmation about itself but a sentence about numbers which is true only if it is false. A possible explanation offered by Hofstadter himself, namely the hypothesis that the antinomy could derive from an inconsistency between cerebral functions, would discredit rationality and make useless our arguing; and the Author himself obviously confirms that: “when in a logical system even only one contradiction is allowed, then, from the principle ex falso quodlibet, whatever may be deduced within that system”63. The metalogical notion of truth becomes instead a reliable guidance for the rationality in the dualistic hypothesis, since in this case the reason rests eventually on absolute truth. After all, Hofstadter’s hypothesis is but another way of saying that

59 W. Stegmüller, Metaphysik, Skepsis, Wissenschaft, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York, Springer, 1969. 60 S. Galvan, Introduzione ai teoremi di incompletezza, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1992, pp. 191 ss. 61 R. Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind,Oxford Univ. Press, 1989, pp. 110, 412, 421. 62 D. R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach, New York, Basic Books, 1979, pp. 449-50. 63 D.R. Hofstadter, D.C. Dennet, L’io della mente, Milano, Adelphi, 1985. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

62 Are we truly free? the burden of truth cannot be given to the rational thinking without having to pay the penalty of paradoxes. It may be interesting to note how, generally, self-reference can introduce a paradox: when the reference is made through the semantic content of the proposition itself. These paradoxes depend ultimately on the conflict between two radically different modes used in language to consider the identity of a being, namely, on the one hand identity defined by means of spatio-temporal (or logico-formal) localization, for a concrete entity; and, on the other, identity independent of any related space-time domain and possessing a semantic nature, for an abstract entity such as, for instance, a quality. Entities of the former type are necessarily designated by means of substantives, while those of the second type, corresponding to qualities, may be designated by means of adjectives (e.g. true). This being so, the operation of identification on a semantic basis is alien to the computer and to calculating thought, for which self- reference through the semantic content is thus prohibited. In other words, qualities, perceived in their semantic identity, have to be kept distinct (metalanguage) from the language and operations of quantitative logic (object language) and spatial identification, and therefore distinct (dualism) from the subject of action to which the latter operations pertain. This dualism is the reason for the difference that exists between truth and proof and, in general, between perception of quality, essence and form, on the one hand, and res extensa, on the other. The advocates of artificial intelligence very often neglect the dual aspect that we have dwelt upon here at some length, identifying all intelligence with logic. On the basis of what has been said, this can only be a blind alley, up which people go when they are unwilling to accept the dualistic solution. The materialistic axiom on the ground of which all knowledge must form part of physical sciences, thus does not allow to rely on its certainty. K. Popper and many others have condemned any dialectic metaphysics in which, tough within some limits, the use of contradiction is permitted. He who declares that “…one can live in contradictions being happy” should show a consequent behaviour; on the contrary, when the occasion occurs, he will do no such thing as to throw himself into a well, convinced, as Aristotle said, that to fall down is not at all the same thing as not to fall. When Debray, quoted above, says “…my soul is unique because the chromosomes which contributed to the formation of my body contained an absolutely original message”, what he is saying is right, but incomplete. Aristotle had already established that living beings are composed of matter and information (as confirmed by the data of modern biology to which Debray refers) and had reached the conclusion that from this point of view there can be no subsistence of the soul outside informed matter. Aristotle, however, also recognized the existence of the νοũς, i.e. of the intellect capable of exercising contemplative cognition, which “appears to be a different type of soul […] susceptible of being separated, like the eternal, from the corruptible.” File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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The perception of “that which is with regard to essence” is therefore proper to the νοũς, able of the cognition corresponding to semantic identification, which, not being a form of discursive-propositional thought, can get in touch with the timeless (Aristotle, De Anima, II, 1, 413a). One absurd consequence of identifying the soul with the computer, and of the failure to distinguish between truth and proof, is reported by S. Sutherland64 in a commentary on a book by D. McKay65. The latter, distinguishing between hardware and software in the brain, suggests that one possible solution to the problem of the resurrection might consist in the incorporation of the program operating in the brain of each individual in something other than the human body. Furthermore, he ventilates the hypothesis of constructing computers as intelligent as the individuals of the human species and which, Sutherland observes, could therefore be legitimate candidates for the Kingdom of Heaven. The software of calculating thought is characterized by incompleteness and does not see infinite truths; freedom, creativity and truth abide elsewhere, since it is evident that, if human actions would be simply connected to strict mathematical inferences and to rationality, they should be always foreseen. We should try to explain such points to those who state arbitrary limits to their own knowledge, for instance defining themselves “Atheistic and Agnostic Rationalists”, without taking great account of how many times they put their faith in so many axioms, not subject to proof. Supposing that God’s existence be not a possible subject of investigation with rational method, the agnostic attitude seems to be correctly defined “rationalism” from a logical point of view. The position of the atheists is different so far as they presuppose that something not subject to proof is non-existent. It is rather difficult to understand why all of them go together. But a question can be asked, perhaps an impertinent one: is their method the only well-grounded one to get a complete knowledge of the existent reality? Clearly, what is in question is the method. If it were the very method to be followed to get knowledge, then we should use such a method, of which the field is under discussion, also to determine the field of the method itself. He who declares to be an atheistic rationalist shall grant to fall in a circular argumentation; or to do an act of faith. Man has been defined along centuries as “rational animal”: for example by Plato, Aristotle (though considering the intellectual intuition as a higher function), Plotinus, Cicero, Sallustius, Augustine (rational substance made of soul and body), Boetius (rationalis naturae individua substantia), Aquinas (intellectus et ratio), Scotus, Occam, Descartes (res cogitans), Hobbes (mechanism with rational soul), Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel… (incomplete list).

64 S. Sutherland, Science and Faith in Mind, in “Nature”, 1981, 290, p. 167. 65 D.M. McKay, Freedom of Action in a Mechanistic Universe, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1967. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

64 Are we truly free?

But the definition is inadequate: man is not only a rational animal, he is an animal able (sometimes) to recognize the limits of his own reason.

3. Ego’s freedom and physics The human being, partaking to some extent of divine perfection, can exercise a causality which is “image and likeness” of the creating power: causality, within proper limits, free, delivered from determinism. Can this binding assertion be proved, independently of the interior experience of freedom which some people regard rather as an illusion? It is interesting to consider the problem following the reasoning of C. Borghi66, a peculiar point of view presented answer the following question: “What meaning has for a robot the word ‘freedom’? “… in every instant of its evolution in conformity with the laws determining its operations, any physical object must ‘choose’, between infinite evolutive possibilities, the one and only way which corresponds to the maximum increase of entropy (principle of least action, or Hamilton’s principle, or Fermat’s principle, or geodetic principle). The number of evolutional possibilities among which the choice is made is the power of a denumerable infinity that, in the language of Cantor’s number theory, is the transfinite number aleph-zero. Any evolutive process subject to physical determinism involves, as a characteristic feature, a number aleph-zero of possible developments at every instant. Now, if we ask whether indeterministic evolutive processes exist, a way to answer will be to find out whether processes exist of which the number of choices at any moment is inevitably bigger than aleph-zero”. Let us suppose, Borghi goes on reasoning, that an Ego with his own capability of choosing causes is superimposed on the observed phenomenon. If the Ego will choose one of the directions willed by determinism then he will be able to divert it into a number of directions which is again infinite and denumerable. This means that the Ego who operates the choice of causes has at his disposal a number of directions of evolution which is aleph-zero at the power aleph-zero, that is aleph-one directions: and this isn’t any longer determinism. “All this is said – Borghi concludes – to show that it is possible to give a definition of ‘freedom’ which can be represented in non contradictory terms univocally recognizable even by a robot, i.e. in terms of power of multiplicity of choices”. The capability of choosing causes (the choice of the reasons of choice of causes), the power to resist desires, the “countersuggestibility” of R. Swinburn and the “logical indeterminacy” of D.M. McKay, are all displays of human self-determination, of libertas a necessitate. The matter is synthesized by Borghi as follows.

66 C. Borghi, Se volessimo vederci chiaro. Note per una possibile teoria delle scienze, Milano, Jaca Book, 1976, p. 102. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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“If human behaviour would be deterministic, it should be perfectly possible to organize an engineering of history that should be a sociology through which the becoming of human societies and cultures would be predictable. In other words, if one could know all the “sociological potentials”, of which the gradients define hypothetical “sociological forces” as well as physical potentials determine with their gradients the physical forces, then the dynamic of human societies would not be different from that of a machine, managed just by determinism. Suppose a society of which we know all the sociological potentials and on which we can therefore set up a scientific project of sociological evolution. Clearly such a project should require that the society’s population be kept in the dark about the project itself since, if people become acquainted with it, there would be the possibility and even a great probability of a complete failure of the project. In other words, we find again in this hypothesis the substantial difference of multiplicity of free choices with respect to the multiplicity of those subject to determinism”. The same might be told of one and only human being, rather than a society, though for the latter it is easier the pretence of observation and prediction by means of statistics, and so easier the possible arbitrary negation of free will.

4. A step under some shadow of metaphysics: evolution as creation and non-created pain Is evolution a creative process or simply revelation of the implicit? May we speak of Évolution Créatrice without romantic references to the “élan vital” and without any confusion with creationistic infantilism? Available data allow to define the entire cosmic process, starting from the big- bang, as a history of complexification, so as to warrant a sentence of C. Tresmontant67: “The world is a process in which information increases.” At least in the planets of the terrestrial type, one may speak not so much of an increase but rather of a transformation of information: putting together atoms to make molecules, molecules to construct supramolecular structures, and so forth, means dissipation of energetic information (Ie, potential electronic energy), to get structural construction while Ie is continuously supplied by the influx of radiant energy into the biosphere. The result is a continuous increase of structural information (Ith, thermic energy contained in structural bonds), whilst the increase in complexity also requires dissipation of configurational information (Ic) into variety and aperiodicity; Ic increases however as an effect of the systems of replication and selection. On the whole, the second law of thermodynamics keeps valid (Δ Ie + Δ Ic + Δ Ith ≤ 0) whereby there is no increase of information. In the case of the order through fluctuation of systems far from equilibrium, the possible reduction of entropy is actually information acquisition as complexity, which however must correspond to thermodynamic equivalent dissipation.

67 C. Tresmontant, L’esistenza di Dio oggi, Modena, Edizioni Paoline, 1971; Id., Il problema dell’anima, Roma, Edizioni Paoline, 1972. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

66 Are we truly free?

But, the question is, the theory of quantitative information is not suitable to the problem, because it can’t appraise meaning and quality (see par. 2). Mozart’s music has not a greater thermodynamic stability than some casual noise, nor will it be possible to translate into the terms of information (bit) the beauty of the content of a message. If however to the word information we attribute the meaning of presence of form, of essence, which define the degrees of being in the philosophical acceptation of information of matter, then the evolutive process can be fully appreciated in its continuous progressive creative action, evident in the origin of life, of animal knowledge, of human intelligence, reason whereby K. Popper speaks of true miracles, that is, impossibility to give an explanation68. Popper from his point of view is right, in the sense that a rational comprehension of the creative evolution (presence of a field of forms) would demand to put a metaphysical hypothesis, which he refuses. In fact, since the entire empiric is really becoming, this is a coming of more of being, opposed to Parmenides’s principle which excludes any real becoming because being cannot come from nothing. Unless the source of being is metaphysical. However, a genuine evolutionist is also, in the correct sense, a creationist. In fact, a reductionistic or physicalistic view of evolution is such in so far as it often inclines to deny the gradation of being as a concept which ultimately requires a metaphysics. If the latter is instead considered in the contemplation of nature, although with due epistemological distinction, then it will not even be necessary to do a separate reasoning for the appearance of man: if the maximum degree of all becoming is the human spirituality, a tensing towards formal attractors is proper of all the stages of evolution. It is thus supported by the laws of thermodynamics to which is due the dissipation, structuring and complexification permitted by the conditions at the border between order and chaos, etcetera; but this is not enough, what is needed is also the permanence of structures and dynamics constructed, in a series of states of relative stability, in one word forms predisposed (archetypes and attractors) along the course of possible and probable transformations. J. Maritain69 wrote: “Everything which exists has its own nature or essence, but the existential position of things is not implicit in their nature […]. Existing reality is thus composed of nature and the unexpected (chance); for this reason, it makes sense over time and therefore, with this enduring quality, constitutes history (irreversible). History needs these two elements: a world of pure natures would not move in time; there is no history for Platonic archetypes; a world consisting purely of the unpredictable would have no orientation; there is no history for a thermodynamic equilibrium”. The thermodynamics and the field of forms and attractors represent in physical

68 K. Popper, Società aperta, universo aperto, Roma, Borla, 1984, pp. 102-09, 133. 69 J. Maritain, quoted by L. Valdré, Filosofia e storia della scienza, in E. Garulli (ed.), Filosofia e scienze della natura, Milano, Massimo, 1983. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 67 analysis the equivalents of the efficient cause and the final cause of philosophical language, in which it is therefore possible to describe the evolution as creation that little by little puts into existence the essences, or develops the causal reasons pre- created (“administratio”, “prima conditio”). The concept of forma finis materiae and the very real “attraction of archetypes” (R. Thom70) in the course of evolutionary processes repropose the problem of the essence as potency with respect to being. An essence as “potentia essendi” is somehow pre-existent. A reductionist, well aware of what represent the degrees of being, that are degrees of characterization and limitation (“Abgrenzung”, “Begrenzung” – J. Seifert71) of the perfection of being due to the potency (essence), refuses to admit them all reducing the mind to the brain, the brain to the plays of electrical potentials and chemical mediators, and so on; i.e., getting rid of any really creative aspect of evolution (and any aspect really free of human acts). The progress of knowledge has realized, although among trials and errors, that nature expresses themes, having found within it forms which are there: when Kepler was analyzing the planetary orbits of the Copernican system, he discovered just the same curves that Apollonius of Perga had studied because of their mathematical beauty more than two centuries B.C.; and A. Einstein found in the space of general relativity the forms of the Riemannian geometry, the beautiful non-Euclidean theory of curved surfaces of the German mathematician B. Riemann (about 1850)72. The progress of evolution has also found, trough trials and errors, the field of forms, the guiding attractors. Finding the forms can be defined creative since, as A. Manzoni73 said so well, “…to invent is nothing else but to find”. The bestowal of being, that is creation, takes place through the forms. To detract the quality of being, namely the influence of forms, means pain, misfortune. The latter are therefore incompleteness and shortcoming, which are in the creation without being created. And, speaking in general, we deal not so much with the metaphysical limits of perfection and “privatio boni” (Leibniz, Essais de Thèodicèe… 1710), but rather with the “corruptio boni” (Augustine, Confessions, VII, 12), and possibly with the ontic of the Nothingness (das Nichtige) of K. Barth74, all of which aren’t derived from divine will, but from the non-intervention to give free scope to nature. In these conditions man can do good and evil, and undergo misfortune; because reality is composed not only of “nature” but of “unexpected” too, not only of algorithm but also of uncertainty. The only metaphysical evil does not imply lack

70 R. Thom, Stabilità strutturale e morfogenesi, Torino, Einaudi, 1980. 71 J. Seifert, Essere e Persona, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 1989. 72 S. Chandrasekhar, Truth and Beauty, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987. 73 A. Manzoni, Opere morali e filosofiche, A. Chiari, F. Ghisalberti (eds.), Milano, Casa Manzoni, 1963, p. 700. 74 K. Barth, Dio e il Niente, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2000. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

68 Are we truly free? of due perfections; it is the scope for life and freedom that involves, necessarily, such lack, i.e. incompleteness, indeterminacy. The human condition is a peculiar one: indeterminacy, physico-mathematical incompleteness of chaos and logico-mathematical incompleteness of Gödel’s theorem, which, on the other side, are necessary conditions to exercise freedom75. Thus, as we have seen, knowledge requires not only reason but also intellect, logos and myth, “denken” and “dikten”: if man doesn’t have the humbleness to recognize the limits of his own reason, he will not exhaust truth, nor, therefore, be really free. Man can profit by his freedom to do good and evil just thanks to indeterminacy and incompleteness in nature, that is to say to cosmic pain. Some sort of deep bond between sin and pain had been already perceived by intuition by the most ancient myths of human history.

75 M. Zatti, Il dolore nel creato: un disegno intelligente?, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2013. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Siamo veramente liberi?

Mario Zatti

Sommario: 1. Anima, libertà e verità. – 2. Verità e dimostrazione. – 3. La libertà dell’Io e la fisica. – 4. Un passo all’ombra della metafisica. L’evoluzione come creazione e il dolore non creato.

1. Anima, libertà e verità I neuroscienziati affrontano con difficoltà il problema dei rapporti coscienza-cervello, tant’è che esso è stato definito da D. J. Chalmers1 ed è oggi conosciuto come “hard problem” delle neuroscienze; i filosofi tendono pure a considerare la coscienza comehard problem, per la difficoltà di evocare fenomeni presumibilmente non materiali. Sono anche cadute teorie apparentemente consolidate che avevano creduto di poter identificare tre specifiche regioni del cervello come sedi dell’auto-consapevolezza: la corteccia insulare, del cingolo anteriore, prefrontale media. Ma recentemente si è avuta la dimostrazione che la capacità, prettamente umana, dell’auto-conoscenza ha un correlato processo neurologico che coinvolge sistemi di reti cerebrali diffuse e non di specifiche regioni circoscritte2. Fa problema anche il tipo complesso di causalità esistente tra funzioni neurali e processi consci, i quali ultimi emergono come influenze “top-down” (dall’alto al basso) in una sorta di causalità circolare, data la reci- procità delle relazioni. Secondo R. Wurzman e J. Giordano3 esiste un hard problem perché si ricerca una spiegazione considerando la sola causa efficiente degli eventi e solo nel senso dei meccanismi attraverso i quali la coscienza potrebbe sorgere dai processi del substrato neurale.

1 D.J. Chalmers, Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness, in S.R. Hameroff, A.W. Kaszniak, A.C. Scott (a cura di), Toward a Science of Consciousness, Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 1996, p. 5. Suggerisco in particolare la lettura del libro di M. De Caro, G. Sartori, A. Lavazza, Siamo davvero liberi?, Codice Edizioni, 2010, dal titolo simile al presente saggio e ad un capitolo del mio Il dolore (nel) creato, EDB, 1994. 2 C.L. Philippi, J.S. Feinstein, S.S. Khalsa, A. Damasio et al., Preserved Self-Awareness Following Extensive Bilateral Brain Damage to the Insula, Anterior Cingulate, and Medial Prefrontal Cortices, in “PLoS ONE 2012”, 7(8), e38413. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038413. 3 R. Wurzman, J. Giordano, Mind, matter, neuroscience and physics, in “NeuroQuantology”, 2009, 7, pp. 368-81. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

70 Siamo veramente liberi?

In questa materia il meccanismo efficiente è inestricabile dalla causa formale e finale: ogni tipo di causa è coinvolto, in una “convergenza” e reciprocità tali per cui la designazione di eventi come cause ed effetti risulta ambigua. Nonostante l’estrema difficoltà per i suddetti aspetti complessi e particolarmente per la circolarità delle azioni causali, vorrei tentare un’incursione rapida sul tema della possibilità di scelte libere da parte del sistema. È ben noto che l’attività cosciente è connessa a manifestazioni biochimiche ed elettriche della funzione cerebrale. Tale funzione non implica soggezione al determinismo: le variazioni di attività dei neuroni combinate con la secrezione e il legame recettoriale dei neurotrasmettitori nelle sinapsi dimostrano che le funzioni cerebrali sono fenomeni che hanno luogo lontano dalla condizione di equilibrio termodinamico, e in tali circostanze la produzione di entropia può comportare un carattere non deterministico per la funzione cerebrale corrispondente all’autodeterminazione. L’indeterminazione quantistica e le dinamiche non lineari caotiche giustificano la notevole sensibilità e instabilità di tutto lo hardware cerebrale, condizione necessaria (ma non sufficiente) perché l’uomo possa esercitare la sua libertà. L’azione di svoltare verso destra o verso sinistra nel caso di una zanzara in volo ha una causa fisica: per esempio può essere determinata dallo stimolo di una radiazione luminosa, cui segue meccanicamente una trasmissione in serie di segnali e azioni motorie. Nell’uomo vi sono fenomeni simili, cioè atti motori conseguenti a stimoli che attivano un recettore sensoriale da cui parte un potenziale d’azione che attraverso neuroni sensoriali e connessioni sinaptiche porta l’informazione al sistema nervoso centrale; da qui si generano potenziali d’azione nei neuroni efferenti e infine la stimolazione degli organi effettori: per esempio un atto motorio senza un intervento della volontà. Semplici riflessi ad arco breve (spinali) non provocano coinvolgimenti encefalici. Nei casi del tipo degli esempi citati, l’energia che inizialmente promuove l’azione è ap- portata da uno stimolo fisico. Ma poniamo il caso di una scelta autonoma della volontà: da dove viene l’energia necessaria a indurre potenziali d’azione dei neuroni cerebrali, delle reti sinaptiche? Se gli atti di volizione agiscono sugli eventi sinaptici, il potere di scelta tra fare e non fare, per esempio di scegliere tra due stati corrispondenti a due desideri di ugual forza, implica che l’azione della volontà risulti in una compressione dell’entropia degli stati sinaptici (apporto d’informazione, riduzione dell’incertezza). La quantità d’informazione (I) dev’essere in generale tanto maggiore quanto minore è la probabilità (p) di un evento, per cui si ha:

I = f 1/p

L’informazione minima si avrà quando si debba esercitare una scelta tra due eventi possibili di uguale probabilità: sarà questa l’unità nota come “bit”:

1= f 1/½

La funzione f è dunque il log2. Avremo pertanto che 1 bit è: File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 71

1=log2 2

L. Szilard pubblicava nel 1929 uno studio dal titolo: “Sulla riduzione dell’entropia di un sistema termodinamico causata da un essere intelligente”, prospettando degli esempi di applicazione dell’idea di Maxwell (“il demonietto di Maxwell”)4, cioè procedure di riduzione dell’entropia per mezzo di una memoria. Stante la relazione matematica tra entropia fisica, e incertezza o entropia informazionale, la riduzione di entropia degli stati sinaptici, causata da una scelta mentale operante nell’ambito delle leggi fisiche, ogni volta che abbia luogo rappresenterà rimozione d’incertezza ossia apporto d’informazione e sarà necessariamente accompagnata da un costo energetico pagato dal sistema. Il problema della libera scelta riguarda la possibilità che un sistema avente una indeterminazione o instabilità fondamentale, come quello delle reti neurali, possa essere orientato in modo che, con la scelta, esso possa trovarsi in un solo stato dei suoi 2n stati possibili, tale rimozione di entropia informazionale essendo corrispondente all’atto del libero volere. Ab- biamo però detto che, vigendo nel sistema leggi fisiche, si deve attuare una spesa di energia per produrre l’orientamento nell’incertezza; cioè il sistema dovrebbe anzitutto voler dissipare energia, con un atto decisionale diverso dall’orientamento dell’instabilità e ad esso necessariamente precedente. Ma questo voler dissipare energia è un atto decisionale che a sua volta richiede una spesa di energia che a sua volta richiede un atto decisionale…: ne viene un ricorso all’infinito; la scelta è impossibile. Si può evitarlo se si dispone di un sistema che non richieda mezzi fisici nell’atto di scegliere: occorre una causalità non causata, dunque creativa; un’intelligenza immateriale che la macchina termodinamica, nella quale per ogni bit di entropia informazionale cancellata dev’essere simultaneamente dissipata un’energia di kBT loge 2, non ha. L’uomo è libero in quanto non macchina, o non è libero. K.R. Popper e J.C. Eccles5 sostengono che la causalità immateriale non viola alcuna legge fisica perché interviene su ciò che nell’ambito della meccanica quantistica è indeterminato. Afferma E. Boncinelli6:

4 Nel classico caso del cilindro contenente una sola molecola di gas e diviso a metà da un pistone, se un demonietto prende nota di quale metà del cilindro è occupata dalla molecola, potrebbe ottenere del lavoro senza avere speso energia. Se la forza che la molecola può esercitare sul pistone è kBT/L (dove L è la distanza tra pistone ed estremità del cilindro, T è la temperatura assoluta e kB la costante di Boltzmann), si può calcolare che il lavoro che la molecola può fare, spingendo il pistone fino a raddoppiare L, è kBT loge 2. Ma per rimuovere l’informazione, che il demonietto aveva acquisito, su qual era la metà del cilindro occupata dalla molecola (in modo da ripristinare la memoria), l’energia minima necessaria (a temperatura ambiente) trattandosi di 1 bit è ancora, nelle unità di misura appropriate, -27 kBT loge 2 = 10 KWh. Si conclude che neppure un demonietto, se sottostà alla giurisdizione delle leggi fisiche, può mai operare effettive riduzioni nette di entropia.L. Brillouin, Scientific Uncertainty and Information, New York, Academic Press, 1964. R. Landauer, Dissipation and Noise Immunity in Computation and Communication, in “Nature”, 1988, 335, pp. 779-84. A. Bérut et al., Experimental verification of Landauer’s principle linking information and thermodynamics,in “Nature”, 2012, 483, pp. 187-89. 5 K.R. Popper, J.C. Eccles, L’io e il suo cervello. Dialoghi aperti tra Popper e Eccles (1977), Roma, Armando, 2001. 6 E. Boncinelli, Quel che resta dell’anima, Milano, Rizzoli, 2012, p. 137. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

72 Siamo veramente liberi?

“Questo Sé […] può volere, […] ma non c’è nulla che ci dica in che cosa esso differisce […] dal nostro cervello” (corsivo mio). Sembra che deva differire perché, se si resta sul piano delle cause efficienti fisiche, l’atto libero responsabile non vi rientra. E questo già per definizione, a meno di voler considerare libera e responsabile qualche reazione biochimica. Sembra anche che il discorso scientifico deva qui arrestarsi, consapevole della necessità di una metafisica. Quanto è stato fin qui esposto significa pertanto che: - il cervello dev’essere dotato di una certa misura di indeterminazione, necessaria per l’esercizio della libera volontà; - questo è necessario ma non sufficiente perché dev’essere in atto una forma immateriale per agire con libertà. Scriveva Darwin7 che “…per quanto grande sia la differenza che passa fra la mente dell’uomo e quella degli animali più elevati, è differenza di grado e non di qua- lità”. Questa affermazione è una mezza verità: il cervello,nella misura in cui l’io immateriale non interviene, esercita funzioni di ricezione, associazione, memorizzazione, stimolazione che nell’animale e nell’uomo si svolgono senza differenze qualitative. Sulla base di considerazioni di filosofia naturale, anche senza l’apporto di una riflessione filosofica più ampia, sembra doversi concludere che l’azione libera deve avere un principio immateriale, qualcosa che va al di là della mera causalità fisica (meccanica, razionale, computazionale, algoritmica). La fisica di oggi offre una comprensione incompleta della causalità nel mondo reale d’ogni giorno, perché essa non considera la volizione umana, che è con ogni evidenza causalmente efficace8. La filosofia a questo proposito offre uno spettro di prospettive vastissimo9. È interessante l’idea di A. N. Whitehead10 – che dal punto di vista filosofico ha qualche affinità con quelle di P. Teilhard de Chardin11, e del teologo Joseph Ratzinger che nelle lezioni carinziane del 1985 parla di “materia come preistoria dello spirito”12 – secondo cui qualcosa di psichico è proprio di tutta la natura, ma uno psichismo di alto livello (pensiero riflesso, direbbe Teilhard) è condizionato all’evoluzione di speciali complessi di occasioni: la capacità per un sistema di attualizzare potenzialità (modificare le dinamiche lineari della quantomeccanica) è pervaden- te in natura anche se non negligibile solo in sistemi con alta esplicazione dello psichismo. Siamo dunque davanti ad una prospettiva per cui condizione per la libertà è una limitata presenza del caso, che sembra configurare una sorta di “libertà” della natura. La libertà del soggetto umano richiede una causa immateriale; e quella della natura? Vi sono qui riflessi filosofici e teologici su cui occorre riflettere.

7 C. Darwin, L’origine dell’uomo (1871), Milano, Ermanno Bruciati & C., 1913, p. 89. 8 G.F.R. Ellis, Physics and the Real World, Metanexus Institute, “Science and Religion: Global Perspectives”, 2005, Philadelphia, PA, USA, www.metanexus.net; Id., Physics, complexity and causality, in “Nature”, 2005, 435, pp. 743-45. 9 S. Gibb, E.G. Lowe, R.D. Ingthorsson (a cura di), Mental Causation and Ontology, Oxford Univ. Press, 2013. E. Berti, M. Ivaldo, G. Mura, V. Possenti (a cura di), L’Anima, Milano, Mondadori, 2004. 10 A.N. Whitehead, citato da R. Penrose, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind,Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997, p. 158. 11 P. Teilhard de Chardin, Il fenomeno umano, Milano, Il Saggiatore, 1968; Id. citato in O. Rabut, Incontro con Teilhard de Chardin, Milano, Borla, 1958, p. 28. 12 J. Ratzinger – Benedetto XVI, Progetto di Dio (1985), Marcianum Press, 2012, p. 133. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 73

La scelta creativa di un Dio onnnipotente si dimostra doppiamente autolimitante in relazione all’originaria onnipotenza perché: 1) contempla l’esistenza di soggetti liberi capaci di fare il bene e il male e 2) permette nella natura una misura di casualità che introduce contingenza e impredicibilità, limiti all’azione delle leggi matematiche fisse, e all’identificazione Laplaciana di causalità e determinismo. L’introduzione di stocasticità a un livello fondamentale (il carattere intrinsecamente statistico degli eventi atomici) implica che “…ogni individuale evento quantistico può essere genuinamente impredicibile” sebbene, nota P. Davies13, una collezione di tali eventi si con- formi alle predizioni statistiche della teoria. Bisogna sottolineare che le leggi statistiche sono deterministiche in quanto riguardanti collettivi di oggetti. Quanto al famoso principio leibniziano di ragione sufficiente14, può essere utile riportare il giudizio dello stesso P. Davies, il quale fa notare che, se c’è in natura un ambito di genuina, inerente stocasticità, lì ogni risultato di un lancio di dadi è genuinamente non-determinato da alcunché. Se ha luogo “…una collisione di un elettrone contro un atomo, la quantomeccanica dice che c’è uguale probabilità che l’elettrone defletta verso sinistra o verso destra”. Se l’elettrone deflette verso sinistra, non vi è alcuna ragione fisica per cui esso abbia fatto così anziché deflettere verso destra. L’affermazione di Davies potrebbe trovare una risonanza filosofica notevole nelle osservazioni di D. Antiseri15 sulle “difese insufficienti del principio di ragione sufficiente”. Al quale tuttavia non si può rinunciare, né sulla base delle considerazioni esposte da Davies sulla fisica quantistica, e neppure se il principio dovesse considerarsi tra gli assiomi, verità ragionevoli anche se presupposte ai sistemi razionali. Come assioma lo consi- derò Spinoza; e per quanto ci interessa qui, è una verità che riguarda eventi (essendi, fiendi) secondo una delle definizioni che ne ha dato Leibniz: “niente accade senza una ragione”. La domanda allora è: da dove viene il caso? La risposta più semplice consiste nel negare che esista, adducendo la nostra incapacità di fare accurate previsioni a causa di ignoranza, e inadeguatezza del livello di osservazione delle condizioni iniziali (molti sistemi presentano estrema sensibilità alle condizioni iniziali). Un’altra risposta, come osserva I. Ekeland16, “…consiste nel dire che il caso è il risultato dell’incontro di serie causali indipendenti. Questa risposta mi sembrava già idiota quand’ero un bambino, e mi sembra ancora più idiota ora, dato che non ci sono serie causali indipendenti nell’universo”. Se il sistema isolato che è l’universo viene visto come deterministico, infatti, l’incontro di serie causali nell’ambito delle leggi naturali non può mai essere un caso fortuito, anche dovesse apparire tale. Alla radice di ogni reale contingenza fisica, della creatività dell’evoluzione, dell’esistenza di esseri viventi e liberi, dev’esserci una certa intelaiatura dove possano mancare condizioni causali necessitanti: non ci sarebbe niente di veramente fortuito, o nuovo, se non ci fosse questa radice di indeterminatezza intrinseca alla materia, cioè una causalità indeterministica. Ma si considera anche la possibile acausalità (caso assoluto) degli eventi nel mondo submicroscopico dei quanti, per quegli eventi che apparentemente sorgono dal nulla. Qui c’è

13 P. Davies, The Mind of God, London, Simon and Schuster, 1992, pp. 65-69, 91-92, 192, 230. 14 G.W. Leibniz, Scritti filosofici,Torino, UTET, 1967. 15 D. Antiseri, Gloria o miseria della metafisica cattolica italiana?,Roma, Armando, 1987, p. 31. 16 I. Ekeland, La matematizzazione del caso, E. Noël (a cura di), Aggiornamenti sull’idea del caso, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 1992, p. 171. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

74 Siamo veramente liberi? un grosso problema, che tuttavia cercherò di sintetizzare in poche righe. Nel mondo subatomico le interazioni (forze) tra particelle sono trasferite da altre diverse particelle: se i moti possono esistere solo come risultato di azioni di forze esterne alla particella, ma queste forze non possono esistere senza appropriate particelle a loro volta in movimen- to, o tutto resta immobile o ci sono moti “spontanei” non causati17. Nondimeno, è sempre difficile giustificare l’ambiguo concetto di causalità fisica indeterministica come lo è, in generale, ammettere l’esistenza di cause veramente contingenti senza coerentemente aggiungere l’accettazione di una qualche forma di oggettiva limitazione della causalità fisica nell’ambito della natura governata da leggi, tanto che gli esempi riguardanti eventi che accadono per caso, dal creditore che incontra al mercato il suo debitore (Aristotele Ph II 5) allo stagnino che lascia cadere il martello quando passa il dott. Dupont (Monod Il Caso e la Necessità), sono meglio spiegati con riferimenti ad atti umani, implicando l’esistenza di una causa psichica all’origine degli eventi veramente fortuiti (caso essenziale). Può essere suggestivo comparare l’impredicibilità macroscopica dovuta a causalità di origine psichica con quella del mondo submicroscopico dove anche è possibile, e preferibile, postulare una causa psichica invece di una mancanza di causa. La base logica di un tale tipo di indeterminismo è fornita dalla nozione sulle caratteristiche dei moti delle particelle elementari: i loro moti sono discontinui, casuali e spontanei: il sè movère è infatti tipica pro- prietà immanente degli esseri animati. Riandando a quanto è stato detto sui poteri dell’anima (poteri causali diversi da quelli fisici) questo potrebbe valere anche per l’intrinseca radice dell’indeterminatezza, che allora diviene la stessa della libertà, e fa ricordare la grande visione del mondo di P. Teilhard de Chardin18: “Siamo logicamente portati a presumere l’esistenza di qualche sia pur rudimentale forma psichica in ogni corpuscolo…”. Il discorso è sempre attuale: un recente articolo su NeuroQuantology titola “Correlati neurali della coscienza nel singolo elettrone…”19. Sotto questi aspetti il principio di ragione sufficiente non viene messo in discussione. Non si deve credere che queste idee siano proprie di particolari inclinazioni al misticismo e del tutto estranee al discorso scientifico. Basti ricordare che un libro sulla fisica dei quanti20, Autore P. Davies con J. Brown, ha per titolo “The ghost in the atom” (dove la parola inglese ghost significa spirito, anima, fantasma). Possiamo solo sfiorare il problema. N. Bohr, uno dei padri fondatori della quantomeccanica, scrisse: “Chiunque non sia scosso (shocked) dalla teoria quantistica non l’ha capita”. Nel mondo dei quanti una particella è un’onda, e un’onda è una particella; e il famoso gatto di Schrödinger può trovarsi in una sovrapposizione di stati, vivo e morto, e quindi né vivo né morto21. Un fotone può passare simultaneamente per due diverse fessure. Vi può essere una sottile connessione (“entanglement”) tra particelle per cui la misurazione condotta su una di esse provoca sull’altra, che può essere anche a distanza di anni luce, l’istantaneo fissarsi di una condizione non più caratterizzata da indeterminazione. È

17 S. Gao, The Basis of Indeterminism, in “Phil. Sci. Archive”, 2001, ; Id., A possible quantum basis of panpsychism, in “Neuroquantology”, 2003, 1, pp. 4-9. 18 P. Teilhard de Chardin, Il fenomeno umano, Milano, Il Saggiatore, 1968. 19 V. Y. Argonov, Neural Correlate of Consciousness in a Single Electron: Radical Answer to “Quantum Theories of Consciousness”, in “NeuroQuantology”, 2012, 10, pp. 276-85. 20 P.C.W. Davies, J.R Brown, The ghost in the atom,Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986. 21 J. Gribbin, In search of Schrödinger’s cat, London, Corgi Books, 1985. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 75 stato recentemente dimostrato addirittura che possono essere prodotti stati quantici connessi di due fotoni che non esistono nello stesso tempo: l’esperimento dimostra che non si può considerare questi fenomeni come proprietà fisiche tangibili, e che gli eventi quantici sono piuttosto fuori dalle nostre nozioni di spazio e tempo22. Aspetti come questi spiegano che si sia anche parlato di “metafisica della teoria quantistica”23 teoria che peraltro ha avuto conferme sperimentali scientificamente inappunta- bili. B. D’Espagnat24, considerando che nella quantomeccanica la misurazione di un oggetto può dare una molteplicità di possibili esiti, cosicché lo stato quantico originale deve essere riguardato come indefinito, e risultando così impossibile una precisa descrizione scientifica della realtà come essa è realmente, ne parlava come di “realtà velata”, che la scienza non può conoscere compiutamente. Interrogato se ciò non comporti una sorta di misticismo rispon- deva che “la scienza non è tutto”. Sul piano filosofico, non è difficile vedere nella “realtà velata” di d’Espagnat l’analogia con il “noumeno” della kantiana Critica del giudizio. Secondo E. Husserl (Logische Untersuchungen) “Quanto alla loro materia gli oggetti rimangono pienamente indeterminati” essendo essi determinati solo “dalla forma delle loro connessioni”. “La nozione di ‘oggetto’ di Husserl sembra corrispondere a quella di ‘particolare’ della metafisica analitica o a quella di ‘individuo’ della logica, mentre la nozione di ‘legge che regola una connessione’ a quella di ‘proprieta di una relazione’”25. Il concetto delle proprietà come particolari e non universali e come aventi esistenza propria, ha indotto a introdurre un nuovo termine per definirle: ‘tropi’. In questa ontologia le cose non sono altro che fastelli di proprietà. Ciò che veramente esiste è rappresentato da proprietà e relazioni. È un vecchio problema. Quale potrebbe essere la realtà fisica delle particellefondamentali della materia26? Il problema non è se ci siano, ma cosa siano, perché se veramente fondamentali possono essere a loro volta costituite di ciò che definiamo materia? Su un piano più tecnico si potrebbe menzionare la teoria che invoca variabili nascoste e postula che la funzione d’onda dovrebbe essere considerata come un campo oggettivamente reale, in uno stato di rapida fluttuazione casuale che deriverebbe da un più profondo livello subquantico, in modo simile alle fluttuazioni del moto Browniano di una goccia di liquido, che derivano dal sottostante livello atomico. Il comportamento del campo appare indeterminato, ma la precisa dinamica delle fluttuazioni è causata da un ipotetico “ordine implicato”, che può anche essere inteso come la realtà primaria della sostanza della coscienza27. La teoria di Bohm, spesso citata e raramente condivisa, è stata sottoposta anche recentemente a critiche piuttosto radicali per quanto attiene alla relazione mente/materia28. Affermava Bohm: “La fisica quantistica vede mente e materia comeimplicate […]”; e già Niccolò Cusano usava la parola “implicatio” proponendo un’idea in certo modo simile parecchi secoli fa e negando la

22 A. Cho, Physicists Create Quantum Link Between Photons That Don’t Exist at the Same Time, in: Science NOW 22 May 2013. E. Megidish, H. Eisenberg et al., in “Physical Rev. Letters” (in stampa). 23 H. Krips, The metaphysics of quantum theory,Oxford, Clarendon press, 1987. 24 B. D’Espagnat, On Physics and Philosophy, Princeton Univ. Press, 2006. 25 C. Masolo, A. Oltramani et al., La prospettiva dell’ontologia applicata, in “Rivista di estetica”, 2003, 22, pp. 170-83. 26 M. Kuhlmann, What Is Real?, in “Sci. American”, 2013, 309(2), pp. 32-9. 27 D. Bohm, Universo Mente Materia, Como, Red, 1996. 28 R. Maleeh, P. Amani, Bohm’s Theory of the Relationship of Mind and Matter Revisited, in “NeuroQuantology”, 2012, 10, pp. 150-63. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

76 Siamo veramente liberi? possibilità di conoscere la “quidditas” delle cose29. Comunque sia, l’esistenza del caso come l’abbiamo prima delineato può essere riferita ad un’intrinseca indeterminatezza della materia per la quale sono proponibili due ipotesi: 1. che al livello elementare esista una causalità fisica indeterministica, come proposta da Sommerfeld, de Broglie e Born, che richiede la separazione della nozione di causalità da quella di determinismo30 e l’uso del concetto di causalità probabilistica, interpretabile piuttosto come causa deterministica di probabilità31; 2. che un potere causale psichico operi al livello elementare, dove già sarebbe presente, sebbene senza alcun titolo di consapevolezza, e capace di causare ciecamente effetti casuali. In entrambe le ipotesi il caso, per come lo conosciamo nella fisica e per il senso comune, dev’essere riferito a una fondamentale, sebbene limitata, cornice di acausalità fisica. È in ogni modo importante sottolineare che l’inerente stocasticità della quantomeccanica, una condizione che P. Davies ha definito “l’imparzialità del giuoco quantistico dei dadi”, è essa stessa una piuttosto restrittiva legge di natura. Quanto alla possibile accusa di vitalismo che potrebbe essere portata verso alcune delle ipotesi descritte, può essere utile l’opinione espressa, nell’articolo intitolato Quantum Vitali- sm, da S. Hameroff32: “...le descrizioni funzionali non riescono a captare un’essenziale “unicità unitaria” autoorganizzante presente nei sistemi viventi. I biologi del diciannovesimo secolo ascrissero questa qualità a una “forza vitale”, “élan vital”, o “campo d’energia”. Poi, via via che la biologia molecolare e cellulare cominciarono a rivelare i processi biochimici e fisici implicati nelle attività cellulari, l’apparente necessità di una forza vitale svanì, e i “vitalisti” (o animisti) furono vilipesi. Nella scienza moderna riduzionistica le nozioni di forza vitale, campi d’energia o d’informazione divennero dei tabù. Tut- tavia recentemente le cose hanno preso una nuova piega. Mentre il vitalismo del diciannovesimo secolo era basato su forze comunque estranee alla scienza, è emersa una prospettiva vitalista nella quale la vita deriva per diretta estensione dal più fondamentale livello della realtà. Nel “vitalismo quantistico” la vita è intimamente legata ai processi di autoorganizazione dal più fondamentale momento dell’universo”. La comparsa della vita sarebbe quindi programmata nelle basi elementari dell’universo, e questo implica un insieme di leggi che usano il caso messo in azione nel solo modo possibile, comprendendo un campo immateriale, psichico. Nel corso dell’evoluzione questo campo raggiunge la complessità e infine la libertà. In questa ipotesi è notevole il fatto che tutto il male sarebbe dovuto, direttamente o indirettamente, a cause psichiche, sia al livello delle calamità cieche prodotte nell’azione di una più o meno rudimentale psiche, sia al più alto livello della libera azione della coscienza. In ogni caso dobbiamo renderci conto che quando ci appelliamo al caso in natura, non possiamo evitare di identificarlo con una nota di acausalità fisica. Entro la quale soltanto possiamo trovare creatività, novità, libertà e, insieme a queste, calamità. In un’opera del 1967, parlando di scienza e fede, il grande teologo Karl Rahner così si

29 N. Cusano, La dotta ignoranza (1440), Roma, Città Nuova, 1998. 30 M. Born, Filosofia naturale della causalità e del caso,Torino, Boringhieri, 1962. 31 F. Weinert, Quantum mechanics: The Physicist turns Philosopher. Conference Proceedings of 100 Years of Quantum Theory, Madrid, 2000, . 32 S.H. Hameroff, Quantum Vitalism, in “Advances”, 1997, 13, pp. 13-22. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 77 esprimeva sulla comparsa dell’anima nel corso dell’evoluzione33: “Se in effetti il divenire è realmente un’autotrascendenza che può, a seconda delle circostanze, per- venire a una nuova essenza […] e se materia e spirito non sono semplicemente dei dati disparati, ma se la materia è in qualche modo uno spirito congelato, il cui solo significato è rendere possibile lo spirito propriamente detto, e se infine la spiritualità creata resta sempre spiritualità nella materia fino alla sua realizzazione assoluta, allora una evoluzione della materia verso lo spirito non è un concetto irrealizzabile, a patto soltanto che il concetto di evoluzione sia inteso nel senso di questa autotrascendenza essenziale sottomessa al dinamismo dell’essere assoluto”. Questa opinione, condivisa da altri, apre un vasto orizzonte nella filosofia naturale, che oggi affronta lo studio dei processi evolutivi, anche biologici e psicologici, con nuovi strumenti concettuali, quali le teorie dei sistemi complessi. Le proprietà realmente emergenti (“genuine emergence”) sono dunque quelle che non possono essere spiegate, dedotte o calcolate dalle proprietà dei costituenti. Corrispondono infatti a diversi gradi dell’essere, messi in atto attraverso le forme. Gli esseri animati si distinguono particolarmente in quanto capaci di attività autodina- mica e nel caso degli esseri umani per la coscienza, la conoscenza dell’universale, la libertà di scegliere e causare effetti non spiegabili unicamente sulla base del comportamento dei neuroni. Le proprietà emergenti nel corso dell’evoluzione cosmica, in particolare della vita e della coscienza, in quanto emergenti, sembrerebbero venire dal nulla. Quando Rahner parla di evoluzione della materia verso lo spirito e ne indica il modo, autotrascendenza, vuole significare che l’emergenza non viene dal nulla ma come produzione di forma contenuta in potenza nelle cose e messa in atto nelle adeguate condizioni causali. L’anima umana è l’unica piena emergenza ontologica dell’immagine e somiglianza, ultimo gradino di una scala nella quale gradualmente le potenzialità psichiche della natura si rivelano. Ad un determinato grado di organizzazione, quella proprietà emergente che chiamiamo anima si innesca e, una volta così creata, vive di vita propria. Non è necessario pensare che essa sia qualcosa che si aggiunge dall’esterno, come, sulla stessa linea di Rahner e ancora più esplicitamente, è detto dal teologo J. Ratzinger34 nelle sue lezioni carinziane del 1985 pubblicate in italiano nel 2012 (!): “…lo spirito non si aggiunge alla materia come qualcosa di estraneo […]; l’apparire dello spirito significa piuttosto […] che un movimento che fa da battistrada arriva al traguardo a lui assegnato. Infine si dovrebbe dire che proprio la creazione dello spirito è ciò che meno di tutto ci si può raf- figurare come un agire artigianale di Dio, il quale avrebbe qui iniziato, improvvisamente, a darsi da fare nel mondo”. In tale prospettiva, diversa da quella tomistica, diviene tuttavia più facile comprendere la visione antropologica nella quale spirito e materia non sono due sostanze ma due principi costitutivi di un unico ente, di un’unica sostanza35. Si può allora ammettere che l’anima sia una proprietà emergente, cioè potenzialmente presente fin dall’inizio dell’evoluzione cosmica, ma36

33 K. Rahner, Science, évolution et pensée chrétienne, Paris, Desclée De Bouwer, 1967, p. 111. 34 J. Ratzinger - Benedetto XVI, Progetto di Dio, cit., p. 134. 35 C. Fabro, F. Ocariz, in Le ragioni del Tomismo, Milano, Ares, 1979, pp. 50, 96. 36 P. Musso, Filosofia del Caos, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1977, pp. 174-75. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

78 Siamo veramente liberi?

“…che si attua, si innesca, come dice Searle, solo in presenza di certe condizioni, cioè di un certo livello di organizzazione […]; cioè si verifica un vero salto di livello ontologico – ebbene, in questo caso è possibile che tale evento si verifichi più volte nel corso dell’evoluzione, a livelli differenti e con esiti pure differenti, con una crescita graduale dei propri poteri […]: e perciò si apre la strada ad una spiegazione realmente non riduzionista della vita non cosciente, nonché di quei comportamenti intenzionali che eventualmente dovessimo riscontrare, sia pure in forma attenuata, in specie diverse dalla nostra […]. Se […] sono le stesse leggi naturali a costringerci ad ammettere l’esistenza di fenomeni che esse non possono spiegare, e di conseguenza a postulare a loro fondamento un diverso tipo di realtà non materiale, sarebbe poi semplicemente contraddittorio sostenere che ad essa non si devono attribuire i relativi poteri causali per la ragione – o meglio, per la tautologia – che essi non possono essere spiegati in termini materiali”. Nell’ambito di questi argomenti è difficile capire la posizione di V. Mancuso quando nel libro L’anima e il suo destino37, pur letterariamente affascinante e con momenti di discussione filosofico-teologica interessanti, afferma per esempio che “…il corpo è energia sotto forma di materia, l’anima è energia allo stato libero” o che “Un elefante ha una quantità di energia maggiore rispetto all’uomo (così immagino a partire dalla massa di cui dispone), ma l’energia dell’uomo è superiore, cioè può produrre più lavoro, grazie al suo essere più ordinata. La capacità di produrre lavoro, com’è noto, è la definizione di energia”. E nella risposta aCiviltà Cattolica, pubblicata su Il Foglio del 10-2-2008, scrive: “La scienza è necessaria per parlare dell’anima… [e] su questa base io sono giunto a fondare il concetto di anima come surplus di energia, come energia libera rispetto alla massa. Per un vivente… l’anima risulta dal totale dell’energia, cui si sottrae l’energia come massa: E – M = A. Una pietra invece dà: E – M = zero”. Queste espressioni non mi risultano chiare. Il termine “energia libera” ha un significato scientificamente preciso, e definisce quella forma di energia utilizzabile che si sviluppa per esempio come calore in una reazione chimica: due molecole di HI, composto di idrogeno (H) e iodio (I), hanno un’energia libera più alta di una di idrogeno + una di iodio nelle quali si scindono, liberando 610 calorie per mola in condizioni standard, senza variazioni di massa tra reagenti e prodotti della reazione. Dunque il composto HI (acido iodidrico, stretto parente dell’acido muriatico), con il suo “surplus” di energia libera, secondo la regola di Mancuso dovrebbe essere un vivente. In ogni caso, come biochimico, avere un’anima quantificabile in calorie non mi torna molto. Perché la libera scelta consapevole di cui è capace il nostro Io non potrebbe essere effettuata da un ente esclusivamente materiale, sia esso parte di un sistema deterministico, o anche indeterministico? Al di là degli aspetti termodinamici visti sopra, nel primo caso non si vede come la catena delle cause di processi fisici potrebbe lasciare spazio alla libertà, e infatti coloro che identificano gli stati psichici con stati cerebrali, come F. Crick per esempio38, tendono a considerare la pur immediata evidenza interiore di libertà come un’illusione; nel secondo caso le nostre scelte non potrebbero essere che il risultato di quegli eventi quantistici che si realizzano nell’arbitrarietà casuale, perché l’indeterminazione implica costanti fluttuazioni

37 V. Mancuso, L’ anima e il suo destino, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2007, pp. 97, 105. 38 F. Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, London, Simon e Shuster, 1994. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 79 anche quando non ha luogo alcuna operazione di misura. Neppure attraverso le dinamiche di sistemi non lineari (caos), notoriamente presenti nel cervello, questo potrebbe fare autonomamente delle scelte e attenervisi, a causa della tipica instabilità delle dinamiche caotiche. Su questo punto vi è un mosaico di posizioni che vanno dal determinismo duro incompa- tibile con l’esistenza della libertà, al “compatibilismo” o a un “semicompatibilismo”, all’“im- possibilismo” nei confronti della responsabilità morale, fino ai sostenitori dell’opportunità di conservare la pubblica illusione della libera volontà come contributo al mantenimento della pubblica moralità39. E anche, su opposto versante, il “libertarianismo”, variamente e talora vagamente inteso. La vastissima letteratura trova una sintesi nel lavoro di R. Doyle40 comprendente un tentativo di superare i contrasti tra compatibilismo e incompatibilismo. La psiche umana è molto più che un calcolatore. È merito del grande logico-matematico Kurt Gödel l’aver dimostrato, molti decenni fa, i suoi teoremi d’incompletezza, accettati fin da allora (anni ‘30) da tutta la comunità dei logici41. Il primo teorema stabilisce che, per le logiche superiori a quella dei predicati del primo ordine, in qualunque sistema logico- matematico coerente ci sono formule (proposizioni) che non possono essere dimostrate nel sistema, ma che noi possiamo vedere che sono vere. La conseguenza fu la presa di coscienza negli ambienti matematici della differenza dei concetti di dimostrabilità e di verità; e dell’im- possibilità di derivare tutte le verità con procedimenti meccanici. Per un qualsiasi sistema razionale fondato su assiomi e regole d’inferenza logica, e che sia coerente, vi sono infinite verità non dimostrabili (e questo è stato dimostrato). L’insieme delle proposizioni dimostrabili non coincide con quello delle proposizioni vere. “Gödel sembra ridare alla mente umana, capace di astrazione e quindi di uscire dal sistema, uno status del tutto differente da quello di qualsiasi macchina incapace di riflettere su sé stessa”42. Un’esposizione dettagliata è al di sopra di quanto posso fare (la dimostrazione richiede la previa analisi di 46 proposizioni e 5 teoremi preparatori), ma un’idea intuitiva si può captare. Secondo il primo teorema d’incompletezza, per qualunque sistema assiomatico (A) che sia consistente (coerente) ci sono infinite verità che non appartengono al sistema. Una di tali verità è una proposizione (G) che sia dimostrata, entro A, equivalente alla seguente asserzio- ne: “G non è un teorema di A”. Infatti, se “G non è di A” fosse falsa, G sarebbe di A, dichiarando di non esserlo, quindi A non sarebbe consistente. Ma allora se A è consistente “G non è di A” deve essere vera: questa è dunque una verità e non appartiene al sistema, del quale risulta pertanto evidente l’incompletezza. Il secondo teorema è conseguente. Si è visto che può essere detto in A che “se A è consistente, G non è di A”. Questa proposizione di A contiene il teorema “A è consistente” e il teorema “G non è di A”. Cioè G in questa proposizione sarebbe proprio quello (un teorema di A) che dichiara di non essere. Ma allora l’intera proposizione, e in particolare la prima

39 S. Smilansky, Free will and illusion, Oxford University Press, 2000. 40 R. Doyle, Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy,Information philosopher 2011. 41 K. Gödel, Collected Works, a cura di S. Feferman, New York, Oxford Univ. Press, 1986, I, pp. 145-95. 42 F. Bertelè, A. Olmi, A. Salucci, A. Strumia, Scienza, analogia, astrazione, Padova, Il Poligrafo, 1999, pp. 251-65. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

80 Siamo veramente liberi? parte (il teorema “A è consistente”) non può appartenere ad A, se A è consistente: cioè se il sistema è consistente non può dimostrare la propria consistenza. È stato dimostrato che il primo teorema vale per tutti i sistemi formali che siano coerenti, che sono dunque incompleti, cioè contengono formule non dimostrabili che noi, stando fuori del sistema, possiamo vedere che sono verità: il nostro “intelligere” non è confinato entro i limiti del sistema razionale. Il teorema di Gödel deve applicarsi alle macchine cibernetiche, perché è qualità, essenza propria della macchina, l’essere concreta installazione di un sistema formale. Ne consegue che, data una macchina (computer) capace di fare dell’aritmetica, e coerente, ci sarà sempre una formula che nel sistema-macchina non può essere dimostrata ma che noi possiamo vedere essere vera. Cioè, nessuna macchina potrà mai essere un adeguato e completo modello della psiche umana, che è differente per essenza dalla macchina43. L’importanza dei teoremi di Gödel e degli altri che seguirono si può definire epocale. Secondo G. Chaitin44, Gödel aveva scoperto solo la punta dell’iceberg dell’incompletezza logico-matematica, che riguarda un numero infinito di teoremi matematici veri i quali non possono essere dimostrati da alcun sistema finito di assiomi. Certi fatti matematici sono veri senza alcuna ragione logica, non potendo esistere alcuna teoria che spieghi perché sono veri: essi non sono soltanto irriducibili da un punto di vista computazionale, sono logicamente irriducibili, e possono essere solo usati come assiomi. Una teoria è utile se rappresenta una compressione algoritmica dei dati: la comprensione è compressione, che in molti casi è irrealizzabile perché si è di fronte a una complessità irriducibile. L’esempio che può dimostrare questi limiti della conoscenza logica è il numero che Chaitin ha chiamato “omega” e indica la probabilità che, con un programma informatico scelto a caso dall’insieme di tutti i possibili programmi, un computer prima o poi si fermi (alt di Alan Turing). È un numero che ha un valore definito ma che non potrà mai essere calcolato, perché è incompressibile. Questi teoremi hanno definitivamente provato che per qualunque sistema logico vi sono infinite verità che non sono dimostrabili; ma l’intelletto umano vede che sono verità. È anche evidente che essa non si lascia negare45: “…la verità insomma esiste necessariamente, è indefettibile, non può mai essere negata senza che, elencticamente, nella negazione stessa appaia nuovamente la sua riproposizione”. E si conferma come “indubitabile verità del dubbio”. Scrive S. Agostino (De Vera Reli- gione 39, 73): “Chiunque comprende di essere in dubbio, vede una cosa sicura [il suo dubbio] della quale è certo: dunque egli è certo del vero”. La verità è più forte della dimostrazione. Come ancora diceva, con poche parole, S. Ago- stino (De Libero Arbitrio, II, 12, 34): “…noi giudichiamo la nostra conoscenza mediante la verità, ma non possiamo sottoporre a giudizio la stessa verità. […] Non uscire da te, ritorna in te stesso, nell’interno dell’uomo abita la verità”.

43 J.R. Lucas, Minds, Machines and Gödel, in “Philosophy”, 1961, XXXVI, pp. 112-27. 44 G. Chaitin, The Limits of Reason, in “Sci. American”, 2006, 294/3, pp. 54-61. 45 A. Poppi, La Verità, La Scuola, 1984, p. 95. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 81

Così nel nostro mondo interiore noi troviamo anche la bellezza e il bene, l’arte e la morale; e vediamo che il bene è verità, che ci fa liberi. Secondo J. Maritain46 “…l’intelligenza umana, benché sia una ragione che amministra i suoi concetti, ligia alla più stretta logica (e questo le proviene dalla sua condizione carnale) è anche un intelletto, cioè una potenza capace di vedere nell’ordine intelligibile come vede l’occhio, e con incomparabilmente maggiore sicurezza di quanto veda l’occhio, nell’ordine sensibile. Non conosce forse l’intelletto i principi primi di qualsiasi dimostrazione proprio attraverso una tale intuizione?”. G. Berlucchi nel suo saggio Mente e Cervello47 fa delle considerazioni interessanti. Egli usa il termine “mente” per indicare una funzione del cervello, e “anima” per denotare una presunta “essenza immateriale” (che va lasciata alle discussioni metafisiche). Nelle sue conclusioni richiama i nuovi modi di intendere il ruolo attivo di coscienza e volontà “nel controllo del funzionamento cerebrale, rompendo l’apparente chiusura causale del mondo fisico”. Gli stati mentali sono visti come proprietà emergenti dei processi cerebrali, e che a loro volta esercitano una causalità inversa (top-down, cioè dall’alto al basso com’è tipico dei sistemi complessi) sulla materia cerebrale. Se ci atteniamo a queste indicazioni e a questa terminologia, e a quanto abbiamo detto anche nelle pagine precedenti sulla causalità nel mondo fisico, dobbiamo porre il confine del dualismo verità/dimostrazione al livello e come espressione di quello anima/mente. Parliamo di dualismo emergente: dunque, di intelletto e ragione, di libertà e meccani- cismo, di verità e dimostrazione, di anima e mente, ma lo intendiamo nella composizione dell’unità sostanziale della materia informata che costituisce l’uomo. A questo proposito G. F. Basti48 cita opportunamente un passo di Tommaso d’Aquino dove molto lucidamente si distingue una differenza qualitativa tra le operazioni conoscitive, nonostante sembrino tutte allo stesso modo proprie del composto anima-corpo, ma che viceversa non lo sono, come per esempio per la spiritualità dell’operazione intellettiva che porta ai concetti astratti, assolutamente privi di modelli fisici. Per questo motivo diciamo che l’anima è anche forma sussistente, possiede cioè un essere autonomo, perché compie delle operazioni indipendentemente dal corpo. “La tesi della sussistenza dell’anima dell’uomo, coniugata alla tesi dell’anima intellettiva come unica forma sostanziale del corpo, è decisiva nella costruzione di un’antropologia…”49. Cosa s’intende quando si parla di intelletto, o in altri termini, quale rapporto esiste tra conoscenza della verità e possesso di libertà? Per aversi libertà non basta la sintassi, occorre la semantica, che differenzia l’intelligenza umana da quella degli animali e dall’intelligenza artificiale. Gli animali, mancando del concetto di connessione logica, non solo non sono in grado di distinguere tra deduzione e induzione, ma non possono capire perché alcune proposizioni

46 J. Maritain, Il contadino della Garonna, Brescia, Morcelliana, 1973, p. 166. 47 G. Berlucchi, Mente e Cervello, in V. Andreoli, F. Buzzi (a cura di), L’anima e la mente, Cinisello Balsamo, San Paolo, 2012, pp. 137-47. 48 G.F. Basti, Filosofia dell’uomo, Bologna, ESD, 1995, p. 351. 49 A. Ghisalberti, L’anima da Aristotele a Tommaso D’Aquino, in V. Andreoli, F. Buzzi (a cura di), L’anima e la mente, cit., pp. 35-36. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

82 Siamo veramente liberi? siano prove di altre (anche se essi possono usare atti di successione logica e quindi operare di fatto deduttivamente); né, mancando dei concetti di vero e di falso, possono rifiutare un argomento obiettando alle relative premesse50. Osservava Leibniz (Monadology 29): “è la conoscenza delle verità necessarie ed eterne che ci distingue dagli animali, […] permettendoci la conoscenza di noi stessi e di Dio”. C’è una differenza dunque tra la conoscenza umana e quella degli animali, differenza che esprime un’emergenza ontologica per cui ciò che si intende dicendo anima non può essere ridotto a ciò che si intende dicendo mente e cervello. Ma anche tra gli emergentisti vi sono profonde differenze. J. R. Searle51 afferma che la coscienza è una proprietà di livello superiore o emergente del cervello nel senso per esempio in cui la solidità è una proprietà delle molecole dell’acqua quando sono nel ghiaccio. Ma a questo punto, se la solidità è una proprietà di un oggetto che può essere ridotta al comportamento delle sue molecole, la coscienza deve potersi ridurre a stati cerebrali. Certo non è questa un’emergenza ontologica, e difatti Searle sostiene che i fenomeni cognitivi sono semplicemente causati dai processi neurofisiologici nel cervello, il che può essere vero in parte ma non può esaurire tutta la realtà emergente non riducibile. L’emergentismo di Sperry52 (1976) è più radicale, considerando le proprietà mentali come “configurazionali e olistiche”, differenti rispetto agli eventi neurali dei quali sono com- poste ma sui quali esercitano un controllo regolativo: gli eventi mentali sono cause piuttosto che correlati. Per aversi libertà, tanto il metodo di conoscenza (νοήσις) quanto il relativo substrato sostanziale, devono essere distinti rispettivamente dalla logica (διάνοια) e dal calcolatore. “L’uomo è oggettivamente qualcuno ed in questo consiste ciò che lo distingue dagli altri esseri del mondo visibile che sono sempre qualche cosa”53. La differenza è dovuta all’anima umana, all’autopossesso che qualifica la persona. Ma su cosa si intende per anima i pareri sono discordanti54. Uno psichiatra molto deciso nel suo “ateismo scientifico”, P. Debray- Ritzen55, considerava la sua anima “…un calcolatore con miliardi di transistor e miliardi e miliardi di connessioni [nel quale] si è formata una personalità intellettuale e affettiva unica…; il montaggio di tutto ciò su un unico utensile, con un montaggio unico…è la mia anima”.

2. Verità e dimostrazione Un calcolatore è uno strumento capace delle operazioni di dimostrazione. Quello che va chiarito, più attentamente di quanto abbiamo fatto finora, è il rapporto tra dimostrazione e

50 R. Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul,Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986, p. 210. 51 J.R. Searl, The Rediscovery of the Mind,Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 1992. 52 R.W. Sperry, Mental Phaenomena as Causal Determinants in Brain Function, in G.G. Globus, G. Maxwell, I. Savodnik (a cura di), Consciousness and the Brain, New York, Plenum Press, 1976, p. 163. 53 K. Wojtyla, Amore e responsabilità, Casale Monferrato, 1980, c.I. 54 E. Berti, M. Ivaldo, G. Mura, V. Possenti (a cura di), L’Anima, cit. 55 P. Debray-Ritzen, L’ateismo scientifico: uno psichiatra,in C. Chabanis, Dio esiste? No, rispondono…, Milano, Mondadori, 1974, p. 127. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 83 verità, e sarà utile esaminarlo attraverso ciò che ne esprime l’anima stessa, analizzare cioè il linguaggio per quanto esse già vi si trovino in coesistenza non pacifica. Il conflitto si esprime classicamente nelle antinomie logiche quali il “paradosso del mentitore”, noto ostacolo a una definizione di verità nei linguaggi naturali. Immaginiamo un libro di molte pagine, ognuna delle quali contiene una sola proposizione: a pagina 1 è scritto: “La proposizione stampata a pagina 2 è vera; a pagina 2 è scritto: “La proposizione stampata a pagina 3 è vera”; e così via fino all’ultima pagina nella quale è scritto: “La proposizione stampata a pagina 1 è falsa”. Supponiamo che la proposizione di pagina 1 sia davvero falsa: confrontando quello che essa esprime della proposizione seguente, e tutte le successive, si concluderà che la proposizione 1 è vera in quanto giunge a confermare la dichiarazione della propria falsità, cioè è vera e falsa contemporaneamente. Supponendo invece che la proposizione di pagina 1 sia vera, la conclusione è la stessa: è vera in quanto giunge alla dichiarazione della propria falsità. Vi sono molte altre espressioni di antinomie logiche, di cui si è qui riportato soltanto un esempio che permette di constatare come la sovrapposizione acritica del concetto di verità a un sistema di proposizioni dichiarative, che sono proprie delle dimostrazioni, possa condurre all’assurdo. Chi non riconosce questo fatto pretenderà di esaurire la verità nella dimostrazione, con ciò ritenendo di procedere nella sicurezza del metodo scientifico, ed escludendo a priori dalla propria conoscenza infinite verità (Gödel); chi riconosce che un sistema nel quale compa- iono antinomie denuncia un sintomo di malattia, non si accontenterà di fondare la propria conoscenza su basi metodologiche che palesano contraddizioni, ma esigerà di approfondire l’analisi con metodo critico (quindi con rigore scientifico). Lo faremo seguendo la forma di esposizione che risale ad A. Tarski56. Analizzando gli elementi caratteristici del linguaggio che sono la fonte reale dell’antinomia del mentitore, colpisce un aspetto fondamentale del linguaggio comune: il suo carattere universale, onnicomprensivo. In particolare si può constatare che per ogni proposizione del linguaggio comune, è possibile formarne nello stesso linguaggio un’altra la quale esprima che la prima proposizione è vera o falsa. Tali linguaggi universali, con le antinomie logiche che comportano, non sono né necessari né adatti per gli scopi della scienza. Per esempio nella chimica si studiano certi oggetti particolari (atomi, molecole ecc.) e non altri: il linguaggio che ben si adatta a tale trattazione è perciò un linguaggio ristretto con un vocabolario limitato. Le condizioni imposte al linguaggio per assicurarne la coerenza sono: che il vocabolario sia completamente determinato; che si usino regole sintattiche formali precise; che questo linguaggio ristretto sia tenuto distinto da quello nel quale si usa la nozione di verità, se ne formula la definizione, se ne discutono le implicazioni. Quest’ultimo verrà detto “metalinguaggio”, e il primo “linguaggio oggetto”; il metalinguaggio dev’essere più ricco del linguaggio oggetto, perché deve contenere tutte le proposizioni del linguaggio oggetto dovendone disporre per le definizioni di verità. Questa esclusione della definizione di verità dal linguaggio oggetto, o in altri termini la distinzione tra la nozione di verità e il sistema delle proposizioni dimostrabili, risulta essere condizione radicale per evitare le antinomie, ossia per una corretta

56 A. Tarski, Il concetto di verità nei linguaggi formalizzati, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 1963; Id., Verità e dimostrazione, in “Le Scienze”, 1969, 12, p. 20; Id. in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: papers from 1923 to 1938, a cura di J. Corcoran, Indianapolis, Hackett, 1983. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

84 Siamo veramente liberi? fondazione della logica. I risultati di questa premessa portano a importanti deduzioni. Prendiamo per esempio come linguaggio oggetto quello dell’aritmetica. Il vocabolario è molto limitato comprendendo variabili, numeri, simboli per le relazioni e operazioni sui numeri, alcuni termini logici e semplici regole. Il metalinguaggio sarà quello nel quale viene formulata la teoria (meta-aritmetica) per lo studio del linguaggio aritmetico, e conterrà la definizione di verità e quella di dimostrabilità. Si può quindi facilmente definire nel metalinguaggio l’insieme delle proposizioni dimostrabili del linguaggio aritmetico, cioè l’insieme delle proposizioni di questo che soddisfano alla definizione di dimostrazione formale. Sarà anche possibile disporre tutte le proposizioni dimostrabili in ordine progressivo di complessità, e numerarle. Ora, le relazioni tra i numeri così assegnati alle proposizioni potranno (trattandosi di numeri) essere descritte mediante operazioni e relazioni aritmetiche, cioè nello stesso linguaggio oggetto: poiché l’insieme dei numeri corrispondenti alle proposizioni dimostrabili può essere dunque descritto nei termini dell’aritmetica, si potrà dire che la definizione didimostrabilità è traducibile dal metalinguaggio al linguaggio oggetto. Analoga traduzione non sarà invece ammissibile per la definizione diverità , pena la ri- comparsa delle antinomie logiche (infatti il linguaggio oggetto risulterebbe di nuovo universale). Ciò indica che l’insieme delle proposizioni dimostrabili non coincide con l’insieme delle proposizioni vere, dato che l’uno non gode di tutte le proprietà dell’altro (per dimostrare che due insiemi non coincidono è sufficiente indicare una proprietà di cui goda uno e non l’altro: qui la proprietà è la possibilità di definizione nel linguaggio dell’aritmetica). Tenendo presente che tutti gli assiomi dell’aritmetica sono veri e tutte le regole sono infallibili, tutte le proposizioni dimostrabili devono essere vere. Stante la non coincidenza dei due insiemi, vi saranno pertanto delle proposizioni vere che non sono dimostrabili. Come dice Gödel. È ben noto che un calcolatore può essere costruito in modo che operi con certi assiomi e regole formalizzate di logica, ricavando così qualsiasi numero di proposizioni dichiarative dimostrate. Noi possiamo definire vere queste proposizioni se abbiamo fede negli assiomi e nelle regole logiche, e saremmo tentati di considerare la somma logica delle proposizioni dimostrabili come la definizione di verità del calcolatore. Ma qui si incontra il problema delle antinomie (e insieme l’aspetto apriori così caratteristico del concetto di verità). Come abbiamo visto, in ogni linguaggio dobbiamo distinguere tra linguaggio oggetto e metalinguaggio. La parola “verità” e ogni discussione su di essa va esclusa dal linguaggio oggetto; ne segue che esistono proposizioni vere ma non dimostrabili. Così la nozione di verità deve essere distinta dal sistema di tali proposizioni, dunque distinta rispetto al calcolatore. L’anima secondo il citato Debray e molti altri è “un calcolatore”, un “utensile”; ma essa nel suo linguaggio comprende, oltre alle espressioni logiche, anche semantica e verità che sono metalogiche. Consapevoli di questo, dobbiamo prendere coscienza con piena chiarezza di quanto è contenuto nel nostro linguaggio universale: in esso si ritrova l’espressione di un dualismo, innegabile. Per qualunque sistema logico-matematico è indispensabile una fondazione non logica di assiomi. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 85

W. Stegmüller57 afferma che non si possono confutare le intuizioni essenziali senza pre- supporle, in una argomentazione circolare autocontradditoria. Né si può fare a meno di una forma di intuizione concettuale che consente di cogliere il rapporto tra concetti astratti, un tipo di evidenza eidetica58. Evidenza garantita dalla nostra capacità di intuizione delle essenze. Concetti simili sono espressi da R. Penrose59, “ability to divine or intue truth from falsity” e insieme “aesthetic criteria”; e da moltissimi altri. Si sostiene talvolta che l’antinomia del mentitore (paradosso di Epimenide) debba l’as- surdità al fatto di essere un’operazione di autoriferimento. Come osserva S. Galvan, “… contro certe argomentazioni che si propongono di dimostrare la insensatezza della formula di Gödel facendo leva sulla sua struttura autoreferenziale e quindi circolare, [si deve dire che] la formula è certamente costruita in modo autoreferenziale ma non è insensata perché non è circolare”. D. R. Hofstadter60 riporta chiaramente la dimostrazione della riproduzione del paradosso nella “teoria topografica dei numeri”, quale operata da Tarski, e per cui si ha una versione del paradosso che, a questo livello, diventa non un’affermazione su sé, ma un’affermazione sui numeri che è vera se e soltanto se è falsa. Una possibile spiegazione, offerta poi dallo stesso Hofstadter, cioè l’ipotesi che l’antinomia derivi da un’incompatibilità tra funzioni cerebrali, avrebbe l’effetto di togliere credito alla razionalità e quindi di rendere inutile il nostro ragio- nare; e l’Autore stesso in altra occasione ovviamente lo conferma: “…quando in un sistema logico si permette anche una sola contraddizione, allora, per il principio – ex falso quodlibet –, da quel sistema si può dedurre qualunque conclusione si voglia” (D.R. Hofstadter e D.C. Dennet)61. La nozione metalogica di verità diviene invece garanzia di guida per la razionalità nell’i- potesi dualista, che poggia infine sulla verità assoluta. In fondo quello di Hofstadter non è che un altro modo per dire che della verità non si può fare carico al pensiero calcolante e al cervello, pena dover ammettere l’inaffidabilità delle operazioni della conoscenza: per teoriz- zare una razionalità ragionevole occorre ipotizzare un soggetto d’azione distinto, capace di attingere il “ver primo” con sicurezza. Il conflitto tra verità e dimostrazione e le antinomie sono espressioni di un ampio ambito di incoerenza nel quale si deve fare chiarezza. L’autoriferimento infatti può produrre paradossi se tale riferimento passa attraverso il contenuto semantico del discorso, e ciò vale anche per il paradosso del mentitore. I paradossi dipendono dal conflitto tra due modi radicalmente diversi usati nello stesso discorso per considerare l’identità di un essere: l’identità definita mediante la localizzazione spazio-temporale o logico formale, da un lato; l’identità indipendente da un connesso dominio di spazio-tempo, e di natura semantica, per un ente astratto come ad esempio una qualità. Gli enti del primo tipo sono designati necessariamente con un sostantivo; quelli del secondo tipo possono essere designati con aggettivi (per esempio: vero). Orbene, l’operazione di identificazione su base semantica non pertiene al pensiero calcolante

57 W. Stegmüller, Metaphysik, Skepsis, Wissenschaft, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York, Springer, 1969. 58 S. Galvan, Introduzione ai teoremi di incompletezza, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1992, pp. 191 ss. 59 R. Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind,Oxford Univ. Press, 1989, pp. 110, 412, 421. 60 D.R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach, New York, Basic Books, 1979, pp. 449-50. 61 D.R. Hofstadter, D.C. Dennet, L’io della mente, Milano, Adelphi, 1985. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

86 Siamo veramente liberi?

(tanto meno al calcolatore). In altri termini, le qualità percepite nella loro identità semantica vanno tenute distinte (metalinguaggio) dal linguaggio e dalle operazioni della logica quantitativa (linguaggio ogget- to) e della identificazione spaziale; quindi distinte (dualismo) per il soggetto cui le rispettive operazioni competono. Questo dualismo è la ragione della differenza esistente tra intelligenza umana e intelligenza artificiale e rispecchia la differenza tra verità e dimostrazione, e in genere tra percezione di qualità ed essenza da un lato, e di res extensa dall’altro. I cultori dell’intelligenza artificiale spesso trascurano il duplice aspetto (dimostrazione/ verità, ragione/intelletto) sul quale ci siamo soffermati, identificando l’intelligenza con la logica. Per quanto si è detto, questo non può essere che un vicolo cieco, nel quale ci si inoltra per non voler accettare la soluzione dualista. L’assioma materialistico in base al quale tutto il conoscibile deve rientrare nelle scienze fisiche comporta così di non potersi accertare su nessuna base circa la razionalità della ragione, dovendosene anzi radicalmente diffidare, per le dimostrate incompatibilità e antinomie. Ma c’è gente a cui piace questa idea, si potrebbe dire, così ribaltando il commento rivolto ai dua- listi da Hofstadter e Dennet. K. Popper e molti altri condannano le metafisiche dialettiche in cui è ammesso in qualche misura l’uso della contraddizione. Chi afferma che “...si può vivere nelle contraddizioni ed essere felici” dovrebbe comportarsi conseguentemente; mentre, come afferma Aristotele, quando gli si presenta l’occasione si guarda bene dal precipitarsi nel pozzo, convinto che il cadervi dentro non sia affatto uguale al non cadervi. Quando Debray dice “…la mia anima è unica perché i cromosomi che hanno contribuito alla formazione del mio corpo contenevano un messaggio assolutamente originale”, dice una cosa giusta ma incompleta. Anche Aristotele aveva stabilito che il vivente è una composizione di materia e di un principio d’informazione (come confermano i dati della biologia ai quali si rifà Debray) e aveva concluso che sotto questo aspetto per l’“anima” non vi è sussistenza al di fuori della materia informata. Ma Aristotele aveva anche riconosciuto l’esistenza del νοũς, l’intelletto capace di esercitare la conoscenza contemplativa, il quale “… sembra che sia un tipo d’anima differente […] suscettibile di essere separato, come l’eterno, dal corruttibile”. La percezione di “ciò che è rispetto all’essenza” è dunque propria del νοũς, capace della conoscenza che corrisponde all’identificazione semantica e che non essendo pensiero discorsivo-proposizionale può entrare in rapporto con l’eterno senza-tempo (Aristotele, De Anima, II, 1, 413 a). Una conseguenza assurda della identificazione dell’anima col calcolatore e della mancata distinzione tra dimostrazione e verità è quella segnalata da S. Sutherland62 in un commento ad un libro di D. McKay63. Questi, distinguendo tra hardware e software nel cervello, suggerisce che una soluzione al problema della risurrezione sarebbe l’incorporamento del programma che funziona nel cervello di ciascun individuo in qualcosa di diverso dal corpo umano. Inoltre ventila l’ipotesi della costruzione di calcolatori tanto intelligenti quanto gli individui della specie umana e i quali sarebbero dunque, nota Sutherland, legittimi candidati al regno dei cieli. Ma la dimostrazione che esistono verità non dimostrabili, che ogni uomo vede come vere, per le quali un cervello umano (o artificiale) non può e non potrà mai dare conferma

62 S. Sutherland, Science and Faith in Mind, in “Nature”, 1981, 290, p. 167. 63 D.M. McKay, Freedom of Action in a Mechanistic Universe, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1967. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 87 logica, significa che l’occhio del software non basta per vedere il regno dei cieli. Il software della ragione calcolante è caratterizzato da incompletezza, e non vede infinite verità; è altrove che abitano verità, creatività e libertà, perché è evidente che se le azioni umane fossero sempre connesse a rigorose inferenze matematiche e alla razionalità del pensiero calcolante, sarebbero sempre prevedibili. Bisognerebbe tentare di spiegarlo a quanti stabiliscono limiti arbitrari alla propria conoscenza, per esempio definendosi “atei e agnostici razionalisti”, senza tenere conto di quanti atti di fede compiono nei confronti di tutti gli assiomi, per definizione indimostrabili. Dato e non concesso che l’esistenza di Dio non sia possibile oggetto d’indagine con metodo razionale, la posizione degli agnostici che si definiscono razionalisti sarebbe corretta dal punto di vista logico. Quella degli atei è diversa perché evidentemente presuppongono che ciò che non è razionalmente dimostrabile non esista. Non si capisce bene perché stiano insieme. Ma si può e si deve domandarsi se quel metodo (razionale) è l’unico che dia una completa conoscenza della realtà esistente. È una domanda sul metodo. Se esso è l’unico valido per ottenere conoscenze, allora dobbiamo usare tale metodo, il cui campo d’azione è in questione, anche per determinare il campo d’azione di questo stesso metodo. Chi si dichiara ateo dovrà ammettere che non può evitare di cadere in un’argomentazione circolare; oppure che fa un atto di fede. L’uomo è stato definito per secoli “animale razionale”: per esempio da Platone, Aristote- le (pur considerando come funzione superiore l’intuizione intellettuale), Plotino, Cicerone, Sallustio, Agostino (“sostanza razionale che consta di anima e di corpo”), Boezio (“rationalis naturae individua substantia”), Tommaso (distinguendo intellectus et ratio), Scoto, Occam, Cartesio, Hobbes (“meccanismo tra i meccanismi” con anima razionale), Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel; e l’elenco non è completo. Ma la definizione non è adeguata: l’uomo non è soltanto un animale razionale; è un animale capace (talvolta) di riconoscere i limiti della propria ragione.

3. La libertà dell’Io e la fisica L’uomo, partecipando in qualche misura alla perfezione divina, può esercitare una cau- salità che è a immagine e somiglianza della causalità creatrice: è causalità libera, affrancata dal determinismo. Può questa impegnativa affermazione essere provata anche indipendentemente dall’esperienza interiore di libertà, che secondo alcuni potrebbe essere piuttosto un’illusione? Seguiamo il problema nell’esposizione che ne ha fatto C. Borghi64. “Com’è noto – egli dice – in ogni istante della sua evoluzione secondo le leggi che ne determinano le operazioni, ogni oggetto fisico deve operare una scelta tra infinite possibilità evolutive, sceglien- do tra di esse quella, e quella sola, cui corrisponde un massimo di aumento dell’entropia (principio di minima azione o principio di Hamilton, o principio di Fermat, o principio della geodetica). Il numero di possibilità evolutive tra cui tale scelta è operata, nel linguaggio della teoria dei numeri di Cantor, è la potenza di una infinità numerabile, ossia il numero transfinito aleph-zero. Ogni

64 C. Borghi, Se volessimo vederci chiaro. Note per una possibile teoria delle scienze, Milano, Jaca Book, 1976, p. 102. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

88 Siamo veramente liberi?

processo evolutivo sottoposto al determinismo fisico implica in modo caratterizzante un numero aleph-zero di scelte possibili ad ogni istante. Ora, se ci poniamo la domanda “esistono processi evolutivi non deterministici?”, una maniera di poter rispondere sarà scoprire se esistono processi evolutivi il cui numero di scelte, istante per istante, sia inevitabilmente maggiore di aleph-zero. Lo svolgersi di un processo può essere seguito sopra un diagramma in cui le ascisse sono il tempo e le ordinate un qualche parametro che rappresenta il fenomeno in questione. Ad ogni istante, per così dire, la natura pone il problema: quale sarà la posizione del punto seguente? Dal punto in esame si espandono, in tutte le direzioni, tutte le possibili traiettorie che rappresentano tutti i possibili sviluppi del fenomeno compatibili con l’insieme delle leggi fisiche. Il numero di queste possibili linee di sviluppo è numerabile e infinito, cioè sarà il numero aleph-zero, secondo la no- menclatura di Cantor. Tra queste possibili linee di sviluppo la natura sceglie quella cui corrisponde il minimo valore d’incremento dell’azione hamiltoniana, e questo, come sappiamo, è determinismo fisico. Ora supponiamo che sul fenomeno in osservazione si sovrapponga un Ego con la sua capacità di scelta delle cause. Questo vuol dire che l’Ego deve scegliere una delle direzioni volute dal determinismo ma, una volta sceltala, la potrà sviare in un numero di direzioni che è ancora infinito e numerabile, cioè l’ Ego ha a disposizione aleph zero possibilità di scelta per ognuna delle direzioni scelte dal determinismo. In complesso vuol dire che l’Ego che opera la scelta delle cause ha a disposizione un numero di direzioni di sviluppo che è aleph-zero alla potenza aleph-zero, ossia aleph-uno direzioni. E questo non è più determinismo”. Il potere di scegliere le cause (la scelta dei motivi della scelta delle cause), il potere di resi- stere a un desiderio, e quella che Swinburne definisce “countersuggestibility” e McKay “logical indeterminacy”, sono tutte manifestazioni dell’autodeterminazione umana, della “libertas a necessitate”. Il problema è sintetizzato dal Borghi nel modo seguente: “Se il comportamento umano fosse deterministico, sarebbe perfettamente possibile organizzare una ingegneria della storia che sarebbe una sociologia per mezzo della quale il divenire delle società e delle culture umane sarebbe prevedibile. In altre parole, se fosse possibile conoscere tutti i “potenziali sociologici”, i cui gradienti definiscono ipotetiche “forze sociologiche”, allo stesso modo in cui i potenziali fisici determinano con i loro gradienti le forze fisiche, allora la dinamica delle società umane non sarebbe diversa dalla dinamica di una macchina, retta appunto dal determinismo. Supponiamo di avere una società della quale conosciamo in ipotesi tutti i potenziali sociologica e sulla quale quindi possiamo impiantare un progetto di evoluzione sociologica di carattere scientifico. Appare evidente che tale progetto esigerebbe che la popolazione di quella società fosse rigorosamente mantenuta all’oscuro del progetto stesso, perché se lo sapesse ci sarebbe la possibilità e persino una grande probabilità di un totale insuccesso per il progetto in questione. In altre parole, si riottene anche in questa ipotesi quella differenza sostanziale di molteplicità delle scelte libere, in relazione alla molteplicità delle scelte evolutive dovute al determinismo”. Lo stesso discorso si potrebbe fare per un solo soggetto anziché per un insieme umano, una società; per la quale tuttavia forse è più facile la pretesa dell’osservazione e della predi- zione mediante statistiche, e quindi della possibile negazione arbitraria di una reale libertà.

4. Un passo all’ombra della metafisica. L’evoluzione come creazione e il dolore non creato L’evoluzione è creativa o è semplice rivelazione dell’implicito? Si può parlare di evoluzione creatrice anche senza romantici riferimenti all’“élan vital” e senza confusione con gli File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. Zatti 89 infantilismi creazionisti? Oppure l’evoluzione è soltanto eduzione, trasformazione? La datità disponibile permette di definire il processo cosmico, a partire dal big-bang, come una storia di complessificazione, tanto da giustificare una definizione come quella di C. Tresmontant65: “Il mondo è un processo durante il quale l’informazione aumenta”. Almeno nei pianeti di tipo terrestre è più corretto parlare non di un aumento ma di una trasformazione dell’informazione: mettere insieme atomi per fare molecole, molecole per fare strutture sopra-molecolari, ecc., significa dissipazione di informazione energetica (Ie, energia potenziale elettronica) attraverso la strutturazione; ed essendo Ie continuamente rifornita dall’influsso nella biosfera di energia radiante, si ha un continuo aumento dell’informazione strutturale (Ith, energia termica contenuta nei legami strutturali), mentre la complessificazione richiede anche dissipazione di informazione configurazionale (Ic) nella varietà e aperiodicità; Ic aumenta tuttavia nella biosfera per effetto dei sistemi di replicazione e di selezione. Nel complesso, resta valida in tutti i processi la seconda legge della termodinamica espressa come Δ Ie + Δ Ic + Δ Ith ≤ 0, per cui non si ha un aumento globale dell’informazione. Nei casi dell’ordine da fluttuazione dei sistemi lontani dall’equilibrio la possibile riduzione di entropia è in effetti acquisizione d’informazione come complessità, che però deve corrispondere a equivalenti termodinamici della dissipazione. Ma la teoria quantitativa dell’informazione non è adatta ad affrontare il problema perché non può valutare il significato, la qualità (si ricordi quanto s’è detto su logica e semantica). La musica di Mozart non ha maggiore stabilità termodinamica del rumore, né sarà mai possibile tradurre nei termini dell’informazione in bit la bellezza del contenuto di un messaggio. Se tuttavia alla parola informazione si attribuisce il significato di presenza di forme, di essenze che definiscono i gradi dell’essere nell’ambito dell’accezione filosofica dell’informazione della materia, allora il processo evolutivo può essere apprezzato nel suo significato. Che è quello della progressiva azione creatrice continua, di fronte alla cui evidenza nell’origine della vita, della conoscenza animale, dell’intelligenza umana, K. Popper66 parla di autentici miracoli, cioè di impossibilità di una spiegazione. Popper dal suo punto di vista ha ragione nel senso che la comprensione razionale dell’evoluzione creatrice esigerebbe di porre un’ipotesi metafisica, che egli rifiuta. Infatti, dato che l’intero empirico è realmente in divenire, essendo questo un venire del più dell’essere, è contradditorio rispetto al principio di Parmenide, secondo il quale, non potendosi ammettere che l’essere venga dal nulla, ogni divenire è escluso. A meno che la fonte del più dell’essere non sia metafisica. Si è evoluzionisti se si è, nel senso corretto, creazionisti. Infatti gli evoluzionisti riduzionisti o fisicalisti sono tali perché tendono a negare i gradi dell’essere, ammettendo i quali non si può fare a meno di una metafisica. E in questa chiave interpretativa non è necessario fare un discorso a parte per la comparsa dell’uomo. Se il grado supremo di tutto il divenire è la spiritualità umana, una tensione verso principi essenziali e formali è propria di tutte le tappe del processo evolutivo. Il quale è sostenuto dalle leggi della termodinamica cui si deve la dissipazione verso la strutturazione e la complessificazione permesse dalle condizioni al confine tra ordine e caos; ma questo non

65 C. Tresmontant, L’esistenza di Dio oggi, Modena, Edizioni Paoline, 1971; Id., Il problema dell’anima, Roma, Edizioni Paoline, 1972. 66 K. Popper, Società aperta, universo aperto, Roma, Borla, 1984, pp. 102-09, 133. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

90 Siamo veramente liberi? basta, è anche necessaria la permanenza delle strutture e dinamiche costruite, in una serie di stati di relativa stabilità, in una parola forme predisposte (archetipi e attrattori) lungo il corso delle trasformazioni possibili e probabili. J. Maritain67 scriveva: “Ogni cosa esistente ha la sua natura o essenza, ma la posizione esistenziale delle cose non è implicita nella loro natura […]. La realtà esistente è così composta di natura e di imprevisto (caso); per questa ragione ha un senso nel tempo e durando costituisce una storia (irreversibile). La storia ha bisogno di questi due elementi: un mondo di pure nature non si muoverebbe nel tempo: non v’è storia per gli archetipi platonici; un mondo di puro imprevisto non avrebbe orientamento: non v’è storia per un equilibrio termodinamico”. La termodinamica e il campo delle forme rappresentano sul piano dell’analisi fisica i corrispettivi della causa efficiente e della causa finale del linguaggio filosofico, nel quale si può descrivere dunque l’evoluzione come creazione che pone via via nell’esistenza le essenze, o sviluppa le ragioni causali precreate (“administratio”, “prima conditio”). Il concetto di “forma finis materiae” e la realissima “attrazione degli archetipi” nel corso dei processi evolutivi (R. Thom68) ripropongono il problema delle essenze come potenza, rispetto all’essere. Esse come “potentia essendi” in qualche modo pre-esistono. I riduzionisti sono ben consapevoli di ciò che rappresentano i gradi dell’essere, cioè (J. Seifert69) i gradi di caratterizzazione e limitazione (“Abgrenzung” e “Begrenzung”) della perfezione dell’essere negli enti dovuta alla potenza (essenza), tant’è che vorrebbero negarli riducendo la mente al cervello, il cervello al giuoco dei potenziali elettrici e dei mediatori chimici, ecc.; cioè eliminando ogni aspetto realmente creativo dell’evoluzione (e così anche ogni aspetto realmente libero dell’azione umana). Il progresso della conoscenza ha compreso, sia pure attraverso tentativi ed errori, che la natura esprime dei temi, perché vi ha trovato delle forme che sono là: quando Keplero analizzava le orbite dei pianeti del sistema copernicano vi ritrovava le curve che Apollonio di Perga aveva studiato secoli prima per la loro bellezza matematica, alla stessa maniera che Einstein trovava nello spazio della relatività generale le forme della geometria di Riemann (S. Chandrasekhar70). Il progresso dell’evoluzione ha trovato anch’esso, attraverso tentativi ed errori, il campo delle forme, gli archetipi attrattori. Questo trovare le forme può essere definito veramente creativo perché, come dice tanto bene A. Manzoni71, “…l’inventare non è altro che un vero trovare”. Il dono e la partecipazione dell’essere nella creazione avvengono attraverso le forme. Il ve- nir meno della qualità dell’essere, cioè dell’influenza delle forme, è dolore. Il dolore è quindi incompletezza, mancanza; è nel creato, ma non è creato; è assenza, allontanamento dall’essere. E, parlandone in generale, non è solo la “privatio boni” di Leibniz (Saggi di Teodicea 1710), ma piuttosto la “corruptio boni” di S. Agostino (Confessioni, VII, 12) e, forse, l’ontica del

67 J. Maritain, citato da L. Valdré, Filosofia e storia della scienza, Filosofia e scienze della natura, Milano, Massimo, 1983. 68 R. Thom, Stabilità strutturale e morfogenesi, Torino, Einaudi, 1980. 69 J. Seifert, Essere e Persona, Milano, Vita e Pensiero, 1989. 70 S. Chandrasekhar, Truth and Beauty, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1987. 71 A. Manzoni, Opere morali e filosofiche, a cura di A. Chiari, F. Ghisalberti, Milano, Casa Manzoni, 1963, p. 700. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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Nichtige di K. Barth72, che derivano dal non volere divino, nello spazio dell’indeterminazione dove l’uomo ha potuto fare il bene ma anche il male e ha subìto la sciagura; perché la realtà non è composta soltanto di ”natura” ma anche di “imprevisto”, non soltanto di algoritmo ma anche di incertezza. Il solo male metafisico non implica perdita delle perfezioni dovute; è lo spazio per la libertà che la comporta. Questa è la condizione umana: l’indeterminazione, l’incompletezza fisico-matematica del caos e quella logico-matematica del teorema di Gödel, che sono d’altra parte le condizioni necessarie per la libertà73. Come abbiamo visto, esse implicano che la conoscenza richieda non soltanto ragione ma anche intelletto, logos e mito, “denken” e “dikten”: se l’uomo non ha l’umiltà di riconoscere i limiti della ragione, non può esaurire la verità né, quindi, essere veramente libero.

72 K. Barth, Dio e il Niente, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2000. 73 M. Zatti, Il dolore nel creato: un disegno intelligente?, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 2013. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Genetics and constitutional rights: perspectives and criticalities1

Carlo Casonato, Marta Tomasi2

Table of contents: 1. Introduction. – 2. An intrusive bio-law. – 3. The risks of a space void of law. – 4. The characters of the subject to be regulated. – 5. Law before a changing and multiform subject. – 6. Law, life sciences and human sciences. – 7. The force of concrete cases. – 8. Critical considerations of synthesis: a sustainable penal bio-law?

1. Introduction Many are the issues and the problems that could be faced with regard to the relation between genetics and constitutional law and rights. Here, we will limit ourselves to deal with three aspects concerning: (i) the tendency to have a pervasive law also in matters connected to life sciences; (ii) the need to set limitations to a regulation that is however necessary, if only for constitutional reasons; (iii) the suggestion of a law built and modulated on the basis of the specific characteristics of life sciences. Upon these bases, we will conclude this paper with some questions that in our opinion concern criminal law in a particularly critical way.

2. An intrusive bio-law It is a widespread and shared opinion, both within legal scholarship and within literature dealing with other areas of knowledge, that law in general, and in particular in matters connected to man’s health and to life sciences, has often showed itself too intrusive. Perceived as an «obsessive and formalistic system of general and abstract norms, incapable of adapting to the multiple and unpredictable needs of concrete

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. 2 In the common conception of the paper, paragraphs from 1 to 4 can be attributed to Carlo Casonato, paragraphs from 5 to 7 to Marta Tomasi; paragraph 8 is to be attributed to both. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

94 Genetics and constitutional rights cases», the legal phenomenon came to impose «the respect of procedures that are often bureaucratic and obsolete and eventually irrelevant for the patient’s interests»3. Often reduced to the mere legislative component, law has thus been exclusively or mainly intended as an obstacle to clinical research and for the exercise of the medical practice itself. Along this lines, Stefano Rodotà opens his book on «life and the rules» (La vita e le regole) with the image of a «law-saturated society», questioning himself on the possibility that law invades vital worlds and takes hold of «nude life». «Does this mean that nothing can be alien to it, and society has to resign to be closed in the steel cage of an omnipresent and pervasive legal dimension?» 4. A decade ago already, in a work significantly entitledLimits , Roger B. Dworkin suggested an answer to such questions, remembering how, particularly within the field of biology and medicine, «[l]aw itself has limits that suggest deference and humility in considering whether and how to use it [...]. Sound public policy requires evaluation of each legal tool to ascertain which one(s) can deal best with which problems of biomedical advance and to understand the limits of the ability of each legal tool and the entire legal system to regulate biomedical developments»5. Facing the risks engendered by an inopportune and eventually counterproductive «legal interference», scholars unanimously acknowledge the need to set a number of limits to regulation. They disagree, though, on the nature, the content, the amount and the consistence of the limitations to be set.

3. The risks of a space void of law The alternative to an inopportune intrusiveness cannot consist in banning law from the field. A measured self-restraint aiming at acknowledging a balanced space to the pair autonomy-responsibility of professionals involved in life sciences cannot bring to an unconditioned withdrawal of law. Such a situation would endanger the safeguard of individual rights and the necessary containment of power (of every power), thus succumbing to the dominion of a science that would even self-regulate in conditions – we might say – of sovereignty. Thus, following the two Authors we just cited, «[t]o suggest that the law has no role to play in the area of biomedical advance would be both stupid and unrealistic». A space void of law, also constitutional law, would conceal the «peril of an unconditioned will of power»; will that is attested by some recent cases, also out of the field of genetics.

3 F. D’Agostino, Diritto, in “L’Arco di Giano. Rivista di Medical Humanities”, 1, 1993, p. 51 (our transl.). 4 S. Rodotà, La vita e le regole. Tra diritto e non diritto, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2006, p. 9 (our transl.). 5 R.B. Dworkin, Limits. The Role of the Law in Bioethical Decision Making, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1996, p. 2. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 95

The affair that led the Indian Supreme Court to decide, on April 1st, 2013, the Novartis AG v. Union of India and Others has originated in 2006, when the Indian patent office denies to the Swiss multinational the patent for a variant (based on the beta crystal form) of a drug already commercialized since 1993 (the Imatinib Mesylate, produced under the name of Gleevec or Glivec)6. The Indian Patent Act 1970, amended several times also after the adoption of the TRIPS agreements, establishes that a product can be patented provided that, amongst others, it is new and inventive. In particular, it has to be an «invention which has a feature that: (a) entails technical advance over existing knowledge; or (b) has an economic significance and (c) makes the invention not obvious to a person skilled in the art» (Chapter I, Section 2.1). Moreover, the act provides for a specific clause of absolute relevance that excludes from patenting «the mere discovery of a new form of a known substance which does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of that substance» (Chapter II, Section 3d). On such bases, the Court highlights how «in the patent application, there is no claim of superiority of the beta crystal form of Imatinib Mesylate in regard to the aforesaid three properties [(i) more beneficial flow properties; (ii) better thermodynamic stability; and (iii) lower hygroscopicity than the alpha crystal form of Imatinib Mesylate], or any other property, over the starting material Imatinib, or even over Imatinib Mesylate in amorphous form or any form other than the alpha crystal form» (p. 9). Despite Novartis’ requests, and the fact that the recalled Section 3d of the second Chapter of the act was inserted after the petition for grant of a patent, the Court rejects the request for a patent extension. For what more matters here, this case demonstrates how the absence of a legal norm, as the lack of its implementation, would have determined the success of Novartis’ strategy aimed at extending the duration of a patent beyond its initial expiry date through the adoption of minor modifications of the product. Such a commercial strategy, known as evergreening, would have prevented the commercialization of the generic drug at far lower prices (the Novartis product costs 2.600 dollars per month, whereas the generic drug does not cost more than 180), thus preventing, as a matter of fact, some hundred thousands of patients, not only Indian, from using such a medicine destined to the treatment of some tumours and some types of leukaemia. With such a decision, more generally, the Court brought the patent logics to the principle, entailed by the form of social State itself, according to which «medicine and surgical and curative devices were to be made available to the public at the cheapest price commensurate with giving reasonable compensation to the patentee» (p. 33).

6 A reconstruction of the case and the links to the original materials can be found at www.biodiritto.org. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

96 Genetics and constitutional rights

A second evidence of the will of some of the protagonists of clinical research to break free from a normative framework protecting fundamental legal and ethical principles can be found in the affair that saw the Italian research institute Mario Negri opposed to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Within an experimental research project on some innovative antibiotics carried out within the framework of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) by a team made of universities and public research centres as well as private pharmaceutical companies, GSK claimed a total control both of the methodological aspects of the protocol, and of the aspects connected to the transparency and the publication of the results. In the words of the director, Silvio Garattini, and of researchers at the Mario Negri as reported in an article published in September 2013 on the British Medical Journal, «GSK wanted to retain the right to permit or refuse access to the patient outcome data and to give written approval for any independent publication of the data generated by the public-private partnership. That meant that we would have had to ask GSK’s permission to access the data from our own trial and that GSK reserved the right to block publication of our analysis of that data at any time after the study was completed»7. Despite the declaration by GSK itself published on the New England Journal of Medicine in August 2013 concerning the commitment to make clinical data public8 and the IMI’s policy on intellectual property according to which «[o]wnership of the foreground [results, including data, know how, and information] belongs in the first instance to the participant(s) who generated it», GSK insisted in its line aimed at reserve the right to decide «who would ever see the raw data and for what purpose. No one would have had the right to publish anything about the outcomes of the study without the company’s written consent». Facing the violation of the principles of transparency and accessibility of the outcomes of any research, the Mario Negri Institute therefore declared the renunciation to collaborate to a project that − it is worth noticing − disposes of 195 million Euros of funds coming, partly, from the European Commission: «[s]ecrecy on clinical data implies undue exploitation of the rights of physicians and patients involved in the studies. This is even more inappropriate when publicly funded or independent non-profit institutions are contributing to the development of a drug and patients are generously volunteering to participate. Secrecy definitely sounds paradoxical when EU funds support the clinical research, as with IMI projects». A third case demonstrating the strong temptations of uncontrolled power by some non-marginal components of the world of clinical research and of the production of drugs to the detriment of the rights of the persons involves Johnson & Johnson

7 S. Garattini, V. Bertelé, G. Bertolini, A failed attempt at collaboration, in “BMJ”, 2013; 347: f5354. 8 P. Nisen, F. Rockhold, Access to patient-level data from GlaxoSmithKline clinical trials, in “N Engl J Med.”, 2013, Aug 1; 369(5): 475-8. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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(J&J) and, once again, Novartis. According to the European Commission’s findings, in 2005 after the expiry of the patent for Fentanyl (an analgesic much more effective than morphine, chiefly used to soothe the pains of patient affected by cancer), the patentee, the pharmaceutical company J&J, took agreements with Novartis in order to delay as much as possible the introduction of the generic drug in the Dutch market. Such a «co-promotion agreement» provided for strong incentives by a Dutch partner of J&J, Janssen-Cilag, in favour of Sandoz, a Dutch subsidiary of Novartis; incentives that exceeded the benefits that Sandoz could have realised by selling the generic drug in Holland. The agreement terminated in December 2006, when a third pharmaceutical company introduced the generic drug in the market. Such a strategy drew the attention of the European Commission that, in December 2013, found it a «pay-for-delay» behaviour in violation of the competition rules: «Instead of competing, Janssen-Cilag and Sandoz agreed on cooperation so as “not to have a depot generic on the market and in that way to keep the high current price”. Janssen-Cilag did not consider any other existing potential partners for the so-called “co-promotion agreement” but just focused on its close competitor Sandoz. Sandoz engaged in very limited or no actual co-promotion activities». Thus, the violation of art. 101 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union brought the Commission to impose a fine of 10.798.000 Euros on J&J and a fine of 5.493.000 Euros on Novartis9. Apart from the technical aspects of the case, what is striking in the perspective adopted here, is once again the will of maximize profits by eluding elementary legal norms and ethical principles safeguarding fundamental individual and collective rights. In the words of the responsible for competition and Vice-President of the European Commission, Joaquín Alumnia, «J&J paid Novartis to delay the entry of a generic painkiller. The two companies shockingly deprived patients in the Netherlands, including people suffering from cancer, from access to a cheaper version of this medicine»10. The three mentioned cases, all dating back to 2013 and recalled here as mere examples, can be compared to other less recent affairs happened, for instance, in the United States, such as, amongst others, with specific regard to treatment of genetic data and information, the famous Moore v. Regents of the University of California, Greenberg v. Miami Children’s Hospital Research Institute, Inc., or Washington University v. Catalona11.

9 Art. 101 of TFEU establishes that: «The following shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market: all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the internal market (…)». 10 We are citing the European Commission’s press release of 10 December 2013 (http://europa.eu/ rapid/press-release_IP-13-1233_en.htm). 11 Respectively, 51 Cal. 3d 120 (1990); 264 F. Supp. 2d 1064 (S.D. Fla. 2003); 490 F.3d 667 (8th Cir. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

98 Genetics and constitutional rights

These affairs, however, confirm the need for the existence and for a careful application of a normative framework capable to equally balancing the different interests at stake in the field of life sciences, averting the always latent expansion of “the rule of the strongest”, which may also materialize in other forms of violence, such as, for instance, those in which research is conducted in poor Countries where there are no norms on the vigilance of ethical committee and on the respect of the participant’s rights; in which researchers want to pass to the direct application of their own activities on the sick without the control of scholarship and of the competent bodies; up to the situations in which a single professional wants to operate a treatment against the patient’s will. All such problems shall be framed within the pair power-liberty that traditionally involves and animates constitutional law and its logics. In this regard we might recall, mutatis mutandis, one of the most effective syntheses of constitutionalism intended as a movement of ideas and practices (that becomes prescriptive rules) dedicated to the objective of limiting power and safeguarding personal rights. We are speaking about art. 16 of the Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen of 1879, which declares that «Toute Société dans laquelle la garantie des Droits n’est pas assurée, ni la séparation des Pouvoirs déterminée, n’a point de Constitution». In the light of the both positive and negative potential of life sciences, and of genetics in particular, there is therefore the problem of indicating the properties of a “well-dimensioned” law having characteristics that prevent its hypertrophy, by ensuring its safeguard function. In general, we may recall the resort to the old label of «diritto mite» («meek law»), recently revised, precisely with regard to some issues concerning life sciences, as «diritto gentile» («kind law»)12. Facing alternatives and often opposite conceptions concerning the contents, the nature, the profundity that such a «good law» should assume, here we intend to suggest a theoretical-practical hypothesis capable of orienting the construction of a biolaw having virtuous characters thanks to the attention to the specificities of the object to be regulated.

4. The characters of the subject to be regulated Genetics, as any other life science and particularly as those aimed at life and health of human beings, insists on a peculiar subject that complicates some of the dynamics and legal categories usually utilised. (i) Dealing with genetics means, first

(Mo.) 2007). In general, see C. Casonato, Derechos de la persona y lógicas de la investigación clínica, in “Teoría y Derecho. Revista de pensiamento jurídico”, 11/2012, p. 26 ff. 12 The first reference goes to G.agrebelsky Z , Il diritto mite, Einaudi, 1992. The second indication refers to Paoalo Zatti’s work, testified by the materials collected at http://undirittogentile.wordpress. com/. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 99 of all, dealing with a subject of which science incessantly highlights new aspects, original knowledge and previously unexplored questions, renovated potentialities and unknown risks. It is precisely the uninterrupted scientific discoveries and technological applications that make a multiform and mutable subject of it, which may result modified even from the moment in which it is regulated by law. (ii) Secondly, every aspect connected to the genetic dimension typically involves the anthropological conception and the deepest moral structure of each of us. And with it, the meaning of delicate and dividing objects such as those of reductionism or genetic determinism, as far as to call into question the survival of free will. Finding an agreement on the relative regulation, setting rights and duties and founding the respective limits is therefore an activity that, especially in certain contexts more inclined to the reciprocal delegitimisation rather than to an authentic dialogue, such as the Italian context, often consumes time and resources vainly. (iii) Thirdly, theconcrete cases that reality uncovers are characterised by particularly complex peculiarities having lots of consequences, linked to contexts that are, in turn, specific themselves and hard to be generalized, in which even a single detail may represent such an element to justify a differentiated legal treatment. For all of these reasons, life sciences and genetics in particular invoke disciplines that cannot be maximalist but have to combine safeguards with flexibility, tending to be open to the specific features of the subject to be regulated. Such normative necessities should not be confused with indecision or weakness, but dictate that the normative decision to be adopted is the product of a careful balance of often opposite interests, which rarely can find full reception and in most cases are to be accurately pondered with each other. In the following paragraphs, we will draw upon comparative law some examples of legal institutes or regulations that – in our opinion – may reflect the normative needs connected to the above-described characters of the subject.

5. Law before a changing and multiform subject As we foretold (sub i), the continuous progresses of technology and scientific knowledge make of genetic a multiform and ever-changing subject of study that puts law, its tendential stillness and non-permeability to external influences to the test and requires an unusual promptness in elaborating solutions to new emerging problems. Strictly connected to such a profile of criticality, a further relevant aspect concerns the typical language of genetics that, in most cases, seems to express itself in terms of probability rather than certainty, offering relevant but not univocal and deterministic indications about the possibilities, for instance, to contract a particular illness in an indefinite moment in the future. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

100 Genetics and constitutional rights

The task that law has to face is to lay its ordering force upon a composite and ambiguous reality, without neglecting scientific data or exposing itself to the risk of creating a detachment between rule and facts; without getting rigid but avoiding to loose sight of the levels of certainty and verifiability concretely acquired. The complexity of individuating such a point of balance emerges from a comparative analysis that highlights how legal orders have faced the challenges of human genetics resorting to a variety of instruments, both binding and non-binding in nature, and to a multiplicity of approaches that in part acknowledge and in part reject the exceptional nature of genetic data compared to other health information13. Within such a fragmented background, it seems that a unifying trait can be individuated in the relevance attributed to the instrument of genetic counselling, considered as a procedural instrument indispensable to manage the complexity of the phenomenon and to grant a protection to rights considering the specific characters of genetic information and of its knowability. The interest of the international scientific community for genetic counselling is well consolidated already14 and its inescapability is recognized in international, supranational and national documents. For instance, it is required as a condition for the legitimacy of genetic testing by art. 12 of the so-called Oviedo Convention15 and by art. 8 of the respective additional Protocol of 2008 on genetic testing16, by art. 11 of the UNESCO International Declaration on Human Genetic Data17 and by the Recommendation n. 9 of the 25 Recommendations on genetic testing adopted by the European Union18.

13 Apart from the criticisms that can be addressed to an exceptionalist approach that individuates in genetic information an unicum amongst health information – criticisms centred on the fact that such an approach would suggest a “gene-centric” anthropological model, which simplifies extremely complex mechanisms, far from being fully understood, and which, on the other hand, gives too much relevance to components that contribute to the biological characterisation of the human being, although in a non-deterministic and non-exclusive way – it is relevant to notice how many jurisdictions chose to dedicate to genetic information specific normative provisions. Some examples can be represented by the general Authorisation to the treatment of genetic data adopted by the Italian Data Protection Authority (the most recent version, as it is well-known, dates back to December 2012), the German Gendiagnostikgesetz (GenDG) (Gesetz über genetische Untersuchungen bei Menschen, 31 July 2009), the Austrian Gentechnikgesetz (GTG) (BGBl 510/1994, lastly amended by BGBl. I Nr. 13/2006), the Swiss federal act on genetic exams on human beings (8 October 2004) or the specific provisions established by the French Code de la santé publique (recently, ad hoc dispositions have been introduced by Loi n. 2011-814 of 7 July 2011). 14 F.C. Fraser, Genetic Consulting, in “American Journal of Human Genetics”, 26, (1974), pp. 639- 659. 15 Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, adopted within the Council of Europe and opened to ratification on April, th4 1997 in Oviedo. 16 Strasbourg, 27 November 2008. 17 Unanimously adopted during the 32nd UNESCO General Conference on October 16th, 2003. 18 European Commission (Directorate-General for Research Information and Communication Unit), 25 Recommendations on the ethical, legal and social implications of genetic testing, 2004. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 101

Genetic counselling shall, therefore, represent a point of connection between the potentialities of technology and the care for and protection of the patient19, a medium between the test and the person subjected to it; such a role of connection is to be interpreted even more intensely in the actual context of genetic consumerism20, characterised by an increasingly wide diffusion of the test, also in the virtual market, and by a consequent withdrawal of controls and guarantees21. In Italy, the importance of counselling, which should provide the «instruments for the comprehension of genetic illness», had already been emphasised by the National Committee for the Bioethical Orientations for Genetic Testing (Comitato Nazionale di Bioetica negli Orientamenti Bioetici per i Test Genetici)22 and, more recently, by the State-Regions agreement of July, 15th 2004 on Guidelines for the activities of medical genetics23. In particular, the text of the agreement credits to genetic counselling, qualified as «integrant part of a genetic testing», with the value of a complex process of communication and provides for a possible participation of professional figures different than the physician or the geneticist. The relevance of the counselling phase is evident also due to the fact that the informed consent to the test is qualified as the outcome of a process of communication that should «conclude a dialogue», in a conception of counselling intended more as a complex act of communication than a properly medical act24. Such an approach has been, at least in part, reaffirmed by the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) that defines counselling as a whole of «communication activities aimed at helping the individual

19 See the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee’s Report on genetic counselling (Paris, 15 December 1995): «Genetic counselling provides the link between genetic technologies, several of which have been acquired through the Human Genome Project, and patient care». 20 S. Amato, Biogiurisprudenza. Dal mercato genetico al self-service normativo, Torino, 2006 and L. Battaglia, La genetizzazione della medicina, in C. Modonesi, G. Tamino (eds.), Fast science. La mercificazione della conoscenza scientifica e della comunicazione, Milano, 2008, pp. 203-220. 21 Similar worries are at the base of precautions such as that the Data Protection Authority introduced in Italy, by excluding, in consideration of the «need to grant an appropriate genetic counselling», the possibility to offer services of on-line medical reporting in case of genetic investigations [Linee guida in tema di referti on-line of 19 November 2009 (G.U. n. 288 of 11 December 2009), our transl.]. 22 Comitato Nazionale di Bioetica, Orientamenti bioetici per i test genetici. Sintesi e raccomandazioni (19 November 1999). At the fourth point of the document it is made clear that «within an adequate service of genetic counselling, the potential users should be provided with the instruments to understand the genetic disease: for instance, what does unifactorial or multifactorial disease mean; what is the meaning of the possible results of the test; and also the possibility of false negatives and false positives, the meaning of the probabilistic approach to diagnosis, the notions of predisposition to the disease and the risk factor» (our transl.). 23 The agreement was elaborated, pursuant to art. 4 D. Lgs. del 28 August 1997, n. 281, between the Ministry of Health, the Regions and the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano. 24 On the topic see L . Palazzani (ed.), Gen-jus: la consulenza tra genetica e diritto, Roma, Studium, 2011; L. Palazzani, L. Nepi (eds.), Gen-ius. Consulenza genetica e normative europee, Roma, Studium, 2012; P. Sommaggio, La consulenza genetica: un ponte tra auto poiesi ed auto trascendimento, in “Tigor: rivista di scienze della comunicazione”, A. II, 2010, n. 2 (July-December). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

102 Genetics and constitutional rights or the family struck by a genetic pathology to understand the medical information that include diagnosis and the probable course of the disease, the available forms of assistance, the contribution of heredity to the occurrence of the illness, the extant risk of recurring both for oneself and for other relatives and the opportunity to make them know, as well as all the existing options in coping with the risk of disease and the impact that such a risk may have on procreation choices; in the performance of genetic testing such a counselling also includes information on the meaning, the limits, the reliability and the specificity of the test, as well as the implications of its results»25. Further indications, laid down by point 5 of the Authorization, dedicated to the Information notice, establish that the counselling should be offered before and after the analysis. Apart from the formulation adopted at a national level, for what matters most here, it is the requirement that UNESCO individuated at an international level – that is, that counselling is configured as non-directive and culturally adequate and that it shall represent the best interest of the person involved26 – that highlights the role that counselling has in realising the safeguard of individual rights through a careful consideration of the specificities of the concrete case, of factual reality and of the individual characters of the single subject put in relation with genetic knowledge. In the same direction the cited art. 8 of the additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention on genetic testing that clarifies that the form and the scope of counselling shall be established based on the implications of the results of the test and on the meaning they may bear for the person or the members of his/her family27. A reading of genetic counselling as an instrument of connection capable of aligning the potentialities offered by scientific evolution and the effective protection of rights could also allow to solve a profile of uncertainty that seems to emerge from a first reading of the text of the Italian Authorization. The importance of genetic counselling, which as we saw is highlighted by point 5, seems to be partially retracted by the letter of point 9, which provides that «the outcomes of genetic testing and screening […] shall be communicated to the interested person also in compliance with his declaration of will of knowing or not knowing such events and, whereas necessary, with an appropriate genetic counselling» (our transl.). Such a tempering could be read in a positive key, when one finds

25 The definition is among those listed at Point 1 of the general Authorization to the treatment of genetic data n. 8/2013 (letter h). 26 UNESCO, International Declaration on Human Genetic Data, cit., art. 11: «[g]enetic counselling should be non-directive, culturally adapted and consistent with the best interest of the person concerned». 27 Art. 8 entitled Information and genetic counseling: «[t]he form and extent of this genetic counselling shall be defined according to the implications of the results of the test and their significance for the person or the members of his or her family, including possible implications concerning procreation choices». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 103 in it the intention to exclude the need for counselling in every case in which the outcome to be communicated to the patient corresponds to information that could be obtained through medical exams of different nature. Such a reading would permit to refuse an exceptionalist approach and to use genetic counselling wisely and to the actual aim of protecting rights. Genetic counselling, therefore, although variously configured in the several cited normative instruments, when interpreted correctly, seems to qualify itself as an instrument useful to ensure a full protection to the right of individual self- determination and of a concretely free and informed choice. Moreover, it lets individual action be placed in a perspective based on a correct consideration of the level of development of science and technique and of the degree of certainty they can afford. In this way, genetic counselling is the manifestation of a law careful to the person’s own characteristics, to his/her own understanding abilities, to the social and cultural context in which his/her own personality develops and to the ethical-moral substrate that orients his/her choices.

6. Law, life sciences and human sciences The second order of considerations derives, as we saw (sub ii), from the fact that many aspects of human genetics typically involve the deepest moral conception of each of us and, with it, the meaning of also anthropologically delicate and dividing concepts, such as, for instance, those of health and sickness, of nature and artifice, of autonomy and hetero-determination, as far as to influence the boundaries between cure and strengthening. In particular, the most recent techniques, not yet brought to a definitive consolidation, which go from the isolation of single genes to pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, from the possibility to intervene on the sequence of nucleic acids forming DNA and to modify it, producing effects on the phenotypical characteristics, to synthetic biology, seem capable of touching the hearth of vital mechanisms of humankind and, consequently, the characters that ontologically determine the human being. Facing such developments, it seems possible to find, within the legal phenomenon globally conceived, a tendential convergence of opinions aimed at stigmatizing potential abusive and distorted deployments of scientific progresses; such tendency, at least partly historically determined, resulted into the enunciation of principles in various documents providing for adequate safeguards in protection of rights, so to avoid discriminations, reductionist attitudes and eugenic drifts. Particularly clear and exemplary of this is art. 3, par. 2, of the Charter of fundamental File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

104 Genetics and constitutional rights rights of the European Union28, which imposes «the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at the selection of persons». The explanations relating to the Charter clarify that such a statement is aimed at preventing «possible situations in which selection programmes are organised and implemented, involving campaigns for sterilisation, forced pregnancy, compulsory ethnic marriage among others, all acts deemed to be international crimes in the Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted in Rome on 17 July 1998». If we cast our eyes little beyond the expressions of principle, however, the multiplicity of relevant practical behaviours are subjected to also diametrically opposite theoretical frameworks and practical regulations. In particular, starting from the scientific acquisitions that are concretely available at the present moment, the problems concerning eugenic practices broadly considered29 emerge whenever one considers diagnostic techniques and the following selective possibilities. In this case the declaration of principle seems to succumb before the complexity of reality and its ability to influence the protection of individual rights. It is well known, indeed, that some jurisdiction adopted norms explicitly introducing the possibility of a selection of embryos based on certain genetic features. Thus, both the Spanish and the British legal order, for instance, introduced rules admitting, in specific circumstances qualified in a quite detailed fashion, the possibility to select an embryo that results genetically compatible with a sick sibling. In 2008, the UK Parliament admitted the legitimacy of techniques of analysis aimed at a screening of embryos produced with in vitro procreation techniques and at the consequent selection of those genetically compatible with a sick sibling (“preimplantation tissue typing” – PTT). Resorting to such practices, though, has been conditioned to a specific authorisation by a committee of theHuman Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA)30 having the duty to assess the existence of certain requirements and specific factors such as the probability of success of the treatment, the availability of alternative treatments and the possibility to collect cells and tissues from other relatives or third donors31.

28 Entered into force on December 1st, 2009. 29 The term «eugenics» here is recalled as a general reference to practices of selection based on genetic features. According to some Authors, however, one could properly speak of eugenics only with regard to coercive public policies aimed at orienting individual behaviours (cf. A. Santosuosso, Diritto, scienza e nuove tecnologie, Padova, CEDAM, 2011, pp. 189-190). 30 Such a role is envisaged by the new version of Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (HFE) of 1990. Amongst the activities that can be authorised (Schedule 2) there is the testing on embryos «in a case where a person (“the sibling”) who is the child of the persons whose gametes are used to bring about the creation of the embryo (or of either of those persons) suffers from a serious medical condition which could be treated by umbilical cord blood stem cells, bone marrow or other tissue of any resulting child, establishing whether the tissue of any resulting child would be compatible with that of the sibling» (1ZA, 1, lett. d). 31 Highly detailed indications are laid down by the Code of practice of HFEA that individuates a very File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 105

As a confirmation of the essential relevance to be attributed in such cases to the specific characteristics of each situation, one may consider that, dating from 2009, as regards pre-implantation genetic diagnosis techniques generally considered, the HFEA chose to adopt a condition-by-condition approach, individuating a list of pathologies for which resorting to such techniques is generally authorised; on the contrary, the authorisation to the application of PTT techniques still depends on the assessment of the specificities of the concrete case. In the same direction goes the Spanish act32 acknowledging the relevance of pre-implantation genetic as an instrument useful to the «prevención de enfermedades genéticas que en la actualidad carecen de tratamiento», also through the «posibilidad de seleccionar preembriones para que, en determinados casos y bajo el debido control y autorización administrativos, puedan servir de ayuda para salvar la vida del familiar enfermo»33. To this end, the act envisages the possibility to perform pre-implantation genetic diagnosis aimed at evaluating the histocompatibility with a sick third subject, conditioned to the authorisation by the competent health authority and to the favourable opinion by the Comisión Nacional de Reproducción Humana Asistida, which shall assess the clinical, therapeutic and social characteristics, case by case34. long list of requirements to which the centre competent for the authorisation shall adhere. Thus, «10.22 When deciding whether to use preimplantation tissue typing, the centre should consider the circumstances of each case individually, rather than the fact that the procedure is sought to provide tissue to treat a particular condition. 10.23 When deciding on the appropriateness of preimplantation tissue typing in a particular situation, the centre should consider the condition of the affected child, including: a) the degree of suffering associated with their condition; b) the speed of degeneration in progressive disorders; c) the extent of any intellectual impairment; d) their prognosis, considering all treatment options available; e) the availability of alternative sources of tissue for treating them, now and in the future, and; f) the availability of effective therapy for them, now and in the future. 10.24 The centre should also consider the possible consequences for any child who may be born as a result, including: a) any possible risks associated with embryo biopsy; b) the likely long-term emotional and psychological implications; c) whether they are likely to require intrusive surgery as a result of the treatment of the affected child (and whether this is likely to be repeated), and d) any complications or predispositions associated with the tissue type to be selected. 10.25 The centre should also consider the family circumstances of the people seeking treatment, including: a) their previous reproductive experience; b) their views and the affected child’s views of the condition; c) the likelihood of a successful outcome, taking into account: i) their reproductive circumstances (ie, the number of embryos likely to be available for testing in each treatment cycle, the number likely to be suitable for transfer, whether carrier embryos may be transferred, and the likely number of cycles); ii) the likely outcome of treatment for the affected child; d) the consequences of an unsuccessful outcome; e) the demands of IVF/preimplantation testing treatment on them while caring for an affected child, and; f) the extent of social support available». 32 Ley n. 14 of 26 May 2006, Sobre técnicas de reproducción humana asistida, pubblicato in “Boletín Oficial del Estado”, 126 of 27 May 2006. 33 Such a possibility falls within the reasons that determined the adoption of the cited regulation (Ley 14/2006, Exposición de motivos, II). 34 Art. 12 of the act, after having listed the legitimate applications of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, establishes that «[l]a aplicación de técnicas de diagnóstico preimplantacional para cualquiera otra finalidad no comprendida en el apartado anterior, o cuando se pretendan practicar en combinación con File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

106 Genetics and constitutional rights

Similarly, the difference between negative eugenics, which some regard with favour insofar as aimed at reducing or eliminating certain genetic features deemed to be detrimental or pathological, and the more discussed positive eugenic, aimed at the promotion and the strengthening of features considered advantageous, blurs before the heterogeneity and the complexity of the category of genetic information. Selection based upon sex, for instance, considered as non-acceptable in general and in principle35, finds application in some jurisdictions whereas connected to specific medical reasons. The clearest example of regulation taking into account such a hypothesis can be found, once again, in the British Human Fertility and Embryology Act, which legitimizes the possibility of authorising testing on embryos aimed at determining their sex, in cases presenting a qualified risk that the child might carry or develop «(i) a gender-related serious physical or mental disability, (ii) a gender- related serious illness, or (iii) any other gender-related36 serious medical condition»37. Provisions as such, though, require an application that is rigorously founded on an evaluation that keeps into account the already mentioned problematic aspects of genetic data and, in particular, on their scarcely predictive nature. Particularly problematic, from this point of view, appear to be such as news as those, recently reported by the press, according to which Western Australia health authorities have authorised a family genetically predisposed to the development of forms of autism to select an embryo on the basis of sex because, according to some studies, males would be four times more inclined to develop the disease than females38. Furthermore, with regard to the possibilities that might emerge in the future from gene therapy, a first aspect calling for some clarification concerns the difference between somatic gene therapy and gene therapy that, on the contrary, would be able to influence the germline. The difference between the two typologies of intervention consists in the fact that, in the former case, the modification would produce effects only for the individual subjected to therapy while, in the latter, the introduced la determinación de los antígenos de histocompatibilidad de los preembriones in vitro con fines terapéuticos para terceros, requerirá de la autorización expresa, caso a caso, de la autoridad sanitaria correspondiente, previo informe favorable de la Comisión Nacional de Reproducción Humana Asistida, que deberá evaluar las características clínicas, terapéuticas y sociales de cada caso». 35 On this, at least in the United Kingdom, there are opposite opinions on the imposition of prohibitions of selection based on sex. Cf. S. Wilkinson, E. Garrard, Eugenics and the Ethics of Selective Reproduction, Keele University, 2013. 36 Paragraph 3 clarifies the meaning of “gender related”: «[f]or the purposes of sub-paragraph (1)(c), a physical or mental disability, illness or other medical condition is gender-related if the Authority is satisfied that: (a)it affects only one sex, or (b)it affects one sex significantly more than the other». 37 Human Fertility Embriology Act (HFE) 1990, Schedule 2, 1ZA, 1, lett. c). 38 The news, appeared on “The West Australian” (Baby sex checks for autism, 19 October 2013, at http:// au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/), has been reported by “Forbes” (Embryo sex selection to select against autism?, 21 October 2013, at http://www.forbes.com) and by “BioNews” (IVF sex selection allowed in Western Australia to reduce autism risk, 28 October 2013, http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_357600. asp). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 107 corrections would have consequences also for a possible offspring, as they would influence also germ cells (spermatozoa and oocytes) or totipotent staminal cells (at the early stages of embryo development)39. The two different options have been looked at with different attitude from both the bioethical point of view and the legal one. In particular, therapies on the somatic line are tendentially accepted, compared as they are, to a certain extent, with experimental substitutive therapies such as organ implantation and raise specific problems mainly connected to the security and effectiveness of the techniques employed40. Totally different is the attitude towards germline gene therapy that, being founded on logics of non-consensuality, could be read as a violation of the principles of self-determination and human dignity and it has therefore been addressed with provisions entailing explicitly negative judgements. For instance, the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation, with the intent of protecting the human being «against the misuse of reproductive medicine and gene technology», forbids «all forms of […] interference with the genetic material of human reproductive cells and embryos» (art. 119). Similarly, the already cited Oviedo Convention sets forth an express prohibition of intervening on human genome whenever «an intervention seeking to modify the human genome» is introduced (art. 13). All the cited examples, albeit heterogeneous in nature, converge in revealing the moral and anthropological weight of the decisions to take and in highlighting how the general and monolithic rejection of eugenic and deterministic tendencies, acknowledged in principle, is wiped out whenever it confronts with the need for operational rules unavoidably conditioned by the concreteness of cases and how legal rules appear once more to abandon their claims for generality before the complexity of reality.

7. The force of concrete cases A final aspect (sub iii) that qualifies human genetics by distinguishing it, at least in part, from the other sectors of life sciences and that conditions the legal approach to this reality concerns the multiform category of genetic data and therefore to the variability of the relevance of the information that the individual can obtain through

39 On this, in general, see J. Habermas, Il futuro della natura umana. I rischi di una genetica liberale, Einaudi, 2002. In specific and partly critical terms, C. asonatoC , Diritto, diritti ed eugenetica. Prime considerazioni su un discorso giuridico altamente problematico, in “Humanitas”, n. 4, 2004. 40 As, since 1991, the Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica, maintained, «somatic cells gene therapy, in the adequate conditions and in compliance with rigid requirements not only legal, but also technical- scientific in nature, but also with legal and ethical requirements, is totally acceptable from any point of view, as it can be assimilated to a substitutive therapy or an implantation not of organs, or tissues or cells, but of molecules». Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica, Terapia Genica, 15 February 1991 (http:// www.palazzochigi.it/bioetica/pdf/1.pdf). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

108 Genetics and constitutional rights a genetic test; this is a category characterised by an high degree of heterogeneity due not only to the different cognitive value of each DNA portion and to the plurality of subjects that might be interested to it, but also to the variability of the informative scope of each individual according to the different objectives that are meant to be pursued through its employment41. Seemingly, law shall take charge of this fragmentariness in order to ensure, in every situation in which genetic information has some relevance, the protection of the plurality of interests involved. In the medical-health field, for instance, in many cases the need for a full consideration of the interests of third subjects, belonging to the same biological group of those subjected to testing, has become more and more pressing. The intra-family and inter-subjective relevance of genetic data has, thus, been acknowledged by some legislators, through a valorisation of the procedural dimension that is functional to an adjustment of the rule to the characteristics of the concrete case. In this sense, the French legislator chose to give account in the legal reasoning of the informative value that genetic information might bear also with regard to a relative of the person subjected to testing, by introducing, with art. 1131-1-2 of the Code de la santé publique, some rules aimed at concretising a sort of obligation, procedurally qualified, of communication to the relatives. According to the norm, the physician, before subjecting an individual to genetic testing, shall inform him/her of the fact that his/her silence might cause serious risks for the health of the members of his/her family, whenever a serious genetic disease is diagnosed, while its consequences could be subjected to preventive measures (including genetic counselling) or therapy. After the informative moment, the physician, together with the person, individuates in a written document, the modalities of information of his/her family members. On the basis of this document, the person «est tenue» to trasmit the relevant information to the members of his family (of whom it is possible to obtain «les coordonnèes») whenever «des mesures de prévention ou de soins» can be advised42. If the person does not want to communicate directly with the relatives, it is the physician who shall bring to their knowledge the existence of a medical information of family character that might concern them and invite them to undergo genetic counselling, without revealing either the name of the source-subject or the genetic anomaly detected or even the risks connected to it. A complex normative solution that tends to balance, considering the shared and merely predictive nature of genetic data, the right to

41 As someone correctly pointed out: «genetic, genomic and proteomic sequencing provide genetic information, but not necessarily knowledge», M.L.Y. Chan, Beyond determinism and reductionism: genetic science and the person, Adelaide, 2003, p. 126. In general, for Italy, see P. Veronesi, Il corpo e la Costituzione. Concretezza dei «casi» e astrattezza della norma, Giuffrè, 2007. 42 The only exception is the case in which the person has manifested through a written paper the will not to obtain a diagnosis: in this case the physician could contact the interested thirds. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 109 privacy, on the one hand, with the rightful claims for health or prevention, on the other hand. Even in different fields, such as that of labour, rules that are exceedingly abstract or deaf to the specificity of the cases which they apply to, show all their inadequacy. In the cited context, strictly forbidding employers from accessing data can result inappropriate in the case, for instance, in which a duty or a certain work environment could harm an employee with certain genetic characteristics (always bearing in mind the probabilistic character of the possible outcomes). The choice of the Italian jurisdiction, enclosed within a regulation aimed at protecting privacy, excludes the possibility for employers to use genetic data to «determine the professional attitude of workers or of candidates for vacant jobs» (our transl.). In light of what we have pointed out so far with regard to a «well-dimensioned» law, a solution based on an anti-discriminatory approach could appear more functional, provided that it is possible to assess, on a case-by-case basis, the opportunity to realise, also with the worker’s consent, a «reasonable distinction» aimed at protecting the community or the worker himself. Such an approach would allow at the same time to valorise the potentialities emerging from the new scientific acquisitions, putting them in service of the protection of rights, and to ensure a high degree of flexibility, although within the limits of a sustainability rigorously founded on a criterion of reasonableness.

8. Critical considerations of synthesis: a sustainable penal bio-law? The aspects dealt with here as mere examples demonstrate the possibility to conceive, adopt and implement a law that faces the genetic subject respecting its own characters. The elements that can be connected to its continuous progress, as well as those due to the difficulty of regulating a subject that calls into play the deepest dimensions of our being and conceiving ourselves as human and that invokes a specific attention to the concreteness of single cases, seem to lead towards a law having particularly problematic characters. Given what we said, for instance, the «general and abstract» character of legislation (necessary at least in the subjects covered by strict statutory legality) seems to be attenuated before the need for considering each situation with a case-by-case approach. And if sometimes it is a detail that makes the differences in dealing with an event, how to ensure the necessary margin of certainty of the legal framework without conceiving laws that dilate themselves beyond any limit or break in pieces in the attempt to anticipate any possible present and future variation? How to ensure the opportune flexibility in considering different personal behaviours without giving up the tendential foreseeability of the respective consequences? How, in the end, to File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

110 Genetics and constitutional rights combine equity and justice with interpretative-applicative margins that might reach arbitrariness? Of course, such questions emerge with particular vigour precisely in criminal law, in which the constitutional principle of legality dictates, ex art. 25, the prohibition of analogy and the correlative principles of non-retroactivity, determinacy, clarity and precision; principles as such hardly seem to satisfy the normative needs emerging from the characters of genetics. Avoiding the risk of a legal-penal revision of genetic exceptionalism, hardly consistent with the normative system as a whole, apparently we have to confirm the need for reflecting over the characters of a law, also penal, which is increasingly called to abandon some elements of presumed objectivity and precision (and, with them, elements of only apparent equality or of false certainty) and to face logics that are increasingly fuzzy in nature43; without neglecting the need to confront also common law families on the field of formation, first of all at the university level, of lawyers, other than on the education and selection of judges who, caring about experience at least as much as logic, are able to manage in a sustainable form a legal phenomenon that appears ever more hardly interpretable according to canons of certainty and objectivity. Taking cues from the teaching of other sciences, a law capable to face sudden and dynamic solicitations coming from outside, it is a law characterised by an high cipher of resilience, capable to avoid frailness and weaknesses through the elaboration of specific forms of adjustment to reality that do not bring to a total loss of safeguarding potential.

43 On this, see, for instance, S. Baldin, Riflessioni sull’uso consapevole della logica fuzzy nelle classificazioni fra epistemologia del diritto comparato e interdisciplinarietà (Reflections on the conscious use of fuzzy logic in classifications between epistemology of comparative law and interdisciplinarity), in “Revista General de Derecho Publico Comparado”, 10, 2012, pp. 1-20. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Genetica e diritti costituzionali: prospettive e profili problematici

Carlo Casonato, Marta Tomasi1

Sommario: 1. Introduzione. − 2. Un biodiritto invadente. – 3. I rischi di uno spazio vuoto di dirit- to. – 4. Le caratteristiche dell’oggetto da regolare. – 5. Il diritto di fronte ad un oggetto cangiante e multiforme. – 6. Diritto, scienze della vita e scienze dell’umano. – 7. La forza dei casi concreti. – 8. Considerazioni critiche di sintesi: un bio-diritto penale sostenibile?

1. Introduzione Sono molteplici i temi e le problematiche che potrebbero essere trattati in riferimento al rapporto fra genetica e diritto e diritti costituzionali. In questa sede, intendiamo limitarci ad affrontare tre profili riconducibili: (i) alla tendenza ad avere un diritto pervasivo anche nelle materie legate alle scienze della vita; (ii) alla necessità di porre dei limiti ad una regolamentazione che comunque, per motivi anche solo di carattere spiccatamente costituzionale, è necessario esista; (iii) alla proposta di un diritto che si costruisca e si moduli sulla base delle caratteristiche specifiche delle scienze della vita. Su queste basi, concluderemo lo scritto con alcuni interrogativi che ci paiono investire in modo particolarmente critico il diritto penale.

2. Un biodiritto invadente È ormai opinione diffusa e condivisa, tanto all’interno della dottrina giuridica che della letteratura che si occupa degli altri saperi, quella secondo cui il diritto in generale, e in particolare nelle materie legate alla salute dell’uomo e alle scienze della vita, si sia spesso dimostra- to troppo invadente. Percepito come «un ossessivo e formalistico sistema di norme generali e astratte, incapaci di adattarsi alle molteplici e imprevedibili esigenze dei casi concreti», il fenomeno giuridico è giunto ad imporre «il rispetto di procedure spesso burocratiche e antiquate,

1 Nella comune concezione dello scritto, i paragrafi da 1 a 4 sono riconducibili a Carlo Casonato, quelli da 5 a 7 a Marta Tomasi; il paragrafo 8 è da attribuire ad entrambi. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

112 Genetica e diritti costituzionali e in definitiva irrilevanti per gli interessi del paziente»2. Spesso ridotto alla sola componente legislativa, il diritto è quindi stato inteso esclusivamente o prevalentemente come un ostacolo per la ricerca clinica e per la conduzione della stessa pratica medica. Su questa linea, Stefano Rodotà apre il suo libro su La vita e le regole con l’immagine di una «law-saturated society» interrogandosi sulla possibilità che il diritto invada i mondi vitali e si impadronisca della «nuda vita». «Questo vuol dire che nulla può essergli estraneo, e la società deve rassegnarsi ad essere chiusa nella gabbia d’acciaio di una onnipresente e pervasiva dimensione giuridica?»3. Già una decina d’anni prima, Roger B. Dworkin in un’opera significativamente intitolataLimits , proponeva una risposta a tali quesiti, ricordando come, particolarmente nell’ambito della biologia e della medicina, «[l]aw itself has limits that suggest deference and humility in considering whether and how to use it [...]. Sound public policy requires evaluation of each legal tool to ascertain which one(s) can deal best with which problems of biomedical advance and to understand the limits of the ability of each legal tool and the entire legal system to regulate biomedical developments»4. A fronte dei rischi generati da una inopportuna e in definitiva controproducente “ingerenza giuridica”, la dottrina è quindi unanime nel riconoscere la necessità di porre una serie di limiti alla regolazione. Quanto non è condiviso, peraltro, riguarda la natura, il contenuto, lo spessore e la consistenza delle limitazioni da porre.

3. I rischi di uno spazio vuoto di diritto L’alternativa rispetto ad una inopportuna invadenza non può consistere in un abbandono di campo da parte del diritto. Un misurato self-restraint teso a riconoscere un equilibrato spazio al binomio autonomia-responsabilità da parte dei professionisti coinvolti nelle scienze della vita non può condurre ad un ritrarsi incondizionato del diritto. Tale situazione mette- rebbe a rischio la garanzia dei diritti individuali ed il necessario contenimento del potere (di ogni potere), cedendo al dominio di una scienza che giungerebbe ad autoregolarsi in condizioni – potremmo dire – di sovranità. Seguendo i due autori da ultimo citati, così, «[to] suggest that the law has no role to play in the area of biomedical advance would be both stupid and unrealistic». Uno spazio vuoto di diritto, anche costituzionale, celerebbe «l’insidia di una volontà di potenza incontrollata»; volontà di cui alcuni casi recenti, anche al di fuori della tematica genetica, testimoniano l’esistenza. La vicenda che ha condotto il primo aprile 2013 la Corte Suprema indiana ad esprimersi sul caso Novartis AG v. Union of India and Others ha origine nel 2006 quando l’ufficio brevetti indiano nega alla multinazionale svizzera il brevetto per una variante (basata sulla forma beta- cristallina) di un farmaco già commercializzato dal 1993 (l’Imatinib Mesylate, prodotto con il nome Gleevec o Glivec)5. Il Patent Act indiano del 1970, emendato più volte anche a seguito dell’adozione degli accordi TRIPS, dispone che la brevettabilità di un prodotto sia condizio-

2 F. D’Agostino, Diritto, in “L’Arco di Giano. Rivista di Medical Humanities”, 1, 1993, p. 51. 3 S. Rodotà, La vita e le regole. Tra diritto e non diritto, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2006, p. 9. 4 R.B. Dworkin, Limits. The Role of the Law in Bioethical Decision Making, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1996, p. 2. 5 Una ricostruzione del caso e i link ai materiali originali nel sito www.biodiritto.org. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 113 nata, fra l’altro, alla sua novità e inventiva brevettuale. In particolare, si dovrà trattare di una «invention which has a feature that: (a) entails technical advance over existing knowledge; or (b) has an economic significance and (c) makes the invention not obvious to a person skilled in the art» (Chapter I, Section 2.1). La legge dispone, inoltre, una clausola specifica di assoluta rilevanza secondo cui si esclude dalla brevettabilità «the mere discovery of a new form of a known substance which does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of that substance» (Chapter II, Section 3d). Su queste basi, la Corte rileva come «in the patent application, there is no claim of superiority of the beta crystal form of Imatinib Mesylate in regard to the aforesaid three properties [(i) more beneficial flow properties; (ii) better thermodynamic stability; and (iii) lower hygroscopicity than the alpha crystal form of Imatinib Mesylate], or any other property, over the starting material Imatinib, or even over Imatinib Mesylate in amorphous form or any form other than the alpha crystal form» (p. 9). Nonostante le richieste di Novartis, e il fatto che la richiamata sezione 3d del secondo capitolo della legge fosse stata inserita successivamente alla richiesta di brevetto, la Corte rigetta la richiesta di estensione del brevetto. Per quanto più interessa in questa sede, tale caso dimostra come l’assenza di una norma di legge, al pari di una sua non implementazione, avrebbe fatto prevalere la tattica di Novartis tesa a estendere la durata di un brevetto oltre la sua iniziale scadenza attraverso l’adozione di minori modifiche del prodotto. Tale strategia commerciale, conosciuta comeevergreening , avrebbe impedito la commercializzazione del farmaco generico a prezzi molto più ridotti (se il prodotto Novartis costa 2.600 dollari al mese, il generico non supera i 180), impedendo di fatto a centinaia di migliaia di pazienti, non solo indiani, l’utilizzo di un presidio destinato al trattamento di alcuni tumori e di alcuni tipi di leucemie. Con questa decisione, in termini più generali, la Corte ha ricollegato le logiche brevettuali al principio, riconducibile alla stessa forma di Stato sociale, secondo cui «medicine and surgical and curative devices were to be made available to the public at the cheapest price commensurate with giving reasonable compensation to the patentee» (p. 33). Una seconda testimonianza della volontà di alcuni dei protagonisti della ricerca clinica di liberarsi da una cornice normativa a garanzia di principi giuridici ed etici fondamentali può desumersi dalla vicenda che ha visto l’istituto di ricerca italiano Mario Negri contrapporsi alla GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). All’interno di un progetto di ricerca sperimentale su alcuni antibio- tici innovativi condotto all’interno della cornice della Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) da un team composto da università e centri di ricerca pubblici e compagnie farmaceutiche private, GSK pretendeva un controllo totale tanto degli aspetti metodologici del protocollo, quanto dei profili legati alla trasparenza ed alla pubblicazione dei risultati. Nelle parole del direttore, Silvio Garattini, e dei ricercatori del Mario Negri come riportate in un articolo pubblicato a settembre 2013 sul British Medical Journal, «GSK wanted to retain the right to permit or refuse access to the patient outcome data and to give written approval for any independent publication of the data generated by the public-private partnership. That meant that we would have had to ask GSK’s permission to access the data from our own trial and that GSK reserved the right to block publication of our analysis of that data at any time after the File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

114 Genetica e diritti costituzionali study was completed»6. Nonostante la dichiarazione da parte della stessa GSK pubblicata sul New England Journal of Medicine dell’agosto 2013 relativa all’impegno di rendere pubblici i dati clinici7 e la policy dell’IMI in materia di proprietà intellettuale secondo cui «[ownership] of the foreground [results, including data, know how, and information] belongs in the first instance to the participant(s) who generated it», la GSK insisteva sulla sua linea tesa a riser- varsi il diritto di decidere «who would ever see the raw data and for what purpose. No one would have had the right to publish anything about the outcomes of the study without the company’s written consent». A fronte della violazione dei principi di trasparenza e di accessibilità dei risultati di ogni ricerca, l’Istituto Mario Negri dichiarava quindi la rinuncia a collaborare ad un progetto che − si badi − dispone di un finanziamento di 195 milioni di euro provenienti, in parte, dalla Commissione Europea: «[s]ecrecy on clinical data implies undue exploitation of the rights of physicians and patients involved in the studies. This is even more inappropriate when publicly funded or independent non-profit institutions are contributing to the development of a drug and patients are generously volunteering to participate. Secrecy definitely sounds paradoxical when EU funds support the clinical research, as with IMI projects». Un terzo caso a dimostrazione delle forti tentazioni di potere incontrollato da parte di alcune componenti non marginali del mondo della ricerca clinica e della produzione di me- dicinali a detrimento dei diritti delle persone vede coinvolta la Johnson & Johnson (J&J) e, ancora una volta, la Novartis. Secondo la ricostruzione della Commissione Europea, alla scadenza nel 2005 del brevet- to del Fentanyl (un analgesico molto più efficace della morfina, utilizzato prevalentemente per lenire i dolori dei pazienti affetti da cancro), la compagnia farmaceutica J&J, detentrice del brevetto, si accordava con Novartis per ritardare il più possibile l’introduzione nel mercato olandese, a prezzo notevolmente più basso, del farmaco generico. Tale “co-promotion agreement” prevedeva forti incentivi da parte di una consociata olandese di J&J, la Janssen-Cilag, a favore della Sandoz, controllata olandese di Novartis; incentivi che superavano i benefici che Sandoz avrebbe potuto realizzare vendendo in Olanda il generico. L’accordo terminò nel dicembre 2006, quando una terza compagnia farmaceutica si apprestava a introdurre in quel mercato il farmaco generico. Tale strategia attirò l’attenzione della Commissione Europea che nel dicembre 2013 rile- vò una condotta “pay-for-delay” in violazione delle regole a tutela della concorrenza: «Instead of competing, Janssen-Cilag and Sandoz agreed on cooperation so as “not to have a depot generic on the market and in that way to keep the high current price”. Janssen-Cilag did not consider any other existing potential partners for the so-called “co-promotion agreement” but just focused on its close competitor Sandoz. Sandoz engaged in very limited or no actual co- promotion activities». La violazione dell’art. 101 del Trattato sul funzionamento dell’Unione Europea condusse quindi la Commissione a comminare una multa di 10.798.000 euro per J&J ed una di 5.493.000 per Novartis8. Al di là degli aspetti tecnici della vicenda, quanto

6 S. Garattini, V. Bertelé, G. Bertolini, A failed attempt at collaboration, in “BMJ”, 2013; 347: f5354. 7 P. Nisen, F. Rockhold, Access to patient-level data from GlaxoSmithKline clinical trials, “N Engl J Med.”, 2013, Aug 1; 369(5): 475-8. 8 L’art. 101 del TFUE dispone: «Sono incompatibili con il mercato interno e vietati tutti gli accordi File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 115 colpisce, nell’ottica in questa sede privilegiata, consiste ancora una volta nella volontà di massimizzare il profitto eludendo elementari norme giuridiche e principi etici a garanzia di fondamentali diritti individuali e collettivi. Nelle parole del responsabile per la concorrenza e vice-presidente della Commissione Europea, Joaquín Alumnia, «J&J paid Novartis to delay the entry of a generic pain killer. The two companies shockingly deprived patients in the Netherlands, including people suffering from cancer, from access to a cheaper version of this medicine»9. I tre casi ricordati, emersi tutti nello stesso anno 2013 e qui riportati a titolo meramente esemplificativo, potrebbero essere affiancati da altre vicende emerse in tempi meno recenti ad esempio negli Stati Uniti: si pensi, in riferimento specifico al trattamento dei dati e delle informazioni genetiche fra gli altri, ai noti Moore v. Regents of the University of California, Greenberg v. Miami Children’s Hospital Research Institute, Inc., o a Washington University v. Catalona10. Tali vicende, in ogni caso, confermano la necessità dell’esistenza e della attenta applicazione di un quadro normativo che possa bilanciare in termini equilibrati i diversi interessi in gioco nel settore delle scienze della vita, evitando la sempre latente espansione della “regola del più forte”, che può concretizzarsi anche in altre forme di violenza fra cui, ad esempio, quelle in cui la ricerca clinica è condotta in paesi poveri in cui non esistono norme in materia di vigilanza di comitati etici e di rispetto dei diritti dei partecipanti; in cui i ricercatori vo- gliono passare all’applicazione diretta delle proprie attività sui malati senza il controllo della letteratura e degli organi preposti; fino alle situazioni in cui un singolo professionista vuole procedere a un trattamento sanitario contro la volontà del malato. Questi tutti sono problemi che vanno ricondotti al binomio potere-libertà che tradizionalmente chiama in causa e anima il diritto costituzionale e le sue logiche. Potrebbe al riguardo ricordarsi, mutatis mutandis, una delle sintesi più efficaci del costituzionalismo inteso come movimento di idee e di pratiche (che diventano regole precettive) dedicato allo scopo di limitare il potere e di garantire i diritti della persona. Ci riferiamo all’articolo 16 della Décla- ration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen del 1879 in cui si dichiara come «Toute Société dans laquelle la garantie des Droits n’est pas assurée, ni la séparation des Pouvoirs déterminée, n’a point de Constitution». Pensando al potenziale sia positivo che negativo delle scienze della vita, e della genetica in particolare, sorge quindi il problema di indicare le proprietà di un diritto “ben dimensionato” le cui caratteristiche ne impediscano l’ipertrofia, assicurandone la funzione garantista. In termini generali, si può evocare il ricorso alla ormai risalente qualifica di “diritto mite”,

tra imprese, tutte le decisioni di associazioni di imprese e tutte le pratiche concordate che possano pregiudicare il commercio tra Stati membri e che abbiano per oggetto o per effetto di impedire, restringere o falsare il gioco della concorrenza all’interno del mercato interno (…)». 9 Citiamo dal comunicato stampa della Commissione Europea del 10 dicembre 2013 (http://europa. eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-1233_en.htm). 10 Rispettivamente 51 Cal. 3d 120 (1990); 264 F. Supp. 2d 1064 (S.D. Fla. 2003); 490 F.3d 667 (8th Cir.(Mo.) 2007). In termini generali, si permetta il rinvio a C. Casonato, Derechos de la persona y lógicas de la investigación clínica, in “Teoría y Derecho. Revista de pensiamento jurídico”, 11/2012, p. 26 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

116 Genetica e diritti costituzionali recentemente rivisitata, proprio in riferimento ad alcune tematiche relative alle scienze della vita, in termini di “diritto gentile”11. In presenza di alternative e spesso opposte concezioni in merito al contenuto, alla natura, allo spessore che un tale “buon diritto” dovrebbe assumere, si intende qui di seguito proporre una ipotesi teorico-applicativa in grado di orientare la costruzione di un biodiritto che assuma le caratteristiche virtuose indicate grazie all’attenzione verso le specificità dell’oggetto da regolare.

4. Le caratteristiche dell’oggetto da regolare La genetica, come tutte le scienze della vita, e quelle finalizzate alla vita e alla salute degli esseri umani in particolare, insiste infatti su un oggetto peculiare che complica alcune delle dinamiche e delle categorie giuridiche usualmente utilizzate. (i) Occuparsi di genetica significa, in primo luogo, trattare un oggetto di cui incessantemente la scienza pone in luce profili nuovi, conoscenze originali e interrogativi prima inesplorati, rinnovate potenzialità e inediti rischi. Proprio le ininterrotte scoperte scientifiche e applicazioni tecnologiche ne fanno un oggetto multiforme e mutevole, il quale può risultare modificato già nel momento in cui viene disciplinato dal diritto. (ii) Ogni aspetto legato alla dimensione genetica, in secondo luogo, coinvolge tipicamente la concezione antropologica e la struttura morale più profonda di ognuno. E con essa, il significato stesso di concetti delicati e divisivi come quelli di riduzionismo o determinismo genetico, fino a mettere in discussione la sopravvivenza del libero arbitrio. Trovare un accordo sulla relativa disciplina, indicare diritti e doveri e fondare i rispettivi limiti è quindi attività che, soprattutto in determinati contesti inclini alla reciproca delegittimazio- ne più che ad un autentico dialogo, come quello italiano, consuma spesso invano tempo e risorse. (iii) I casi concreti che la realtà fa emergere, in terzo luogo, sono caratterizzati da pecu- liarità particolarmente complesse e cariche di conseguenze, legate a contesti anch’essi specifici e difficilmente generalizzabili, in cui anche un singolo dettaglio può costituire un elemento tale da giustificare un trattamento giuridico differenziato. Per tutte queste ragioni, le scienze della vita e la genetica in particolare invocano discipline che non possono essere massimaliste, ma devono combinare garanzia e flessibilità, tenden- do all’apertura nei confronti delle proprietà specifiche dell’oggetto da regolare. Tali necessità normative non vanno confuse con indecisione e debolezza ma impongono che la decisione normativa adottata sia il frutto di un attento bilanciamento di interessi spesso contrapposti, i quali raramente possono trovare accoglimento integrale e nella maggior parte dei casi devono essere fra loro accuratamente ponderati. Nei paragrafi che seguono, trarremo dal diritto comparato alcuni esempi di istituti o di discipline giuridiche che – ci sembra – possano riflettere le esigenze normative riconducibili alle caratteristiche dell’oggetto appena indicate.

11 Il primo riferimento è ovviamente all’opera di G. Zagrebelsky, Il diritto mite, Einaudi, 1992. La seconda indicazione si rivolge all’opera di Paolo Zatti, testimoniata dai materiali raccolti nel sito http:// undirittogentile.wordpress.com/. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 117

5. Il diritto di fronte ad un oggetto cangiante e multiforme Come si è anticipato (sub i), i continui progressi della tecnologia e della conoscenza scientifica fanno della genetica un oggetto di studio multiforme e sempre cangiante che mette alla prova il diritto, una sua tendenziale staticità e impermeabilità ad influenze esterne e richiede un’inusitata prontezza nell’elaborare soluzioni a nuove problematiche emergenti. Strettamente connesso a questo profilo di criticità, un ulteriore aspetto rilevante attiene il linguaggio tipico della genetica che pare esprimersi, nella maggior parte dei casi, in termini di probabilità piuttosto che di certezza, fornendo indicazioni, rilevanti ma non univoche e deterministiche, circa le possibilità, ad esempio, di contrarre una determinata malattia in un non definito momento nel futuro. Il compito che il diritto si trova ad affrontare è quello di calare la propria forza ordinatrice su una realtà composita e ambigua, senza trascurare il dato scientifico o esporsi al rischio di creare uno scollamento fra regola e fatti; senza irrigidirsi ma evitando di perdere di vista i livelli di certezza e verificabilità concretamente acquisiti. La complessità dell’individuazione di tale punto di equilibrio emerge da una analisi comparata che evidenzia come gli ordinamenti abbiano affrontato le sfide della genetica umana facendo ricorso a una pluralità di strumenti, di natura vincolante e non, e a una molteplicità di approcci che in parte accolgono e in parte rigettano la natura eccezionale dei dati genetici rispetto alle altre informazioni sanitarie12. All’interno di questo panorama frammentato, un tratto unificante pare, però, potersi riscontrare nella rilevanza attribuita allo strumento della consulenza genetica, considerata come meccanismo procedurale indispensabile per gestire la complessità del fenomeno e garantire una tutela dei diritti a fronte delle caratteristiche specifiche dell’informazione genetica e della sua conoscibilità. L’interesse della comunità scientifica internazionale nei confronti della consulenza genetica è ormai ben consolidato13 e la sua imprescindibilità è riconosciuta in documenti internazionali, sovranazionali e nazionali. Per citare alcuni esempi, essa è richiesta come condizione di legittimità dei test genetici dall’art. 12 della cd. Convenzione di Oviedo14 e dall’art. 8 del

12 Al di là delle critiche che si possono rivolgere a un approccio eccezionalista che individua nelle informazioni genetiche un unicum fra le informazioni sanitarie – critiche incentratesi sul fatto che tale impostazione proporrebbe un modello antropologico “geneticentrico”, che semplifica meccanismi estremamente complessi e lontani dal potersi dire compresi a pieno e che, per altro verso, attribuisce eccessiva rilevanza a componenti che contribuiscono alla caratterizzazione biologica dell’essere umano, in maniera però non deterministica e non esclusiva – è rilevante notare come molti ordinamenti abbiano scelto di dedicare alle informazioni genetiche specifiche previsioni normative. Per citare alcuni esempi si pensi all’Autorizzazione generale al trattamento dei dati genetici adottata dall’Autorità garante per la privacy (la cui più recente versione, come noto, risale a dicembre 2012), alla Gendiagnostikgesetz (GenDG) tedesca (Gesetz über genetische Untersuchungen bei Menschen, del 31 luglio 2009), alla Gentechnikgesetz (GTG) austriaca (BGBl 510/1994, modificata da ultimo con BGBl. I Nr. 13/2006), alla Legge federale sugli esami genetici sull’essere umano della Svizzera (8 ottobre 2004) o alle previsioni specifiche contenute nelCode de la santé publique francese (recentemente, disposizioni ad hoc sono state introdotte con Loi n. 2011-814 del 7 luglio 2011). 13 F.C. Fraser, Genetic Consulting, in “American Journal of Human Genetics”, 26, (1974), pp. 639- 659. 14 Convenzione sui Diritti dell’Uomo e la Biomedicina, adottata in seno al Consiglio d’Europa e aperta File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

118 Genetica e diritti costituzionali relativo Protocollo addizionale sui test genetici del 200815, dall’art.11 della International De- claration on Human Genetic Data dell’UNESCO16 e dalla Raccomandazione numero 9 delle 25 Raccomandazioni sui test genetici predisposte dalla Commissione Europea17. La consulenza genetica deve dunque rappresentare un punto di raccordo fra le potenzia- lità della tecnologia e la cura e protezione del paziente18, un medium tra il test e la persona che vi si sottopone; questo ruolo di collegamento deve essere interpretato con ancor maggior forza nell’odierno contesto del consumismo genetico19, caratterizzato da una diffusione sempre più ampia dei test, anche sul mercato virtuale, e da un conseguente arretramento dei controlli e delle garanzie20. In Italia, l’importanza della consulenza, che dovrebbe fornire «gli strumenti per la comprensione della malattia genetica», era già stata evidenziata dal Comitato Nazionale di Bioetica negli Orientamenti Bioetici per i Test Genetici21 e, più di recente, dall’Accordo Stato-Regioni del 15 luglio 2004 recante Linee guida per le attività di genetica medica22. In particolare, il testo dell’accordo riconosce alla consulenza genetica, qualificata come «parte integrante di un test genetico», il valore di un complesso processo di comunicazione e prevede una eventuale partecipazione di figure professionali diverse dal medico o dal genetista. La rilevanza della fase della consulenza è resa evidente anche dal fatto che il consenso informato al test sia qualificato come esito di un processo di comunicazione che deve «concludere un dialogo», affermandosi così una concezione della consulenza intesa più come atto comunicativo complesso che come atto propriamente medico23. alla ratifica il 4 aprile 1997 a Oviedo. 15 Strasburgo, 27 novembre 2008. 16 Adottata all’unanimità nel corso della 32esima Conferenza Generale dell’UNESCO il 16 ottobre 2003. 17 Commissione Europea (Direzione Generale della Ricerca Unità Informazione e Comunicazione), Venticinque raccomandazioni concernenti le implicazioni etiche, giuridiche e sociali dei test genetici, 2004. 18 Così l’International Bioethics Committee dell’UNESCO nel Report on genetic counselling (Parigi, 15 dicembre 1995): «Genetic counselling provides the link between genetic technologies, several of which have been acquired through the Human Genome Project, and patient care». 19 S. Amato, Biogiurisprudenza. Dal mercato genetico al self-service normativo, Torino, 2006 e L. Battaglia, La genetizzazione della medicina, in C. Modonesi, G. Tamino (a cura di), Fast science. La mercificazione della conoscenza scientifica e della comunicazione, Milano, 2008, pp. 203-220. 20 Simili preoccupazioni stanno alla base di cautele come quella introdotta in Italia dal Garante per la protezione dei dati personali che, considerata la «necessità di assicurare una consulenza genetica appropriata», ha escluso che si possano offrire servizi di refertazione on-line nel caso di sottoposizione a indagini genetiche [Linee guida in tema di referti on-line del 19 novembre 2009 (G.U. n. 288 dell’11 dicembre 2009)]. 21 Comitato Nazionale di Bioetica, Orientamenti bioetici per i test genetici. Sintesi e raccomandazioni (19 novembre 1999). Al punto 4 del documento si chiarisce che «[a]ll’interno di un servizio di consulenza genetica adeguato, si dovrebbero fornire ai potenziali fruitori gli strumenti per la comprensione della malattia genetica: ad esempio, che cosa s’intende per malattia monofattoriale o multifattoriale; quale il significato dei possibili risultati del test; e ancora, l’eventualità di risultati falsi negativi o falsi positivi, il significato dell’approccio probabilistico alla diagnosi, i concetti di predisposizione alla malattia e di fattore di rischio». 22 Elaborato ai sensi dell’art. 4 D. Lgs. del 28 agosto 1997, n. 281 tra il Ministero della Salute, le Regioni e le province autonome di Trento e Bolzano. 23 Sul punto si vedano L. Palazzani (a cura di), Gen-jus: la consulenza tra genetica e diritto, Roma, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 119

Questa impostazione è stata almeno in parte riaffermata dal Garante per la protezione dei dati personali che definisce la consulenza come un insieme di «attività di comunicazione volte ad aiutare l’individuo o la famiglia colpita da patologia genetica a comprendere le informazioni mediche che includono la diagnosi e il probabile decorso della malattia, le forme di assistenza disponibili, il contributo dell’ereditarietà al verificarsi della malattia, il rischio di ricorrenza esistente per sé e per altri familiari e l’opportunità di portarne a conoscenza questi ultimi, nonché tutte le opzioni esistenti nell’affrontare il rischio di malattia e l’impatto che tale rischio può avere su scelte procreative; nell’esecuzione di test genetici tale consulenza comprende inoltre informazioni sul significato, i limiti, l’attendibilità e la specificità del test nonché le implicazioni dei risultati»24. Ulteriori indicazioni, contenute nel punto 5 dell’Auto- rizzazione, dedicato all’Informativa, prevedono che la consulenza debba essere fornita prima e dopo lo svolgimento dell’analisi. Al di là della formulazione adottata a livello nazionale, per quanto in questa sede più interessa, sono i requisiti individuati a livello internazionale dall’UNESCO – che richiede che la consulenza si configuri come non-direttiva e culturalmente adeguata e che impone che essa rappresenti il miglior interesse della persona coinvolta25 – a mettere in evidenza il ruolo che tale strumento riveste nel realizzare la garanzia dei diritti dell’individuo mediante una attenta considerazione delle specificità del caso concreto, della realtà fattuale e delle caratteristiche individuali del singolo che è messo in relazione con la conoscenza di tipo genetico. Nella stessa direzione il citato art. 8 del Protocollo addizionale alla Convenzione di Oviedo sui test genetici che chiarisce che la forma e la portata della consulenza debbano essere stabilite in base alle implicazioni dei risultati del test e al significato di cui essi possono essere portatori per la persona o per i membri della sua famiglia26. Una lettura della consulenza genetica come strumento di raccordo che sia in grado di allineare le potenzialità messe a disposizione dall’evoluzione scientifica e l’effettiva tutela dei diritti permetterebbe anche di risolvere un profilo di incertezza che pare emergere da una prima lettura del testo dell’Autorizzazione italiana. L’importanza della consulenza genetica, che come si è visto è messa in luce dal punto 5, sembra essere parzialmente ritrattata dalla lettera del punto 9 a norma del quale «[g]li esiti di test e di screening genetici […] devono essere comunicati al medesimo interessato anche nel rispetto della sua dichiarazione di volontà di conoscere o meno tali eventi e, ove necessario, con un’appropriata consulenza genetica». Tale temperamento potrebbe comunque essere letto in chiave positiva se si rintraccia in esso l’intenzione di escludere l’esigenza di una consulenza

Studium, 2011; L. Palazzani, L. Nepi (a cura di), Gen-ius. Consulenza genetica e normative europee, Roma, Studium, 2012; P. Sommaggio, La consulenza genetica: un ponte tra auto poiesi ed auto trascendimento, in “Tigor: rivista di scienze della comunicazione”, A. II, 2010, n. 2 (luglio-dicembre). 24 La definizione è fra quelle elencate al Punto 1 dell’Autorizzazione generale al trattamento dei dati genetici n. 8/2013 (lettera h). 25 UNESCO, International Declaration on Human Genetic Data, cit., articolo 11, a norma del quale «[g]enetic counselling should be non-directive, culturally adapted and consistent with the best interest of the person concerned». 26 Così l’art. 8 rubricato Information and genetic counseling, secondo il quale «[t]he form and extent of this genetic counselling shall be defined according to the implications of the results of the test and their significance for the person or the members of his or her family, including possible implications concerning procreation choices». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

120 Genetica e diritti costituzionali in tutti i casi in cui il risultato da comunicare al paziente corrisponda alle informazioni che si possono ottenere mediante esami medici di altra natura. Questa lettura permetterebbe di rifiutare un approccio eccezionalista e di fare un uso della consulenza genetica accorto ed effettivamente funzionale alla tutela dei diritti. La consulenza genetica, dunque, seppur diversamente configurata nei diversi strumenti normativi citati, se correttamente interpretata, pare qualificarsi come strumento utile a garantire una piena tutela del diritto all’autodeterminazione individuale e di una scelta concretamente libera e informata. Inoltre, essa consente che l’agire individuale si collochi in una prospettiva fondata su di una corretta considerazione del livello di sviluppo della scienza e della tecnica e del grado di certezza che esse possono garantire. In questo modo, la consulenza genetica è manifestazione di un diritto attento alla considerazione delle caratteristiche proprie della persona, delle sue capacità di comprensione, del contesto sociale e culturale all’interno del quale la sua personalità si svolge e del sostrato etico-morale che ne orienta le scelte.

6. Diritto, scienze della vita e scienze dell’umano Il secondo ordine di considerazioni deriva, come si è visto (sub ii), dal fatto che molti profili della genetica umana tipicamente coinvolgono la concezione morale più profonda di ognuno e, con essa, il significato di concetti anche antropologicamente delicati e divisivi come, per portare alcuni esempi, quelli di salute e di malattia, di natura e di artificio, di autonomia e di etero determinazione, sino ad incidere sui confini fra cura e potenziamento. In particolare, le tecniche di più recente sviluppo, non ancora portate a definitivo con- solidamento, che vanno dall’isolamento di singoli geni alla diagnosi genetica preimpianto, dalla possibilità di intervenire sulla sequenza di acidi nucleici che compongono il DNA e di modificarla, producendo effetti sulle caratteristiche fenotipiche, alla biologia sintetica, sembrano in grado di toccare il cuore dei meccanismi vitali della specie umana e, di conseguenza, i caratteri ontologicamente determinanti l’essere umano. A fronte di questi sviluppi pare potersi ravvisare, all’interno del fenomeno giuridico glo- balmente inteso, una tendenziale consonanza di opinioni volte a stigmatizzare potenziali impieghi abusivi e distorti dei progressi scientifici; tale tendenza, almeno in parte storicamente determinata, è confluita nell’enunciazione di principi in diversi documenti che approntano idonee garanzie volte alla tutela dei diritti, ad evitare discriminazioni, atteggiamenti riduzionisti e derive eugenetiche. Esemplificativo e particolarmente esplicito in questo senso è l’art. 3, co. 2 della Carta dei diritti fondamentali dell’Unione europea27, che impone il «divieto delle pratiche eugenetiche, in particolare di quelle aventi come scopo la selezione delle persone». Il rapporto esplicativo della Carta chiarisce che questa statuizione è volta a prevenire «possible situations in which selection programmes are organised and implemented, involving campaigns for sterilisation, forced pregnancy, compulsory ethnic marriage among others, all acts deemed to be international crimes in the Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted in Rome on 17 July 1998».

27 Come noto divenuta vincolante il 1 dicembre 2009. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 121

Se si spinge lo sguardo poco oltre le affermazioni di principio, tuttavia, la molteplicità di condotte rilevanti in questo ambito è oggetto di impostazioni teoriche e regolamentazioni pratiche anche diametralmente opposte. In particolare, prendendo le mosse da quelle che sono le acquisizioni scientifiche al momento attuale concretamente disponibili, le problematiche relative alle pratiche eugenetiche latamente intese28 emergono allorquando si prendano in considerazione le tecniche diagnostiche e le conseguenti possibilità selettive. In questo caso le dichiarazioni di principio sembrano cedere a fronte della complessità del reale e della sua capacità di incidere sulla tutela dei diritti dei singoli. È noto, infatti, come alcuni ordinamenti abbiano adottato norme che esplicitamente introducono la possibilità di una selezione di embrioni sulla base di determinate caratteristiche genetiche. Così, tanto nell’ordinamento spagnolo, quanto in quello britannico, ad esempio, sono state introdotte regole che ammettono, a fronte di specifiche circostanze qualificate in maniera piuttosto dettagliata, la possibilità di selezionare un embrione che risulti geneticamente compatibile con un fratello malato. Il Parlamento del Regno Unito, nel 2008, ha ammesso la legittimità di tecniche di analisi volte a uno screening degli embrioni prodotti con le tecniche di fecondazione in vitro e alla conseguente selezione di quelli geneticamente compatibili con un fratello malato (“preimplantation tissue typing” – PTT). Il ricorso a tali pratiche, tuttavia, è stato subordinato ad una specifica autorizzazione da parte di un comitato dellaHuman Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA)29 che ha il compito di valutare la sussistenza di determinati presupposti e specifici fattori quali la probabilità di successo del trattamento, la disponibilità di trattamenti alternativi e la possibilità di reperire cellule e tessuti da altri familiari o donatori terzi30.

28 Il termine “eugenetica” è qui richiamato in generale in riferimento a pratiche di selezione sulla base di caratteristiche genetiche. Secondo alcuni autori, peraltro, si potrebbe parlare in termini propri di eugenetica unicamente a fronte di politiche pubbliche coattive volte a orientare i comportamenti individuali (cfr. A. Santosuosso, Diritto, scienza e nuove tecnologie, Padova, CEDAM, 2011, pp. 189- 190). 29 Tale ruolo è previsto nella nuova versione dello Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (HFE) del 1990. Fra le attività che possono essere autorizzate (Schedule 2) rientrano infatti i test sugli embrioni «in a case where a person (“the sibling”) who is the child of the persons whose gametes are used to bring about the creation of the embryo (or of either of those persons) suffers from a serious medical condition which could be treated by umbilical cord blood stem cells, bone marrow or other tissue of any resulting child, establishing whether the tissue of any resulting child would be compatible with that of the sibling» (1ZA, 1, lett. d). 30 Indicazioni molto dettagliate sono fornite nel Code of practice della HFEA che individua una lunghissima lista di requisiti cui il centro competente all’emissione dell’autorizzazione deve attenersi. Così, «10.22 When deciding whether to use preimplantation tissue typing, the centre should consider the circumstances of each case individually, rather than the fact that the procedure is sought to provide tissue to treat a particular condition. 10.23 When deciding on the appropriateness of preimplantation tissue typing in a particular situation, the centre should consider the condition of the affected child, including: a) the degree of suffering associated with their condition; b) the speed of degeneration in progressive disorders; c) the extent of any intellectual impairment; d) their prognosis, considering all treatment options available; e) the availability of alternative sources of tissue for treating them, now and in the future, and; f) the availability of effective therapy for them, now and in the future. 10.24 The centre should also consider the possible consequences for any child who may be born as a result, including: a) any possible risks associated with embryo biopsy; b) the likely long-term emotional and psychological implications; c) whether they are likely to require intrusive surgery as a result of the File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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A conferma dell’essenziale rilevanza da attribuirsi in questi casi alle caratteristiche specifiche delle singole situazioni, si consideri che, a partire dal 2009, per le tecniche di diagnosi genetica preimpianto generalmente intese la HFEA ha scelto di fare ricorso ad un approccio condition-by-condition, individuando una lista di patologie per le quali il ricorso a tali tecniche è generalmente autorizzato; diversamente, l’autorizzazione all’applicazione delle tecniche di PTT rimane legata alla valutazione delle specificità del caso concreto. Sulla stessa linea si colloca la legge spagnola31 che riconosce la rilevanza della diagnosi genetica preimpianto come strumento utile alla «prevención de enfermedades genéticas que en la actualidad carecen de tratamiento», anche mediante la «posibilidad de seleccionar preembriones para que, en determinados casos y bajo el debido control y autorización administrativos, puedan servir de ayuda para salvar la vida del familiar enfermo»32. A tale scopo la legge prevede la possibilità di svolgere una diagnosi genetica preimpianto al fine di una valutazione di istocompatibilità con un soggetto terzo malato, subordinandola però ad un’autorizzazione da parte dell’autorità sanitaria competente e a un parere favorevole della Comisión Nacional de Reproducción Humana Asistida, che dovrà valutare le caratteristiche cliniche, terapeutiche e sociali, caso per caso33. Similmente la differenza fra eugenetica negativa, guardata da alcuni con atteggiamento di favore perché volta a ridurre o eliminare determinate caratteristiche genetiche considerate svantaggiose o patologiche, e la più discussa eugenetica positiva, volta alla promozione e al rafforzamento di tratti considerati vantaggiosi, sfuma a fronte dell’eterogeneità e della complessità della categoria delle informazioni genetiche. La selezione basata sul sesso, per esempio, considerata come non accettabile in via generale e di principio34, trova invece applicazione in alcuni ordinamenti se connessa a specifiche ragioni mediche. Il più palese esempio treatment of the affected child (and whether this is likely to be repeated), and d) any complications or predispositions associated with the tissue type to be selected. 10.25 The centre should also consider the family circumstances of the people seeking treatment, including: a) their previous reproductive experience; b) their views and the affected child’s views of the condition; c) the likelihood of a successful outcome, taking into account: i) their reproductive circumstances (ie, the number of embryos likely to be available for testing in each treatment cycle, the number likely to be suitable for transfer, whether carrier embryos may be transferred, and the likely number of cycles); ii) the likely outcome of treatment for the affected child;d) the consequences of an unsuccessful outcome; e) the demands of IVF/preimplantation testing treatment on them while caring for an affected child, and; f) the extent of social support available». 31 Ley n. 14 del 26 maggio 2006, Sobre técnicas de reproducción humana asistida, pubblicato in “Boletín Oficial del Estado”, 126 del 27 maggio 2006. 32 Tale possibilità rientra fra le ragioni che hanno determinato l’adozione della normativa in esame (Ley 14/2006, Exposición de motivos, II). 33 Così l’art. 12 della legge, dopo aver elencato le applicazioni legittime della diagnosi genetica preimpianto prevede che «[l]a aplicación de técnicas de diagnóstico preimplantacional para cualquiera otra finalidad no comprendida en el apartado anterior, o cuando se pretendan practicar en combinación con la determinación de los antígenos de histocompatibilidad de los preembriones in vitro con fines terapéuticos para terceros, requerirá de la autorización expresa, caso a caso, de la autoridad sanitaria correspondiente, previo informe favorable de la Comisión Nacional de Reproducción Humana Asistida, que deberá evaluar las características clínicas, terapéuticas y sociales de cada caso». 34 Non mancano, anche su questo punto, voci che si oppongono, almeno nel Regno Unito, all’imposizione di divieti di selezione sulla base del sesso. Cfr. S. Wilkinson, E. Garrard, Eugenics and the Ethics of Selective Reproduction, Keele University, 2013. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 123 di regolamentazione che prende in considerazione tale ipotesi è contenuta, anche in questo caso, nello Human Fertility and Embryology Act britannico, che legittima la possibilità di autorizzare lo svolgimento di test sugli embrioni, volto a stabilirne il sesso, nei casi in cui vi sia un rischio qualificato che il bambino possa avere o sviluppare «(i) a gender-related serious physical or mental disability, (ii) a gender-related serious illness, or (iii) any other gender- related35 serious medical condition»36. Simili previsioni, tuttavia, richiedono una applicazione rigorosamente fondata su una valutazione che tenga in considerazione gli aspetti problematici dei dati genetici sui quali ci si è già soffermati e, in particolare, sulla loro natura scarsamente predittiva. Particolarmente problematiche, sotto questo punto di vista, paiono notizie come quella recentemente riportata dalla stampa, secondo la quale le autorità sanitarie dell’Australia occidentale avrebbero autorizzato una famiglia con una predisposizione genetica per lo sviluppo di forme di autismo a selezionare un embrione sulla base del sesso poiché, secondo alcuni studi, i maschi sarebbero quattro volte più propensi a sviluppare la malattia rispetto alle femmine37. Ancora, con riferimento alle possibilità che potranno emergere in futuro dalla terapia genica, un primo profilo che richiede chiarimento riguarda la differenza fra terapia genica im- piegata nella linea somatica e quella che, diversamente, sarebbe in grado di incidere sulla linea germinale. La differenza fra le due tipologie di intervento risiede nel fatto che, nel primo caso, la modificazione produrrebbe effetti unicamente per l’individuo sottoposto a terapia mentre, nel secondo, le correzioni introdotte produrrebbero conseguenze anche per una eventuale discendenza, andando esse a incidere anche su cellule germinali (spermatozoi e ovociti) o cellule staminali totipotenti (ai primissimi stadi di sviluppo embrionale) 38. Le due diverse opzioni sono state guardate con atteggiamento differente tanto dal punto di vista bioetico, quanto da quello giuridico. In particolare, le terapie sulla linea somatica sono tendenzialmente accettate, equiparate in qualche misura a terapie sperimentali sostitu- tive come i trapianti di organi, e sollevano problematiche specifiche principalmente connesse alla sicurezza ed efficacia delle tecniche impiegate39.

35 Il paragrafo 3 chiarisce cosa si intenda per “gender related”: «[f]or the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) (c), a physical or mental disability, illness or other medical condition is gender-related if the Authority is satisfied that: (a)it affects only one sex, or (b)it affects one sex significantly more than the other». 36 Human Fertility Embriology Act (HFE) 1990, Schedule 2, 1ZA, 1, lett. c). 37 La notizia, comparsa su “The West Australian” Baby( sex checks for autism, 19 ottobre 2013, reperibile in http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/), è stata riportata da “Forbes” (Embryo sex selection to select against autism?, 21 ottobre 2013, reperibile in http://www.forbes.com) e da “BioNews” (IVF sex selection allowed in Western Australia to reduce autism risk, 28 ottobre 2013, http://www.bionews.org. uk/page_357600.asp). 38 Sul punto si veda, in generale, J. Habermas, Il futuro della natura umana. I rischi di una genetica liberale, Einaudi, 2002. In termini specifici e parzialmente critici, C. Casonato, Diritto, diritti ed eugenetica. Prime considerazioni su un discorso giuridico altamente problematico, in “Humanitas”, n. 4, 2004. 39 Come sostenuto sin dal 1991 dal Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica, «la terapia genica di cellule della linea somatica, in presenza di adatte condizioni e dopo aver ottemperato a rigidi requisiti di natura non solo tecnico-scientifica, ma anche di ordine giuridico ed etico, è completamente accettabile da tutti i punti di vista, essendo assimilabile ad una terapia sostitutiva o ad un trapianto non a livello di organo, di tessuto o di cellule ma a livello molecolare». Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica, Terapia Genica, 15 febbraio 1991 (http://www.palazzochigi.it/bioetica/pdf/1.pdf). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

124 Genetica e diritti costituzionali

Completamente differente l’atteggiamento adottato in riferimento alla terapia genica germinale che, fondandosi su una logica di non consensualità, potrebbe essere letta come una violazione dei principi di autodeterminazione e dignità umana ed è conseguentemente stata destinataria di previsioni contenenti giudizi esplicitamente negativi. Così, per esempio, la Costituzione della Confederazione Svizzera che, nell’intento di tutelare l’essere umano «dagli abusi della medicina riproduttiva e dell’ingegneria genetica», vieta «tutti [...] gli interventi nel patrimonio genetico di cellule germinali e embrioni umani» (art. 119). Similmente la già citata Convenzione di Oviedo prevede un espresso divieto di intervenire sul genoma umano allorché si introduca una «qualsiasi modifica sul genoma dei discendenti» (art. 13). Tutti gli esempi riportati, seppure di natura eterogenea, convergono nel far emergere lo spessore morale e antropologico delle decisioni da adottare e nel mettere in evidenza come il generale e monolitico rifiuto di tendenze eugenetiche e deterministe, accolto in via di principio, si vada frantumando quando messo a confronto con la necessità di elaborare regole operative inevitabilmente condizionate dalla concretezza dei casi e come le regole giuridiche paiano ancora una volta piegare le proprie pretese di generalità a fronte della complessità del reale.

7. La forza dei casi concreti Un ultimo profilo (sub iii) che qualifica la genetica umana distinguendola, almeno in parte, dalle altre branche delle scienze della vita e che condiziona l’approccio giuridico a questa realtà è legato alla multiformità della categoria dei dati genetici e dunque alla variabilità della rilevanza dell’informazione che l’individuo può ottenere mediante un test genetico; si tratta di una categoria caratterizzata da un elevato grado di eterogeneità in ragione non solo del differente valore conoscitivo di ogni porzione di DNA e della pluralità di soggetti che ad esso possono essere interessati, ma anche della variabilità della portata informativa di ogni singolo al variare delle finalità che mediante l’utilizzo di esso si intendano perseguire40. Di questa frammentarietà il diritto pare doversi fare carico per garantire, in ogni situazione in cui emerga un profilo di rilevanza delle informazioni genetiche, la tutela della pluralità di interessi coinvolti. In ambito medico sanitario, per esempio, si è fatta pressante, in molti casi, l’esigenza di tenere in piena considerazione gli interessi di soggetti terzi, appartenenti al medesimo gruppo biologico del soggetto sottopostosi a test. La rilevanza intrafamiliare e intersoggettiva dei dati genetici è stata così riconosciuta da talune legislazioni, per mezzo di una valorizzazione della dimensione procedurale che risulta funzionale ad un adattamento della regola alle caratteristiche del caso concreto. In questo senso, il legislatore francese ha scelto di dare conto nel ragionamento giuridico della valenza informativa di cui l’informazione genetica può essere portatrice anche nei confronti di un familiare del soggetto che si è sottoposto al test, introducendo, con l’art. 1131-1-2 del Code de la santé publique, alcune regole volte a concretizzare un obbligo, pro-

40 Come è stato efficacemente sostenuto: «genetic, genomic and proteomic sequencing provide genetic information, but not necessarily knowledge», M.L.Y. Chan, Beyond determinism and reductionism: genetic science and the person, Adelaide, 2003, p. 126. In termini generali, per l’Italia, si veda P. Veronesi, Il corpo e la Costituzione. Concretezza dei «casi» e astrattezza della norma, Giuffrè, 2007. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

C. Casonato, M. Tomasi 125 ceduralmente qualificato, di comunicazione ai familiari. Secondo la norma, il medico, prima di sottoporre un soggetto a un test genetico, è tenuto a informarlo del fatto che da un suo eventuale silenzio potrebbero derivare seri rischi per la salute dei membri della sua famiglia, qualora venisse diagnosticata una malattia genetica grave, le cui conseguenze potrebbero essere oggetto di misure di prevenzione (compresa la consulenza genetica) o di cura. A seguito del momento informativo, il medico individua insieme alla persona, in un documento scritto, le modalità di informazione dei membri della famiglia. Sulla base di tale documento, la persona «est tenue» a trasmettere le informazioni rilevanti ai membri della sua famiglia (dei quali sia possibile ottenere «les coordonnèes») qualora «des mesures de prévention ou de soins» possano essere loro proposte41. Se però la persona non volesse comunicare direttamente con i familiari è previsto che sia il medico a portare alla loro conoscenza l’esistenza di un’informazione medica di carattere familiare che potrebbe riguardarli e ad invitarli a sottoporsi a una consulenza genetica, senza peraltro rivelare né il nome del soggetto-fonte, né l’anomalia genetica evidenziata e neppure i rischi ad essa associati. Una soluzione normativa articolata che tende a contemperare, per mezzo di una considerazione della natura condivisa e meramente predittiva dei dati genetici, il diritto alla riservatezza da un lato e legittime pretese di salute o prevenzione dall’altro. Anche in ambiti diversi, come quello lavorativo, regole eccessivamente astratte o sorde alle specificità dei casi sui quali si calano mostrano la propria inadeguatezza. Nel contesto citato, l’imposizione di rigorosi divieti di accesso ai dati per i datori di lavoro potrebbe provarsi inappropriata nel caso in cui, per esempio, le mansioni da svolgere risultino incompatibili con un determinato profilo genetico o nei casi in cui una mansione o un determinato ambiente lavorativo possano nuocere a un impiegato con determinate caratteristiche genetiche (sempre tenuto conto del carattere probabilistico delle risposte che si possono ottenere). La scelta dell’ordinamento italiano, incardinata all’interno di una disciplina orientata alla tutela della privacy, esclude la possibilità per i datori di lavoro di impiegare dati genetici per «determinare l’attitudine professionale di lavoratori o di candidati all’instaurazione di un rapporto di lavoro». Alla luce di quanto sin qui sostenuto in riferimento a un diritto “ben dimensionato”, una soluzione basata su un approccio antidiscriminatorio potrebbe apparire più funzionale, laddove si ammettesse la possibilità di valutare, sulla base del singolo caso, la possibilità di realizzare, anche con il consenso del lavoratore, una “distinzione ragionevole” finalizzata alla tutela collettiva o del lavoratore stesso. Un simile approccio consentirebbe al contempo di valorizzare le potenzialità emergenti dalle nuove acquisizioni scientifiche, asser- vendole alla tutela dei diritti, e di garantire un elevato grado di flessibilità, pur nei limiti di una sostenibilità rigorosamente fondata su un criterio di ragionevolezza.

8. Considerazioni critiche di sintesi: un bio-diritto penale sostenibile? I profili qui trattati a mero titolo esemplificativo dimostrano la possibilità di concepire, adottare e implementare un diritto che tratti la materia genetica rispettandone le caratteristi-

41 L’unica eccezione è prevista per il caso in cui la persona abbia manifestato per iscritto la volontà di non ottenere una diagnosi; in questa ipotesi sarà comunque possibile per il medico contattare i terzi interessati. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

126 Genetica e diritti costituzionali che proprie. Gli elementi riconducibili al suo continuo progredire, così come quelli dovuti alla difficoltà nel disciplinare una materia che chiama in causa le dimensioni più profonde del nostro essere e concepirci umani e che invoca una specifica attenzione alla concretezza dei singoli casi, paiono condurre peraltro verso un diritto dotato di caratteristiche particolarmente problematiche. Per quanto detto, ad esempio, il carattere “generale e astratto” dello strumento legislativo (necessario peraltro nelle materie coperte da riserva) pare doversi attenuare di fronte all’esigenza di considerare le fattispecie con un approccio caso per caso. E se talvolta è un dettaglio a fare la differenza nel trattamento di un evento, come assicurare il necessario margine di certezza dell’inquadramento giuridico senza concepire leggi che si dilatino a dismisura o si frantumino nel tentativo di anticipare ogni possibile variante, presente e futura? Come poter garantire l’opportuna flessibilità nel considerare le diverse condotte personali senza venire meno alla tendenziale prevedibilità delle relative conseguenze? Come, in definitiva, combinare equità e giustizia con margini interpretativo-applicativi che potrebbero giungere ad essere arbitrari? Evidentemente, tali interrogativi emergono con particolare forza proprio sul versante del diritto penale, in cui il principio costituzionale di legalità impone, ex art. 25, il divieto di analogia e i corrispettivi principi di irretroattività, determinatezza e tassatività; principi che paiono tutti mal conciliarsi con le esigenze normative emergenti dalle caratteristiche della genetica. Evitando il rischio di una rivisitazione giuridico-penale del genetic exceptionalism, difficilmente compatibile con il sistema normativo nel suo complesso, pare doversi confermare l’esigenza di riflettere sulle caratteristiche di un diritto, anche penale, chiamato sempre più spesso ad abbandonare taluni elementi di presunta oggettività e precisione (e con esse di eguaglianza solo apparente o di falsa-certezza) e ad affrontare logiche di natura sempre più fuzzy42; senza trascurare la necessità di confrontarsi, anche con le famiglie di common law, sulla formazione, in primo luogo universitaria, del giurista, oltre che sulla preparazione e sulla selezione di giudici che, attenti all’experience almeno quanto alla logic, sappiano gestire in forma sostenibile un fenomeno giuridico che appare sempre più difficilmente interpretabile secondo canoni di certezza e oggettività. Prendendo spunto dagli insegnamenti di altre scienze, un diritto capace di far fronte alle improvvise e dinamiche sollecitazioni provenienti dall’esterno è un diritto caratterizzato da un elevata cifra di resilienza, in grado di evitare fragilità e debolezze attraverso l’elaborazione di forme specifiche di adattamento al reale che non conducano ad una perdita di potenziale garantista.

42 Su cui, ad esempio, S. Baldin, Riflessioni sull’uso consapevole della logica fuzzy nelle classificazioni fra epistemologia del diritto comparato e interdisciplinarietà (Reflections on the conscious use of fuzzy logic in classifications between epistemology of comparative law and interdisciplinarity), in “Revista General de Derecho Publico Comparado”, 10, 2012, pp. 1-20. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Small DNA, big wonder: an overview of DNA sequencing technologies

Emrah Nikerel

Table of contents: Introduction. – “Reading DNA”, from 70s to today. – Next generation sequencing. – Processes after reading DNA. – Errors in reading DNA and methods to recover. – Visualizing the generated DNA reads, assembled Genomes. – Possibilities following NGS. – Storing, cataloguing and accessing sequenced genomes. – Conclusions.

Introduction Deoxyribonucleic acid, commonly known as DNA, is a macromolecule that encodes the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living matter1. Together with proteins and carbohydrates, DNA composes the three major macromolecules essential for all forms of life. Most DNA molecules consist of two biopolymer strands coiled around each other to form a double helix. The DNA is composed of simpler units called nucleotides, of which there are four types: guanine (G), adenine (A), thymine (T), or cytosine (C). Discovery of its double helix structure in 1953 by Watson and Crick2 opened several avenues of research related to its function, structure and more interestingly about its content, termed as its sequence. One of the main follow-ups of their discovery was the so-called, “central dogma of molecular biology”, as an explanation of the flow of genetic information in living matter. In its basics, the central dogma deals with the detailed transfer of sequence information, and is often described as “DNA makes RNA and RNA makes protein”. This dogma has a very important implication: since all information about anything that runs in the cell is contained in the DNA, we have to look into DNA if we want

1 http://www.genome.gov. 2 J.D. Watson, F.H. Crick, Molecular structure of nucleic acids; a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid, in “Nature”, 171 (4356), 1953, pp. 737–738. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

128 Small DNA, big wonder to understand what goes on in the cell. Here, it’s very important to note that, the information is not only limited by the physics of what goes on in the cell, but also covers the very specific identification of the organisms that has that DNA. Over the last 60 years, the central dogma has led to major research in reading the content of DNA. A major such international effort is theHuman Genome Project which still is, interestingly, the world’s largest collaborative biological project that ran from 1990, to 2003, with the goal of determining the whole nucleotide sequences (more than three billion) which make up human DNA, and of physically and functionally identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome. The Human Genome Project drove a major technology push for developments in obtaining genomics data (from here onwards termed as “reading DNA”) and has led substantial changes both scientifically, in terms of basic questions related to the way we understand biological systems, as well as applications related, in terms of how this technology is being currently used. Such questions include, and not necessarily limited to, “How much different is our DNA from the DNA of other organisms”, “Can I find, genomics traits that are common among several species”, “how specific is a person’s DNA”, “How can we read DNA in a cheap and effective way?”, and more on the technology side, “Can we trust the high troughput DNA readings?” ormore on service oriented interest as “Can we store, access, extract information from high throughput DNA data?”. This paper is centered around the above mentioned questions and aims to present an easy-to-read introduction to the current state-of-the-technology in DNA sequencing. As such, it is an overview lecture, rather than a purely scientific one. In particular, I will introduce alternative technologies as Sanger Sequencing, microarrays and Next-Generation DNA sequencing and the implications of the latter in currently available genomic data, possible errors in this technology and ways to account for this (coverage, phred scores, statistics) and lastly, I will list common bioinformatics databases for further data mining. The reader is expected to have very preliminary acquaintance to the basic concepts related to genomics, and is assumed to have access to a “glossary” related to these basics, one particular example is available at DNA initiative3.

“Reading DNA”, from 70s to today Reading DNA was one of the “hard tasks” in molecular biology during 70s, but has been revolutionized by the method pioneered by Frederick Sanger, and termed as Sanger sequencing4. There are several excellent reviews on the basics and implications

3 http://www.dna.gov/glossary. 4 F. Sanger, S. Nicklen, A.R. Coulson, DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors, in File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

E. Nikerel 129 on this technology, but in its essence, the technology made the process of reading DNA, possible and affordable. Using Sanger technology, DNA can be read nucleotide by nucleotide, by special enzymes called dideoxynucleotides. The details of the process are given in Figure 1, but briefly, the reading is performed during synthesis of a template at multiple copies, each at different length.

Figure 1: basics of Sanger sequencing. The methodology is based on the “reading by synthesis” principle. Starting from a template, the process consists of synthetizing the complementary of the template (panel a). By using specialized enzymes, the DNA is synthesized at different lengths, each detected by using specialized gels, allowing to reconstruct the whole sequence back (panel b)

Albeit being revolutionary at that time, Sanger technology turned to be time consuming and expensive, with regard to per nucleotide cost and effort. Nearly a decade later, microarray (both cDNA and oligonucleotide) technology has been introduced to read DNA and has been proven to be extremely useful for large scale DNA reading, i.e. reading several thousand gene products in one experiment, as opposed to single DNA reading per experiment5, based on reading by hybridization principle. Here, as opposed to the Sanger sequencing, there is already a DNA template and we look whether our sample has that template or not. The challenge with the microarray technology is that the experimenter is limited by what the template is: the technology can only read what the microarray chip has been designed for, and as such requires dedicated probe design, which in turn limits the broad usage of this. Stated otherwise, discovery of new DNA or identification of foreign DNA was not possible with microarray technology.

“Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, 74 (12), 1977, pp. 5463-5467. 5 M. Dufva, Introduction to microarray technology, in DNA Microarrays for Biomedical Research, Humana Press, 2009, pp. 1-22. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

130 Small DNA, big wonder

Next generation sequencing The advantage of microarray technology, that is large-scale DNA reading opened new avenues with massive amount of data, but also brought its own challenges, e.g. assessment of errors, coming from hybridization heterogeneity, sample treatment etc. and limitations. Especially with the Human genome project, it was clear that there is a need for new technologies that would: • generate high volume of data, • allow discovery and identification of DNA of unknown origin (new or foreign) • be unbiased towards any organism • allow study of a mixture of DNA, coming from multiple sources (e.g. host & pathogen DNA, population of DNA, etc.) • be affordable (in price), so to be accessible by large body of users. Next generation sequencing (NGS) came into the picture in particular with the need from the Human Genome Project, aiming to determine all the 3 billion nucleotides in human DNA. The project lasted 13 years, and scientists spent around 30 billion dollars, and provided massive and interesting data related to human genome. More than that, it changed the way that we read DNA. Empowered by the miniaturization possibilities, the idea behind NGS is the following: the DNA is shredded into several small pieces (of about 100 nucleotides) by enzymatic or physical shearing and the resulting “soup of DNA” is read via a method similar to Sanger sequencing, that is, read by synthesis, but with massive parallelization this time6. The immediate challenge is then to reconstruct the original DNA from the smaller reads. Historically, the idea behind the next generation sequencing is not new. Formerly hierarchical shotgun sequencing aimed to perform the same, yet to a (much) smaller part of the DNA of interest: get the whole DNA (109 bases), amplify a small part (104 bps, by a technique called Polymerase Chain Reaction, PCR) and shred that amplified part into smaller pieces (100 bp) and read all the shredded parts (sequencing by synthesis). Then, first reconstruct the amplified part of the genome from the shredded parts then by making use of the physical maps of the original amplification (from 109 to 104), reconstruct the whole genome, a process called “hierarchical shotgun sequencing”. With the availability of high capacity computers, it was possible to extrapolate this process to the whole genome, the new process is then called “whole –genome shotgun sequencing”. The details of this process are given in Figure 2.

6 J. Shendure, H. Ji, Next-generation DNA sequencing, in “Nature biotechnology”, 26 (10), 2008, pp. 1135-1145. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

E. Nikerel 131

Figure 2: Shotgun sequencing explained: hierarchical vs. whole-genome. In hierarchical shotgun sequencing (left panel), the genome is first decomposed into smaller units, then shredded into pieces and read, as opposed to whole genome (right panel) whereby the decomposition into smaller units is not needed, due to the advances in computers, making reconstruction possible.

Processes after reading DNA One key step in the above mentioned next-generation sequencing technology is the so-called “assembly problem”: given the short DNA reads, (re)construct the original DNA sequence or preferably entire genome, which later is shown to be equivalent of the so called “shortest superstring problem”. Figure 3 illustrates the assembly problem for a very small example dataset, whereby starting from an unordered DNA readings and by incrementally adding matching reads, the aim is to get the consensus sequence. Being originally a challenging task, thanks to the advances in computing capabilities as well as availability of new assembly algorithms, dedicated software, the assembly problem is now manageable, even for large genomes7.

Errors in reading DNA and methods to recover Let it be from the biological variation, sample treatment process or even instrumental limitations, one thing is for certain: every experimental process or all measurements contain error. NGS technology is no exception in this and the DNA

7 J.R. Miller, S. Koren, G. Sutton, Assembly algorithms for next-generation sequencing data, in “Genomics”, 95 (6), 2010, pp. 315-327. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

132 Small DNA, big wonder reads contain error. There are several measures to take this error into account8: the one I will focus is the so-called phred scores: If p is defined as the probability of − wrong calling a specific base, the Phredquality score is defined as: Q= 10log10p. Phred quality scores have become widely accepted to characterize the quality of DNA sequences, and can be used to compare the efficacy of different sequencing methods. More importantly, Phred quality scores can be used for the automatic determination of accurate, quality-based consensus sequences.

Figure 3: Workflow and details of the DNA assembly problem. Starting from an ordered list that contains DNA readings (left panel), we select a sequence (center panel, top row) and find one-by-one the matching sequences (center panel, lower rows). At the end of the assembly process, we aim to reconstruct the so called “consensus sequence”, that would be the original genome we aimed to sequence (right panel, consensus sequence is shown with red fonts).

Once we know how much error is made during reading, the next step would be to compensate for this error. The current practice in NGS technology is simply to read DNA again, and again and again, such that, one strand of DNA is read multiple times. This average number of times that one nucleotide is read is called coverage. By increasing the coverage, we decrease the effect of an erroneous read, as well as the challenge in the assembly problem by making more and more overlapping DNA parts at an overall price cost9.

8 J. Błażewicz, P. Formanowicz, M. Kasprzak, W. T. Markiewicz, J. Wȩglarz, DNA sequencing with positive and negative errors, in “Journal of Computational Biology”, 6 (1), 2009, pp. 113-123; O. Zagordi, R. Klein, M. Däumer, N. Beerenwinkel, Error correction of next-generation sequencing data and reliable estimation of HIV quasispecies, in “Nucleic acids research”, 38 (21), 2010, pp. 7400-7409. 9 J.C. Dohm, C. Lottaz, T. Borodina, H. Himmelbauer, Substantial biases in ultra-short read data sets from high-throughput DNA sequencing, in “Nucleic acids research”, 36(16), 2008, e105-e105. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

E. Nikerel 133

Visualizing the generated DNA reads, assembled Genomes Typically, when the reading and assembling the DNA of interest is performed, the next task is to visualize the DNA via special programs called genome browsers, whereby we integrate and visualize several types of information related to the genome of interest: individual reads, consensus sequence, reference genome (if any), annotation, and comparison with other phylogenetically close genomes, an example is described by Fiume et al.10, or Skinner et al.11.

Possibilities following NGS The advent of the NGS technology as well as accompanying bioinformatics tools revolutionized the way that we study DNA. The massive amount of generated data also challenged scientists from diverse backgrounds, in terms of acquiring, processing, storing, in general, managing this data. Owing to the advances in miniaturization and parallelization, a decade after the introduction of this technology, it became significantly cheaper and accessible in an unprecedented way: the cost of sequencing one nucleotide decreased several orders of magnitude in a relatively very short time period (Figure 4). Such progress is typically compared with the so called Moore’s law, a measure on how quickly the computers become more powerful. It is clear by Figure 4 that, the rate at which NGS technology improves or becomes cheaper is much faster than the growth of computational power, we witnessed in the past. This simply meant, apart from the scientific highlights, one important thing: reading any DNA became accessible to anybody.

Figure 4: Technology push exhibited as price drop over the years. The price is compared to the Moore’s law, typical to illustrate the available computational power. From this graph, it can be noted that the technology improvement, exhibited as price drop in sequencing, is progressing at a rate faster that the progress of computers.

10 M. Fiume, V. Williams, A. Brook, M. Brudno, Savant: genome browser for high-throughput sequencing data, in “Bioinformatics”, 26(16), 2010, pp. 1938-1944. 11 M.E. Skinner, A.V. Uzilov, L.D. Stein, C.J. Mungall, İ.H. Holmes, JBrowse: a next-generation genome browser, in “Genome research”, 19(9), 2009, pp. 1630-1638. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

134 Small DNA, big wonder

One other aspect of the technology push relates to several available platforms providing NGS. Without getting too much into the details, the next generation sequencing technology also underwent a number of generations: 2nd, 3rd etc. These vary by their read length, the size of the data that they can generate etc. There is one take-home message from the technology side: things are getting smaller, more flexible, and cheaper. All in all, the technology becomes accessible also by non- scientists, especially when considering the case of sequencers at the size of a palm of a hand12.

Storing, cataloguing and accessing sequenced genomes As mentioned, the NGS technology has been initially coined, developed and used for the Human Genome Project, which amounted to a very large “book” composed of 3.2 billion letters! When this amount of information is obtained for a group of people (say patients), or to a different organisms (e.g. wheat’s genome is approximately 6 times larger), it becomes quickly apparent that ways to store, share, search, all in all, manage the high resulting high volume of data are highly needed. Several bioinformatics databases (typically public) are developed and focused on this idea. Currently, there is handful of databases (a short list is given in Table I) that specialize on specific sub-topics, of what resulted from – omic (a generic term that is not limited by genomics but also includes metabolomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, etc.) studies. Understandably, the amount of information available within these databases tremendously increased over the last decade, in particular with the massive datasets generated by NGS or similar technologies. Nowadays, any person can reach these online databases, and query for genomic information. Consider the “classical case” that there is a piece of DNA isolated from a crime scene, say from blood sample. If you send this DNA to a sequencer, you will get what the sequence was, but this itself is little useful if you cannot find the origin of your DNA of interest. By querying the read DNA towards these databases, you can align and find out the organism that it belongs to, the function in case there is annotation and actually all information related to this piece of DNA. As of 2008, there are 1011 base pairs submitted to National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and the number is only increasing. The availability of such databases is important not only for non-scientific audience for accessibility, but also for technical oriented scientists, that would like to automatize common or repetitive tasks, parse large files and generalize their specific finding over species. As such, bioinformatics deals with ways to cope with large data sets and making sense of genomic-scale data.

12 Oxford Nanopore, https://www.nanoporetech.com/technology/the-minion-device-a-miniaturised- sensing-system/the-minion-device-a-miniaturised-sensing-system. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

E. Nikerel 135

Table 1: Common bioinformatics databases

Database name Web address Type of data GenBank www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov nucleotide sequences SWISS-PROT www.expasy.ch protein sequences PDB www.rcsb.org/pdb/ protein structures InterPro www.ebi.ac.uk/interpro/ protein domains BRENDA www.brenda-enzymes.org/ enzyme properties KEGG www.genome.ad.jp metabolic pathways

Conclusions Looking at the development of the field in one or two decades back, genomics has witnessed an impressive technology push. In this simple overview, I focused on the following implications, some of them is beyond the very science, closer to application: • We can “read DNA” at great speed, low cost; generating genomics data is no longer the bottleneck, understanding however still is. • Knowing that all measurements contain error, we now have ways to assess the credibility of the resulting data and experimental and computational methods to compensate this error. • To access the resulting information on DNA from several organisms, there are a number of (public) databases; the availability of these tools makes “high throughput science” possible. The impact of the above mentioned technologies is foreseen on a number of application fields including, but not limited to personalized medicine, or discovery and use of genomic diversity. From a medical application perspective, the technology being affordable, in the future, it will be standard to sequence human DNA, much like a simple blood test of today. As a similar example, paternity tests will be much more accurate than today and the genomic profile of each individual will shape if not clearly determine his/her dietary requirements. From an industrial application standpoint, exploiting the genomic diversity will be much easier: isolating DNA from diverse environments, sequencing it and patenting the sequence will be standard procedure. Alongside to this industrial use, the technology will also be used for quality control: assessing for example the quality of the meat will be performed using molecular technologies, e.g. whether the meat is from a specific animal (veal, pig or horse). From a forensics point of view, this technology will deliver highly accurate genomic data, with little preprocessing, even when the DNA in question comes File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

136 Small DNA, big wonder from a mixture of sources. In conclusion, the implications and several applications of DNA reading technology are already in place for some and expected to dominate tomorrow’s world. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Law and genetics

Gülay Bulut

Table of contents: Introduction. – What is genetics? – Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as a hereditary molecule. – Structure of DNA. – Functions of DNA. – What is a gene? – Chromosome. – How do genetic diseases occur? – DNA mutations. – Polymorphism. – What is genetic testing? – Law and genetics. – References.

Introduction What is genetics? Genetics is the sub-branch of biology which studies heredity and its variations in organisms. Modern genetics, which studies the mechanism of inheritance, was born with Mendel’s work in the middle of the 19th century. As a monk, Mendel observed the proliferation of the peas in the garden of the church where he lived. These observations provided the foundation of the genetics and still remain valid today. Undoubtedly, following the basic physical traits (like green or yellow and round or wrinkled beans) of peas and using mathematics when analyzing the biological observations contributed Mendel’s success.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as a hereditary molecule Majority of living organisms have deoxyribonucleic acid as their genetic material. In humans, this molecule, shortly described as DNA, can be found in the nucleus. An individual’s DNA is the same in all his cells. Normal human DNA has approximately 3 billion bases and more than 99% of this is similar in all humans. Therefore, only about 1% creates the differences between individuals (1-4). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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Structure of DNA DNA is a double stranded, helical molecule. Each strand consists of consecutive building blocks called nucleotides. Nucleotides are composed of three different molecules, a phosphate group, a sugar group and a nitrogenous base (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Nucleotides are the building blocks of the DNA molecule. They are composed of a phosphate group, a sugar group and a nitrogenous base.

The sugar and phosphate groups of the DNA are uniform and do not vary. On the contrary, there are 4 types of nitrogenous bases: Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Guanine(G) and Cytosine (C). Because of these differences in nitrogenous bases, all individuals have different and unique DNA. DNA code or genetic code means the sequence of the nitrogenous bases (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Short part of a DNA sequence Nitrogenous bases make hydrogen bonds with each other. Sugar and phosphate groups form the backbone of the double stranded DNA helix, while nitrogenous bases keep two strands together by forming hydrogen bonds with the bases in the other strand. In this spiral staircase like formation, sugar-phosphate backbone resembles of handrail and nitrogenous bases resemble of steps. In the helical DNA molecule, adenine forms 2 hydrogen bonds with the thymine and cytosine forms 3 hydrogen bonds with the guanine on the complementary strand (Figure 3). Hydrogen bonds, which keep approximately 3 billion bases together, give DNA a property of being File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Bulut 139 one of the strongest and most stable molecules on earth. Thus DNA can be obtained and analyzed even from fossils or decayed bodies (1-4).

Figure 3. Double helix of DNA.

Functions of DNA There are two main function of DNA as a heredity molecule. First, DNA provides the transmission of genetic information to the next generations by replicating itself (Figure 4). This process is specially important in cell division because replication allows the transmission of the same DNA as parental DNA to the daughter cells.

Figure 4. Replication of DNA.

Another important function of DNA is to ensure the protein synthesis by passing the genetic information through messenger RNA molecules. Genetic information in DNA is first transmitted to RNA (transcription) and then to the protein (translation). This flow of genetic information is called ‘Central Dogma’ (1-4). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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Figure 5. Flow of genetic information - Central Dogma.

What is a gene? Genes are DNA sequences which encodes a functional product (RNA, polypeptide or protein). Within a gene, the beginning and end the DNA sequences have been determined. In the beginning of 2000’s with the completion of Human Genome Project, it’s announced that in humans there are about 20,000-25,000 genes. Every human has 2 copies of each gene. Sequences of these genes are almost similar in most of the people except approximately 1% can vary between individuals. This little variation determines the unique physical traits of a person.

Chromosome DNA is wrapped around the histone proteins and packed in the nucleus (Figure 6). Thus DNA, which would reach approximately 2 meters in unpacked form, can fit in a cell’s nucleus. This packed DNA and histone proteins are called a ‘chromosome’ during mitosis and ‘chromatin’ in non-dividing stages.

Figure 6. Structure of a chromosome. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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A healthy human has 23 pairs of chromosomes in their somatic cells. 22 pairs of those are autosomal chromosomes and same in both men and women. The 23rd pair of chromosomes are sex chromosomes. Females have two X, whereas males have one X and one Y chromosomes (Figure 7). Analysis of chromosomes by grouping them according to their structures, is called ‘karyotyping’ (1-4).

Figure 7. Chromosome analysis of a normal female and a male (karyotyping).

How do genetic diseases occur? Genetic diseases occur due to permanent changes in DNA sequences. These changes are called mutations and can happen in one single nitrogenous base in DNA or can contain a large segment of a chromosome. Genetic diseases and hereditary diseases are different from each other. Genetic disorders include diseases which occur due to a mistake in DNA sequence. On the other hand, in hereditary diseases, mistakes in DNA sequences are transmitted to the next generations. Thus, a hereditary disease is also a genetic disease but not all genetic diseases are hereditary.

DNA mutations A single change in one of the nitrogenous base of DNA can cause a disease with very severe clinical symptoms. For example, in sickle cell anemia, there is a single base change within the DNA sequence and thus an adenine base has been replaced by a thymine. This single nitrogenous base change affects the structure of hemoglobin protein which is found in red blood cells and is responsible for oxygen transport to the tissues. As a result, a significant reduction is observed in the oxygen carrying capacity of hemoglobin. In cellular level, red blood cells, which are disk-shaped and flexible in healthy individuals, have sickle shape and transform into a more fragile state in sicle cell patients. In diseases, where there is a mutation at the chromosomal level, total chromosome File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

142 Law and genetics number or structural changes in chromosomes are a matter of question. For example, in Down Syndrome, individuals have three chromosome 21 instead of two (Figure 8). As a result, distinct clinical symptoms are observed (2,4).

Figure 8. Down Syndrome (47,XX, +21) - mutation on chromosomal level

Polymorphism In DNA sequences, except mutations, there are some genetic changes which are called polymorphisms and can be observed in more than 1% of the population. Clinically, these variations are accepted as normal. Although they don’t have any adverse effects on human health, they are likely to affect the risk factors during the development of some diseases. In addition to that, they are responsible for the normal differences between individuals (exp. eye and hair color, blood type etc.). DNA sequences with high polymorphism are important in forensic cases with applications like personal identification and paternity testing (4).

What is genetic testing? Genetic tests are tests for determining the changes on DNA, chromosomes, genes or proteins. Today approximately 1000 genetic tests are being used. These tests have been implemented in prenatal diagnosis, newborn screening, identification of carrier individuals and forensic applications. Over time, with the development of scientific techniques and identification of diseases and their responsible DNA sequence changes, number of genetic tests have increased, they have been technically simplified and their prices have reduced. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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Law and genetics There are multiple areas where law and genetics overlap. Undoubtedly, genetics is the supportive field of science to solve the forensic cases. However, with the developments in genetics, it requires support from law in areas like protecting genetic information of individuals and ethics. In previous years, the association of law and genetics is inevitable. For example, due to mis-diagnosis during prenatal testing, the legitimate rights of a mother who gives birth to a baby with a genetic anomaly has to be defined in the framework of the law. Human gene mapping within the scope of Human Genome Project also brings some ethical problems. First of all, personal genetic information is individual’s privacy. For this reason, it has to be confidential, it should not be available for public access and has to be protected from discrimination. United Nations has made some legal regulations to protect the genetic rights of the member countries. For example, in 2008 The United States Congress has accepted Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which aims to prevent discrimination because of individual’s genetic information (5). Another important issue is the patenting of the genes. With the regulations in this issue, in June 2013, Supreme Court of the United States has decided that human genes are natural part of DNA sequences so, isolation of human genes in laboratories is not an adequate justification to patent the genes (6). Thus, a significant reduction has been observed in the prices of genetic tests. Another controversial issue is whether an individual with a certain genetic abnormality has a tendency to be a criminal or not. For example, more aggressive and criminal behaviors have been observed in men who has two Y chromosomes rather than one. In this specific issue which was discussed especially in 1960s, there is no related substantial scientific data (7). However, according to one hypothesis, exclusion of these individuals from society places them to a low socio-economical level, which may later increase their risk of showing criminal behavior (8).

References 1. B. Alberts et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell, Garland Science, 2008. 2. G.M. Cooper, R.E. Hausman, The Cell: A Molecular Approach, Sinauer Associates, 2013. 3. T. Strachan, A. Read, Human Molecular Genetics, Garland Science, 2010. 4. Genetic Home Reference, US Library of Medicine, 2014, http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/ handbook. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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5. Genetic Non-discrimination Act (GINA), Public Law 110 – 233, 122 Stat. 881, H.R. 493, May 2008. 6. A. Liptak, Supreme Court Rules Human Genes May Not Be Patented, in “New York Times”, 13 June 2013. 7. Criminal behaviour and the Y chromosome, in “Br. Med. J.”, January 14th, 1967, 1(5532), 64–65. 8. K. Stochholm et al., Criminality in men with Klinefelter’s syndrome and XYY syndrome: a cohort study, in “BMJ Open” 2012; 2:e000650 doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2011-000650. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

“Bio-penal law” and issues of beginning of human life 1

Stefano Canestrari

Table of contents: 1. Introductory remarks. − 2. Issues of beginning of human life and secularism of criminal law. − 3. The regulation of medically assisted procreation. − 4. The protection of prenatal life.

1. Introductory remarks The evolution of scientific knowledge increased considerably man’s life and health expectancies. Just consider the notable results achieved by biomedicine, such as the production of new drugs and vaccines; the arrangement of innovative diagnostic instruments for genetic diseases and biotechnologies; medical and pharmaceutical experimentation; preventive medicine; medically assisted procreation; prenatal therapy of the foetus etc. These are issues of great interest and topicality, as they touch some complex questions concerning bioethics and “bio-law”, whereas such expressions indicate the disciplines dealing with the ethical and legal problems connected to the scientific and technical progress, especially in the biomedical area. As it is known, the issues traditionally faced from such perspectives concern life, health, procreation, death; and it becomes clear that they are fields of – at times bitter – confrontation between remarkably different moral visions. Nevertheless, such fields cannot be considered a “space free from law”, or rather sectors, that, due to their prevailing and absorbing ethical, philosophical and religious dimension, should be aprioristically exempted from legal regulation. On the contrary: with growing intensity and frequency today there is much

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

146 “Bio-penal law” and issues of beginning of human life debate about the opportunity, and even about the need, of a legal regulation of bioethics relating to the beginning and the end of human life, including, not least, the most appropriate punitive means to ensure its effectiveness. Not surprisingly, the consequent scenario implies the difficult task to reconcile the program of protection with some fundamental characters of modern criminal law, first of all the “secularism” of punitive intervention. Also, we cannot waive the whole body of guarantees typical of the penal intervention, amongst which is particularly relevant the limitation of punishment only to the cases calling for the need of protecting real legal goods that cannot otherwise be effectively protected. Despite any possible intervention of criminal law in the bioethics of the beginning and the end of human life, it is clear that it cannot abdicate the constitutional principles of legality and harm and the criminal-political canons of subsidiarity and fragmentation («frammentarietà»), which maintain their decisive role in the implementation of the program aimed at protecting the values of the human person. The idea of the penal intervention as anextrema ratio confirms that the use of the penal instrument is functional only to prevent facts that seriously endanger social coexistence and not to sanction mere manifestations of immorality or of contrast with ethical, religious or ideological values of a part of society. Thus, once acknowledged that the embryo is a legal good deserving protection, it still remains to be established whether, in the critical situations in which its protection contrasts with other interests (just think about the health of the aspiring mother), there are more effective instruments of control than criminal law; or whether an extensive adoption of the latter (by criminalizing every harm to the embryo’s integrity) would not concretely induce undesired effects (such as the increment of abortion practices as a consequence of the prohibition of preimplantation genetic diagnosis2) or even criminogenic effects (such as the increment of back-street abortions whereas the voluntary termination of pregnancy is not permitted). Misconducts offending principles or values that do not constitute actual legal objects could not be criminalised either: thus, the hoary issue concerning the possible penal protection of the embryo depends upon the fact that it is acknowledged with the status of human being3, while – for instance – the possibility of such a protection of male and female gametes shall be absolutely excluded, notwithstanding the moral value attributed to the principle of generation of life4.

2 With regard to preimplantation genetic diagnosis, the novelties at a normative level and the most recent case law and academic orientations will be illustrated infra, par. 3. 3 On the topic, from different points of view, E. Dolcini, Embrione, pre-embrione, ootide: nodi interpretativi nella disciplina della procreazione medicalmente assistita, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2004, p. 459 ff.; L.Eusebi , Beni penalmente rilevanti e tecniche di procreazione, in L. Fioravanti (a cura di), La tutela penale della persona. Nuove frontiere, difficili equilibri, Milano, 2001, p. 46. 4 Cf. S. Canestrari, Verso una disciplina penale delle tecniche di procreazione medicalmente assistita? Alla ricerca del bene giuridico tra valori ideali e opzioni ideologiche, in L. Fioravanti (a cura di), La tutela File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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2. Issues of beginning of human life and secularism of criminal law Amongst the fields in which the legal-penal relevance of the idea of secularism5 seems more immediate and undeniable, however, there are currently some contexts intrinsically characterised by references to pre-comprehensive structures of ethical nature and to “ontological” conceptions on man and on life (abortion, medically assisted procreation, genetic manipulations). In such cases, the decisions of the legal order concern fields of strong ethical connotation and situations depending on general opinions concerning human life – especially in its beginning – rising complicated issues, which can be only partially dealt with here. It is important to start by saying that, while tackling such thorny issues, the legal order makes a decision irrespectively, be it only that of “not deciding”. Indeed, an “abstensionist” policy implies the legitimisation of a practice, at least in accordance to the liberal principle which states that everything which is not forbidden is allowed. Given for acknowledged that “secular” law is not synonym of value-free law – also being value-free implies an option, that is the legitimatisation of practices – we must make a clarification of fundamental importance. We must highlight that law, inasmuch as “secular”, shall nevertheless feel the need for granting the highest level of pluralism. In such a perspective, for instance, the values of sexuality or procreation should penale, cit., p. 61 ff. 5 On the issue of the secularism of criminal law see, recently, S. Canestrari, Laicità e diritto penale nelle democrazie costituzionali, in E. Dolcini, C.E. Paliero (eds.), Studi in onore di G. Marinucci, Milano, 2006, 121 ff.; G. Losappio, Bioetica e diritto penale. Le disposizioni penali del Testo Unico nelle proposte di legge sulle tecniche di procreazione assistita, in “Ind. pen.”, 1999, p. 610 ff.; M.B.Magro , Etica laica e tutela della vita umana: riflessioni sul principio di laicità in diritto penale, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1994, passim; M. Romano, Principio di laicità dello Stato, religioni, norme penali, in “Riv. it., dir. proc. pen.”, 2007, p. 493 ff.; S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni, Documento introduttivo, in S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni (eds.), Valori e secolarizzazione nel diritto penale, Bologna, 2009, p. 7 ff.; S. Canestrari, F. Faenza, Paternalismo penale e libertà individuale: incerti equilibri e nuove prospettive nella tutela della persona, in A. Cadoppi (ed.), Laicità, valori e diritto penale. The moral limits of the Criminal Law. In ricordo di Joel Feinberg, Milano, 2010, p. 167 ff.; D. Pulitanò, Problema penale e problemi della laicità, in S. Canestrari-L. Stortoni (eds.), Valori, cit., p. 179 ff.; L. Ferrajoli, Stato laico ed etica laica. Laicità e diritto penale, in S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni (eds.), Valori, cit., p. 121 ff.; G.Fiandaca , Considerazioni intorno a bioetica e diritto penale, tra laicità e ‘post-secolarismo’, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2007, p. 546 ff.; Id., I temi eticamente sensibili tra ragione pubblica e ragione punitiva, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2011, p. 1383 ff.;Id ., Punire la semplice immoralità? Un vecchio interrogativo che tende a riproporsi, in A. Cadoppi (ed.), Laicità, cit., p. 207 ff.; E. Dolcini, Laicità, ‘sana laicità’ e diritto penale. La Chiesa cattolica maestra (anche) di laicità?, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2009, p. 1017 ff.; A. Cadoppi, Liberalismo, paternalismo e diritto penale, in S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni (eds.), Valori, cit., 283 ff.; A. Cadoppi, Presentazione. Principio del danno (harm principle) e limiti del diritto penale, in A. Cadoppi (ed.), Laicità, cit., VII ff.; G.Forti , Alla ricerca di un luogo per la laicità: il “potenziale di verità” nelle democrazie liberali, in S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni (eds.), Valori, cit., p. 349 ff.; A. Barbera, Il cammino della laicità, in S. Canestrari (ed.), Laicità e diritto, Bologna, 2007, p. 33 ff.; L. Risicato, Dal “diritto di vivere” al “diritto di morire”. Riflessioni sul ruolo della laicità nell’esperienza penalistica, Torino, 2008, passim. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

148 “Bio-penal law” and issues of beginning of human life not be touched by any legal sanctions. Therefore, we cannot agree with the total ban of heterologous assisted insemination techniques– the violation of which implies the application of severe afflictive sanctions (administrative in nature, but penal in their “substance”) – oriented to affirm the ideal value of the naturality of procreation. A pure secular conception should be oriented to identify and appreciate all the actual interests at stake: without delegitimizing any of them a priori. Thus, again with regard to the medically assisted procreation: the right to self-determination of the mother (rectius, of both parents), as well as the respect of her psychophysical integrity; the protection of the embryo and the rights of the future child (for instance, to “enjoy” the double parental figure); the protection of human genome and, at the same time, of the freedom of research. Criminal law as an extrema ratio confirms that this is a selective appreciation, oriented on the basis of rational criteria offered by the indications deriving from constitutional principles. With regard to the prospect of genetic manipulations, in good part reasonably achievable in the future, the legitimacy of reproductive cloning of human being is to be excluded, in the light of the most fundamental principles of respect of human dignity6. Furthermore, it is necessary to balance as many interests as possible, paying a special attention to the protection of the interests of the weakest subjects: we think that the key criterion to use is the one to which the widest legal protection should be recognised to those who cannot protect themselves on their own. In conclusion, a law correctly inspired by the idea of secularism shall assume decisions oriented to grant in any case the liberty of the members of the community and the symmetry of their reciprocal positions and relations, and try to compensate the painful decisions, that sacrifice an interest, with other instruments offered by social reality: thus, the necessary referral of the decision to interrupt the pregnancy in certain circumstances to the woman’s free choice shall go together with the adoption of (financial, human, professional, structural etc.) resources, allowing women to choose freely while confronting with different possibilities7.

6 On this subject cf. J. Habermas, Il futuro della natura umana. I rischi di una genetica liberale, ed. by L. Ceppa, Torino, 2001, p. 57 ff., p. 82 ff., whereas the Author observes that the attempt to determine discretionarily another man in its natural constitution shall be prohibited. 7 On the questions raised by abortion cf., amongst criminal lawyers, M. Romano, F. Stella, Aborto e legge penale. Riflessioni e proposte, Milano, 1975, p. 39 ff.; L. Eusebi, La tutela penale della vita prenatale, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1988, p. 1098 ff.; M. Zanchetti, La legge sull’interruzione della gravidanza, Padova, 1992, p. 50 ff. More recently, C. Cassani, Legge 22 maggio 1978, n. 194. Norme per la tutela sociale della maternità e sull’interruzione volontaria della gravidanza, in S. Canestrari (ed.), I reati contro la vita e l’incolumità individuale, in I grandi temi, Treatise directed by A. Cadoppi, S. Canestrari, M. Papa, I reati contro la persona, I, Torino, 2006, p. 154 ff.;C. Cassani, entry Aborto, in A. Cadoppi-S. Canestrari, P. Veneziani (eds.), Codice penale commentato con dottrina e giurisprudenza, Piacenza, 2011, p. 2945 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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A final remark: a truly secular vision forces us to deem inconsistent any conception masked under “labels” or preconstituted schemes. Recalling such labels and schemes without any argumentation usually sounds as an excusatio non petita. In such a perspective, there can be no secular law (“biolaw”) opposed to a catholic law: law can only be a set of common rules aimed at social co-existence, which keep into account, for instance, the prerogatives of the model of the non-disposability of life and of the one of the quality of life; of the value-free liberal perspective of the inviolability of individual choices and the ethical perspective of the protection of the needs for justice, with special regard to the weakest, in order to select and crystallize the minimum basis of aequitas according to approximate criteria, which take into consideration as much as possible the social reality.

3. The regulation of medically assisted procreation The Italian law on medically assisted procreation (law n. 40 of 19 February 2004,) aimed at satisfying two fundamental needs: protecting the woman’s health and providing an adequate protection to the human embryo. To achieve both objectives was not easy since opposed needs had to be balanced without adopting mere compromise solutions based on expedients or fictions8.

8 On the current regulation see, from different perspectives, E. Dolcini, Embrione, cit., p. 440 ff.; F. Mantovani, Procreazione medicalmente assistita e principio personalistico, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 326 ff.;G. Fiandaca, Scelte di tutela in materia di fecondazione assistita e democrazia laica, in “Leg. pen”., 2005, p. 339 ff.; A. Manna, La tutela penale della vita in fieri, tra funzione promozionale e protezione di beni giuridici, in “Leg. pen”., 2005, p. 245 ff.; L. Eusebi, La vita individuale precoce: soltanto materiale biologico?, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 457 ff., S. Canestrari, Commento alla legge 40/2004, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2004, p. 416 ff.; L. Risicato, Lo statuto punitivo della procreazione tra limiti perduranti ed esigenze di riforma, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2005, p. 674 ff.; E. Dolcini, La legge sulla procreazione assistita: quali prospettive dopo il referendum del 2005?, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2006, p. 103 ff.;F. Consorte, La procreazione medicalmente assistita: legge 19.2.2004, n. 40, in S. Canestrari (ed.), I reati contro la vita, cit., p. 215 ff.;E. Dolcini, Fecondazione assistita e diritto penale, Milano, 2008; S. Canestrari, F. Faenza, Il principio di ragionevolezza nella regolamentazione biogiuridica: la prospettiva del diritto penale, in “Criminalia”, 2008, p. 88 ff.;E. Dolcini, Responsabilità del medico e reati in materia di procreazione assistita. Ambiguità e rigori della legge n. 40 del 2004, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2009, p. 27 ff.; E. Dolcini, Embrioni nel numero “strettamente necessario”: il bisturi della Corte Costituzionale sulla legge n. 40 del 2004, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2009, p. 950 ff.; C. Cassani, La diagnosi genetica preimpianto e la sua rilevanza penale, in “Ind. pen.”, 2009, p. 87 ff.; C. Cassani, Artt. 12-14, in Procreazione medicalmente assistita. Legge 19 febbraio 2004, n. 40. Norme in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita, in M. Balestra, S. Canestrari, G.F. Ricci (eds.), Leggi collegate, in M. Sesta (ed.), Codice della famiglia. Tomo II. Leggi collegate, Milano, 20092, p. 3716 ff.; E.Dolcini , La procreazione medicalmente assistita: profili penalistici, in S. Canestrari, G. Ferrando, C.M. Mazzoni, S. Rodotà, P. Zatti (eds.), Il governo del corpo. Tomo I, in Trattato di biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Milano, 2011, p. 1537 ff.;E. Dolcini, La lunga marcia della fecondazione assistita. La legge 40/2004 tra Corte Costituzionale, Corte EDU e giudice ordinario, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2011, p. 428 ff.; A. Vallini, La diagnosi genetica preimpianto: da illecito penale a questione deontologica. Eterogenesi dei fini di un legislatore irragionevole, in “Riv. it. med. leg.”, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

150 “Bio-penal law” and issues of beginning of human life

The existing legislation recognises that the embryo is a value deserving protection, as we can infer from our Constitution, from the decisions of the Constitutional court, from the statutes in force, from international and European Institutions’ documents. Such an acknowledgement led to the introduction of many criminal offenses, which may be distinguished in two groups. The first group includes offenses presiding “widely” shared principles, expression of values that are strongly rooted also within the present pluralistic societies. The second one consists of criminal offenses that interfere, through intransigent limitations and prohibitions, with the application of the main methods or procedures of medically assisted procreation, in order to protect the human embryo’s integrity. A first group of dispositions aims at forbidding behaviours that are inconsistent with the recognition of the human nature of the embryo and that offend the legal good of the un-repeatability of human genome. Amongst others: a) Art. 12, co. 6, punishes with imprisonment from three months to two years and with a fine from 600.000 Euros to 1.000.000 Euros whoever, in any form, realises, organises or advertises the commercialisation of gametes or embryos [«chiunque, in qualsiasi forma, realizza, organizza o pubblicizza la commercializzazione di gameti o di embrioni»]. b) Art. 12, co. 7, punishes with imprisonment from ten to twenty years and with a fine from 600.000 Euros to 1.000.000 Euros whoever realises a process aimed at obtaining a human being descending from a single starting cell, possibly identical in its genetic nuclear inheritance to another human being dead or alive [«chiunque realizza un processo volto ad ottenere un essere umano discendente da un’unica cellula di partenza, eventualmente identico quanto al patrimonio genetico nucleare, ad un altro essere umano in vita o morto»]. The norm also establishes that the physician is punished with perpetual interdiction from the exercise of the medical profession. c) Art. 13, co. 1, forbids any experimentation on embryos whatsoever. d) Art. 13, co. 2, allows clinical and experimental research on each human embryo, provided that it pursues exclusively therapeutic and diagnostic

2011, p. 1405 ff.; C. Cassani, La diagnosi genetica preimpianto: profili penali e risvolti applicativi, in G. Balbi, A. Esposito (eds.), Laicità, valori e diritto penale. Atti del Convegno. Santa Maria Capua Vetere, 6 febbraio 2009, Torino, 2011, p. 79 ff.; F. Consorte, L. 19 febbraio 2004, n. 40. Norme in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita, in A. Cadoppi, S. Canestrari, P. Veneziani (eds.), Codice penale commentato, cit., p. 2981 ff.;F. Consorte, La disciplina della procreazione medicalmente assistita (L. 19-2-2004, n. 40) § 1 - La disciplina della procreazione medicalmente assistita, in I delitti contro la vita e l’incolumità personale, in Trattato di diritto penale diretto da A. Cadoppi, S. Canestrari, A. Manna, M. Papa, Parte speciale, Vol. VII, Torino, 2011, p. 623 ff.; A. Vallini, Illecito concepimento e valore del concepito. Statuto punitivo della procreazione, principi, prassi, Torino, 2012, passim; G. Fiandaca, E. Musco, Diritto penale. Parte speciale, vol. II, tomo I, I delitti contro la persona, Bologna, 20134, p. 51 ff.; E. Dolcini, Legge sulla procreazione assistita e laicità dello Stato: da sempre, un rapporto difficile, in “Dir. pen. contemporaneo”, 27 novembre 2013, p. 1 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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purposes aimed at the protection of the health and at the development of the embryo itself and whereas no other methodology is available. e) Art. 13, co. 3, lett. a) establishes a particularly harsh punishment for whoever produces human embryos for research or experimental purposes or however for different aims than those set forth by the present law [«embrioni umani a fine di ricerca o di sperimentazione o comunque a fini diversi da quello previsto dalla presente legge»] (the punishment of imprisonment from two to six years and of the fine from 50.000 Euros to 150.000 Euros are aggravated up to a third). f) Art. 13, co. 3, moreover, punishes any form of selection for eugenic purposes of embryos and gametes or interventions aimed at altering the genetic inheritance of the embryo or of the gamete or at predetermining its genetic characters by means of techniques of selection, of manipulation or however through any artificial process, except for the interventions with diagnostic and therapeutic purposes set forth at the second comma of the present article [lett. b): «ogni forma di selezione a scopo eugenetico degli embrioni e dei gameti ovvero interventi che attraverso tecniche di selezione, di manipolazione o comunque tramite procedimenti artificiali, siano diretti ad alterare il patrimonio genetico dell’embrione o del gamete ovvero a predeterminarne le caratteristiche genetiche, ad eccezione degli interventi aventi finalità diagnostiche e terapeutiche, di cui al comma 2 del presente articolo»]; interventions of cloning by nuclear transfer or of premature scission of the embryo or of ectogenesis both with procreative and research purposes [lett. c): «interventi di clonazione mediante trasferimento di nucleo o di scissione precoce dell’embrione o di ectogenesi sia a fini procreativi sia di ricerca»]; and the insemination of a human gamete with a gamete of a different species as well as the production of hybrids and chimeras [lett. d): «fecondazione di un gamete umano con un gamete di specie diversa e la produzione di ibridi o di chimere»], and the punishment of imprisonment from two to six years and the fine from 50.000 to 150.000 Euros is aggravated up to a third. With the second group of dispositions, the legislator intends to solve the delicate question of supernumerary embryos. a) The first comma of art. 14 forbids the suppression of embryos and the practice of cryopreservation of embryos. b) As a consequence, the second comma of art. 14 establishes that, taken into account the technical-scientific evolution and the provisions of art.7, comma 3, the techniques of production of embryos shall not create an amount of embryos exceeding the number strictly necessary to a single and simultaneous implant, and however not exceeding the number of three embryos [«le tecniche di produzione degli embrioni, tenuto conto dell’evoluzione tecnico-scientifica File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

152 “Bio-penal law” and issues of beginning of human life

e di quanto previsto dall’art. 7, comma 3, non devono creare un numero di embrioni superiore a quello strettamente necessario ad un unico e contemporaneo impianto, comunque non superiore a tre»]; the threatened penalty is very harsh: imprisonment up to three years and a fine from 50.000 to 150.000 Euros. As we are about to see, the Constitutional Court has declared the partial unconstitutionality of the commas 2 and 3 of art. 14. c) The same art. 14, at comma 4, prohibits the embryo reduction of multiple pregnancies, except for the cases provided for by law 22 May 1978, n. 194 [«riduzione embrionaria di gravidanze plurime, salvo nei casi previsti dalla legge 22 maggio 1978, n. 194»]. The intransigent prohibitions introduced by this second group of criminal offenses are set for the only purpose of protecting the embryo. The prior-ranking good of the woman’s health lacks an adequate protection, since the legislator obligates the physician to adopt methodologies different than those the medical science deems optimal in order to remedy the status of infertility, with the effect of making the treatment less safe and of diminishing the percentages of success. On the one hand, in fact, this will increase the phenomenon of multiple pregnancies, which exposes the woman to serious dangers of complications and the future child to an higher risk of perinatal mortality caused by immaturity (in regard to the problem of the lawfulness of the embryo reduction of a multiple pregnancy following an intervention of medically assisted procreation, see the decree of 5 June 2004 and the ordinance of 29 June 2004 of the Court of Cagliari); on the other hand, most cases will require more cycles of treatment in order to achieve the current percentage of pregnancies. In particular, the peremptory prohibition of «any form of selection for eugenic purpose of embryos and gametes» established by art. 13, comma 3, lett. b), seems to thwart the recourse to preimplantation genetic diagnosis also in couples with fertility problems carrying genetic diseases, that are transmissible to the conceptus. The preimplantation diagnosis may be performed only when it pursues therapeutic purposes aimed at the protection of the health, at the development of the embryo and in case no other methodology is available [«volte alla tutela della salute e allo sviluppo dell’embrione stesso, e qualora non siano disponibili metodologie alternative» (art. 13, comma 2)]9. The guidelines concerning procedures and techniques of medically assisted procreation («Linee guida contenenti le indicazioni delle procedure e delle tecniche di procreazione medicalmente assistita»), later enacted by the Ministry of Health with Ministerial Decree of 21 July 2004, specified (sub art. 13) that any investigation concerning the state of health of embryos created in vitro, according to article 14, comma 5, shall be observational in nature [«ogni indagine relativa allo stato di salute degli embrioni creati in vitro, ai sensi dell’articolo 14, comma 5,

9 In this regard, see S. Canestrari, Commento, cit., p. 416; E. Dolcini, Responsabilità, cit., 2009, p. 31. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Canestrari 153 dovrà essere di tipo osservazionale»] and that whenever the investigation highlights serious irreversible anomalies in the development of an embryo, the physician who is responsible of the Institution, according to article 14, comma 5, shall inform the couple. Whenever, in this case, the transfer of the embryo, which is not coercible, should not be performed, the in vitro culture of the same embryo shall be maintained until its own extinction [«qualora dall’indagine vengano evidenziate gravi anomalie irreversibili dello sviluppo di un embrione, il medico responsabile della struttura ne informa la coppia ai sensi dell’art. 14, co. 5. Ove in tal caso il trasferimento dell’embrione, non coercibile, non risulti attuato, la coltura in vitro del medesimo deve essere mantenuta fino al suo estinguersi»]. Moreover, with reference to art. 14, comma 3, of the law the guidelines establish that whenever the transfer of the embryos into the uterus is not possible due to force majeure concerning the woman’s state of health that were unpredictable during the insemination and whenever the transfer is not performed, every non-transferred embryo shall be cryo-preserved while waiting for the implant, which shall take place as soon as possible [«qualora il trasferimento nell’utero degli embrioni non risulti possibile per cause di forza maggiore relative allo stato di salute della donna non prevedibili al momento della fecondazione e, comunque, un trasferimento non risulti attuato, ciascun embrione non trasferito dovrà essere crioconservato in attesa dell’impianto che dovrà avvenire prima possibile»]. The new guidelines concerning medically assisted procreation adopted by the Ministry of Health with Ministerial Decree 11 April 2008 returned on the topic. After having confirmed the prohibition of preimplantation diagnosis with eugenic purpose (sub art. 13), the new guidelines establish that whenever the transfer of embryos into the uterus is not possible for reasons of force majeure concerning the woman’s health that were not foreseeable at the moment of the insemination and, however, a transfer is not performed, every non-transferred embryo shall be cryo-preserved while waiting for the implantation, which shall take place as soon as possible. Any embryo that is not transferred into the uterus shall be frozen at the expenses of the centre of medically assisted procreation while waiting for the future implantation [«qualora il trasferimento nell’utero degli embrioni non risulti possibile per cause di forza maggiore relative allo stato di salute della donna non prevedibili al momento della fecondazione e, comunque, un trasferimento non risulti attuato, ciascun embrione non trasferito dovrà essere crioconservato in attesa dell’impianto che dovrà avvenire prima possibile. Qualsiasi embrione che non sia trasferito in utero verrà congelato con onere a carico del centro di procreazione medicalmente assistita in attesa del futuro impianto»]. There are many cases of couples, who are healthy carriers of genetic diseases (especially beta-thalassaemia), petitioning Courts (according to art. 700 of the civil procedure code) for the right to a preimplantation diagnosis and to obtain the transfer of healthy embryos only. Indeed, under art. 14, comma 2, of law 40/2004, imposing the concurrent transfer of all the embryos produced, different File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

154 “Bio-penal law” and issues of beginning of human life medical centres refused to proceed with the transfer of the only embryos proven to be healthy by the preimplantation diagnosis. The Court of Catania (ordinance 3 May 2004, in “DFP”, 2005, 75) dismissed the petition of the spouses and the challenge of unconstitutionality of art. 14, comma 2 of the law, stating that the disposition does not violate fundamental human rights but protects life, balancing all the values involved (artt. 2, 3 e 32 Cost.). A later decision concerning analogous cases took a different direction: indeed, the Court of Cagliari (ord. 16 July 2005, in “Foro it.”, 2005, I, 2876) recognised the right to obtain preimplantation diagnosis of the already developed embryo and challenged the constitutionality of art. 13 of law 19 February 2004, n. 4 with regard to articles 2, 3 and 32 of the Constitution (the Constitutional Court, with ord. 369/2006, declared manifestly inadmissible the issue of constitutionality given the «evident contradiction» of challenging the constitutionality of a specific disposition that could be inferred also from other articles of the same law that have not been challenged and from the whole legislative text in the light of the criteria that inspired it). The Court of Cagliari (decision 22 September 2007, in “Foro it.”, 2007, I, 3245), after having ascertained the right of the woman to obtain preimplantation diagnosis, condemned the hospital and the physician to perform the diagnosis on the embryo to be transferred in the uterus, in order to verify the state of health of the same embryo. In this case, the judge established that «law n. 40 of 2004 forbids the selection of embryos for eugenic purposes, as the law on abortion does not allow the interruption of pregnancy to eugenic purposes, whereas the state of health of the foetus is not relevant in itself, but as the cause of a pathologic state of the pregnant woman; however, as law n. 194/78 [on abortion] allows the interruption of pregnancy to protect the pregnant woman’s health, likewise the woman can legitimately refuse the implantation of the embryo that has been produced in vitro whenever the knowledge of the existence of serious genetic or chromosome diseases in the embryo itself determined in her such a disease that the implantation could be of serious harm for her physical or psychic health. Indeed, this would not be a case of eugenic practice, definitely forbidden by article 13, but a case of impossibility to proceed to the implantation for a «serious and documented reason of force majeure concerning the woman’s health state that was not foreseeable at the moment of the insemination» [«grave e documentata causa di forza maggiore relativa allo stato di salute della donna non prevedibile al momento della fecondazione»], which, according to article 14, comma 3, expressly legitimises the cryo-preservation of the embryo (if and) until the impediment ceases. Finally, the Court of Florence (ord. 17 December 2007, in “Foro it.”, 2008, I, 627) upheld the claim under art. 700 of the civil procedure code and recognised the right of the petitioners to transfer and implant the created embryos that do not present in a full- blown form the genetic pathology carried by the parents. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Canestrari 155

Challenges of unconstitutionality, as highlighted by scholars10, have been also raised by the Tar (administrative Court) of Lazio (sent., sec. III quater, 21 gennaio 2008, n. 398, in “Foro it.”, 2008, III, 207), which annulled the criticised guidelines dispositions approved with ministerial decree 21 July 2004 and maintained the unconstitutionality of art. 14, co. 2 and 3, of the law, with regard to artt. 3 and 32 Const., whereas, as to the procedure of medically assisted procreation, it allows the formation of a limited number of embryos (up to three) to be implanted at the same time and forbids the cryo-preservation of embryos outside the cases set forth by the same article; by the Court of Florence (ord. 12 July 2008), with regard to art. 14, co 1 and 2, of law n. 40/2004, for being inconsistent with artt. 3 and 32, co. 1 and 2, Const. and to art. 6, co. 3, last part, of law n. 40/2004, for being inconsistent with art. 32, co. 2, Const., whereas they prohibit the cryo-preservation of supernumerary embryos, the necessary creation of up to three embryos and the obligation of a single and contemporary transfer of no more than three embryos and whereas they establish that the woman’s consent to the transfer of the created embryos in the uterus is irrevocable; by the Court of Florence (ord. 26 August 2008) with regard to art. 14, co. 4, of law n. 40/2004, for being inconsistent with artt. 2, 3, 13 and 32 of the Constitution. The Constitutional Court, dealing with the questions, declared the unconstitutionality of art. 14, co. 2 and 3, of law 40/2004 (sent. 8 May 2009, n. 151), limited to the words «single and contemporary implant, and however not exceeding the number of three embryos» and whereas it does not establish that the transfer of the embryos, which needs to be carried out as soon as possible in compliance with the same norm, shall be performed without any detriment for the woman’s health. The Court maintained that the provision of the creation of no more than three embryos, lacking any consideration on the subjective conditions of the woman subjected to the procedure of medically assisted procreation, contrasts with art. 3 Const., in the light of both principles of reasonableness and of equality, since the legislator treats different situations in the same way; but also with art. 32 Const., due to the prejudice for the woman’s health and possibly, as seen, of the foetus that is connected to it («la previsione della creazione di un numero di embrioni non superiore a tre, in assenza di ogni considerazione delle condizioni soggettive della donna che di volta in volta si sottopone alla procedura di procreazione medicalmente assistita, si pone, in definitiva, in contrasto con l’art. 3 Cost., riguardato sotto il duplice profilo del principio di ragionevolezza e di quello di uguaglianza, in quanto il legislatore riserva il medesimo trattamento a situazioni dissimili; nonché con l’art. 32 Cost., per il pregiudizio alla salute della donna, ed eventualmente, come si è visto, del feto ad esso connesso»).

10 See S. Canestrari, F. Faenza, Il principio di ragionevolezza, cit., p. 88 ff.;L. Risicato, Lo statuto, cit., p. 676 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

156 “Bio-penal law” and issues of beginning of human life

The unconstitutionality of art. 14, co. 2, also entails a derogation to the general principle of prohibition of cryo-preservation, as required by art. 14, co. 1, as it establishes the necessity to resort to the freezing technique of embryos that have been produced but not transferred by medical choice. Following the decision of the Constitutional Court, the Courts of the merits (cf. Trib. Bologna, Sec. I, ord. 16 June 2009 – 17 June 2009, Judge Dr. Borgo, inedita; Trib. Bologna, Sec. I, ord. 29 June 2009, in DeJure; Trib. Cagliari, ord. 9 November 2012, n. 5925, in “Dir. pen. contemporaneo”, 10 December 2012; Trib. Roma, ord. 23 September 2013, in http://www.giurcost.org) have further affirmed the penal lawfulness of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, also admitting the possibility to obtain, by means of the techniques of assisted insemination, a number of embryos in proportion with the physical conditions of the couple, compliant with the medical assessment on the quantification of the strictly necessary number,ex art. 14, co. 2 (see Trib. Bologna, Sec. I, ord. 16 June 2009 – 17 June 2009, Judge Dr. Borgo, cit.; Trib. Bologna, Sec. I, ord. 29 June 2009, cit.). Fertile couples carrying genetic diseases that can be transmitted to the children are excluded from the application of law 40/2004. A recent and isolated decision (Trib. Salerno, ord. 9 January 2010, in “Fam. dir.”, 2010, 476 ff.) upheld a petition aimed at acceding to preimplantation genetic diagnosis, with a following selection of the healthy embryos, in favour of a fertile couple carrying a genetic disease, basing its decision on a constitutionally oriented interpretation of art. 13, co. 1, in the light of the parents’ right to be informed on the state of health of the embryos ex art. 14, co. 4. Such an aspect has been lately considered by a decision of the European Court of Human Rights, which stated that the prohibition, established by Italian law, of the assisted insemination of fertile couples carrying genetic diseases with the aim of submitting to preimplantation genetic diagnosis, contrasts with the right to the respect of a person’s own private and family life ex art. 8 ECHR, whereas the «interference» of State law in the exercise of such a right is disproportionate, with regard to the incoherence of the possibility, provided for by law 194/1978, of therapeutic abortion when the foetus, once the pregnancy has started, is affected by the disease carried by the couple (European Court of Human Rights, Sec. II, 28 August 2012, n. 54270/2010, Costa and Pavan vs. Italia)11. The Court of Rome, upon applicationex art. 700 of the civil procedure code by the same petitioners, after having disapplied art. 4 of law 40/2004, enforced the

11 See E. Dolcini, Legge, cit., p. 8 ff.; A.Vallini , Diagnosi preimpianto: respinta la richiesta di rinvio alla Gran Camera CEDU avanzata dal governo italiano nel caso Costa e Pavan contro Italia, in “Dir. pen. contemporaneo”, 18 febbraio 2013, p. 1 ff.; Id., Ardita la rotta o incerta la geografia? La disapplicazione della legge 40/2004 “in esecuzione” di un giudicato della Corte EDU in tema di diagnosi preimpianto, in “Dir. pen. contemporaneo”, 16 dicembre 2013, p. 1 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Canestrari 157 decision of the European Court, according to art. 46 ECHR, recognising the right of the couple to have access to assisted insemination to submit to preimplantation genetic diagnosis the obtained embryos (Trib. Roma, ord. 23 September 2013, in http://www.giurcost.org).

4. The protection of prenatal life Due to the progress of medical techniques in the field of care and management of the person at the beginning of human life, the power of disposing of the conceived child and the danger of harmful interventions in the prenatal phase has increased12. Indeed, the foetus now turns out to be more exposed and vulnerable and the affirmation of new rights and interests of the conceived child increases the complexity of the conflict with the mother and with the physician (gynaecologist and obstetrician). At the present state, the activity of the physician may represent a new threat to the integrity and health of the foetus, which, as a proper patient, has the right to be cured according to the best science and technique available. Current prenatal medicine started the process of making the foetus an autonomous subject, revealing the mechanisms of its development and highlighting its distinct subjectivity and its specific needs for protection. Facing the new and multiple phenomenologies of risk, the scanty regulation offered by law 194/1978 in protection of prenatal life appears to be insufficient. Indeed, the criminal offence of negligent abortion of the foetus does not cover the range of the potential forms of aggression of the foetus by the physician performing the activities of prenatal diagnosis and surgery. It must be pointed out that the emerging needs for (penal) protection of prenatal life concern the specific context of thewilful pregnancy13, as the protection of the embryo within the techniques of medically assisted procreation (that is to say, the protection of the in vitro embryo) falls under the specific regulation of the techniques of medically assisted procreation, while the protection of the future son within the interruption of pregnancy by the woman is entrusted to law 194/1978. In the prenatal phase the offences of injury and manslaughter do not apply, not even when the harmful typical event is realised after the birth, and the punishability of behaviours causing a mere harm to the physical integrity of the future child is 12 On the topic see K. Summerer, Le nuove frontiere della tutela penale della vita prenatale, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2003, p. 1245 ff.; L.Eusebi , La tutela penale, cit., p. 1053 ff.; F.Mantovani , Il c.d. diritto del feto a nascere sano (problemi medico-legali della diagnosi e trattamento del feto in utero), in “Riv. it. med. leg.”, 1980, p. 237 ff. Amongst the Spanish scholars, see C.M. Romeo Casabona, El derecho y la bioetica ante los limites de la vida humana, Madrid, 1994, p. 400. 13 For such an orientation see K. Summerer, Libertà della donna e tutela del nascituro. Il conflitto materno-fetale nella prospettiva del diritto penale, in S. Canestrari, G. Ferrando, C.M. Mazzoni, S. Rodotà, P. Zatti (eds.), Il governo del corpo, cit., p. 1623 ff., especially p. 1647 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

158 “Bio-penal law” and issues of beginning of human life excluded. Moreover, the positioning of the foetus in the body of the mother poses delicate questions on the determination of the requirements of lawfulness of the medical treatment, in particular with regard to the requirement of the informed consent and the general balance of the relevant interests. The need for an extension of the protection of the person, in the light of the evolution of medical science and prenatal technology, as well as of the new sensibility for prenatal life, prompts us to ask ourselves some questions on the modalities and the limitations of a legislative intervention in such a sector. Comparative reflection may bring to the elaboration of effective strategies of intervention and to reach a delicate balance between opposite values and interests. The attention falls on the solution adopted in the Spanish jurisdiction by the protection of the physical integrity of the foetus provided for by the Codigo penal of 1995 (artt. 157 and 158), on the penal dispositions protecting the foetus of some North-American legal orders, on the case law of common law Countries concerning the physician’s liability for the injuries caused to the foetus. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

“Biodiritto penale” e questioni di inizio vita

Stefano Canestrari

Sommario: 1. Considerazioni introduttive. − 2. Questioni di inizio vita e laicità del diritto penale. − 3. La disciplina della procreazione medicalmente assistita. − 4. La tutela penale della vita prenatale.

1. Considerazioni introduttive L’evoluzione delle conoscenze scientifiche ha aumentato in modo sensibile le aspettative di vita e di salute dell’uomo. Basti pensare ai notevoli risultati già raggiunti dalla biomedicina, quali la produzione di nuovi farmaci e vaccini; la predisposizione di strumenti diagnostici innovativi per le malattie genetiche e biotecnologie; la sperimentazione medica e quella farma- cologica; la medicina preventiva; la procreazione medicalmente assistita; la terapia prenatale del feto, ecc. Si tratta di questioni di grande interesse e attualità, poiché toccano alcune complesse tematiche di bioetica e “biodiritto”, intendendo con tali ultime espressioni le discipline che affrontano la riflessione etica e giuridica sui problemi legati al progresso della scienza e della tecnica soprattutto nell’area bio-medica. Come noto, i temi tradizionalmente affrontati da tali angolazioni riguardano la vita, la salute, la procreazione, la morte; e si comprende che essi siano terreno di confronto – talvolta aspro – tra visioni morali sensibilmente diverse. Nondimeno, tali ambiti non possono considerarsi uno “spazio libero dal diritto”, ossia settori, che proprio per la prevalente e assorbente dimensione etica, filosofica e religiosa, debbano aprioristicamente rimanere esenti da regolamentazione giuridica. È ben vero il contrario: con sempre maggiore insistenza si parla oggi dell’opportunità e finanche della necessità di una regolamentazione giuridica della bioetica di inizio e di fine vita, che si estenda al corredo punitivo più idoneo a presidiarne l’effettività. Naturalmente lo scenario che per questa via si dischiude impone il difficile compito di conciliare il programma di tutela con alcuni caratteri fondamentali del moderno diritto penale, primo tra tutti la “laicità” dell’intervento punitivo. Parimenti irrinunciabile risulta il complesso dei principi di garanzia caratteristici dell’intervento penalistico, tra cui spicca la File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

160 “Biodiritto penale” e questioni di inizio vita delimitazione della punizione ai soli casi in cui sussiste la necessità di salvaguardare autentici beni giuridici non altrimenti ed efficacemente tutelabili. Anche ove si ammetta l’intervento del diritto penale nella bioetica di inizio e di fine vita, è chiaro che esso non può abdicare ai principi costituzionali di legalità e di offensività e ai canoni politico-criminali della sus- sidiarietà e della frammentarietà, che mantengono il loro ruolo decisivo nell’attuazione del programma di tutela dei valori della persona umana. L’idea dell’intervento penale come extrema ratio conferma che l’utilizzo dello strumento penale è funzionale soltanto alla prevenzione di fatti che mettono gravemente a repentaglio la coesistenza sociale e non per sanzionare mere manifestazioni di immoralità o di contrasto con valori etici, religiosi o ideologici di una parte della società. Così, preso atto che l’embrione costituisce bene giuridico meritevole di tutela, resta comunque da stabilire se, nelle situazioni critiche in cui la sua salvaguardia confligge con altri interessi (si pensi alla salute della aspirante madre), non vi siano strumenti di controllo più efficaci di quello penale; o se l’adozione a tappeto di quest’ultimo (con incriminazione di ogni forma di offesa all’integrità dell’embrione) non induca concretamente effetti indesiderati (come l’aumento delle pratiche abortive quale conseguenza del divieto della diagnosi genetica preimpianto1) o addirittura criminogeni (come l’incremento delle pratiche abortive “clande- stine” laddove non è consentita l’interruzione volontaria della gravidanza). Non si potranno altresì incriminare neppure condotte lesive di principi o valori che non costituiscano reali oggettività giuridiche: la annosa questione della possibile tutela penale dell’embrione dipende così dal fatto che ad esso si riconosca o meno lo statuto di essere umano2, mentre deve assolutamente essere esclusa – ad esempio – la eventualità di una simile tutela per i gameti maschili e femminili, a prescindere dalla valenza morale attribuita al principio della generazione della vita3.

2. Questioni di inizio vita e laicità del diritto penale Tra i settori in cui più immediata e diretta sembra emergere la rilevanza giuridico-penale dell’idea di laicità4, spiccano attualmente i contesti intrinsecamente caratterizzati dal riferi-

1 Con riferimento alla diagnosi genetica preimpianto, le novità a livello normativo e i più recenti orientamenti giurisprudenziali e dottrinali saranno illustrati infra, par. 3. 2 Sul tema, da diversi angoli visuali, E. Dolcini, Embrione, pre-embrione, ootide: nodi interpretativi nella disciplina della procreazione medicalmente assistita, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2004, p. 459 ss.; L. Eusebi, Beni penalmente rilevanti e tecniche di procreazione, in L. Fioravanti (a cura di), La tutela penale della persona. Nuove frontiere, difficili equilibri, Milano, 2001, p. 46. 3 Cfr. S. Canestrari, Verso una disciplina penale delle tecniche di procreazione medicalmente assistita? Alla ricerca del bene giuridico tra valori ideali e opzioni ideologiche, in L. Fioravanti (a cura di), La tutela penale, cit., p. 61 ss. 4 Sul tema della laicità del diritto penale, v., di recente, S. Canestrari, Laicità e diritto penale nelle democrazie costituzionali, in E. Dolcini, C.E. Paliero (a cura di), Studi in onore di G. Marinucci, Milano, 2006, p. 121 ss.; G. Losappio, Bioetica e diritto penale. Le disposizioni penali del Testo Unico nelle proposte di legge sulle tecniche di procreazione assistita, in “Ind. pen.”, 1999, p. 610 ss.; M.B. Magro, Etica laica e tutela della vita umana: riflessioni sul principio di laicità in diritto penale, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1994, passim; M. Romano, Principio di laicità dello Stato, religioni, norme penali, in “Riv. it., dir. proc. pen.”, 2007, p. 493 ss.; S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni, Documento introduttivo, in S. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Canestrari 161 mento ad assetti precomprensivi di stampo etico e a concezioni “ontologiche” sull’uomo e sulla vita (aborto, procreazione medicalmente assistita, manipolazioni genetiche). Le decisioni dell’ordinamento giuridico riguardano in questo caso ambiti a forte caratterizzazione etica e situazioni dipendenti da visioni generali nei confronti della vita umana – in particolare del suo inizio – sollevando tematiche complesse, che in questa sede possono essere affrontate soltanto in parte. Il presupposto da cui si deve muovere è che di fronte a tali tormentate questioni l’ordinamento prende comunque una decisione, fosse pure quella di “non decidere”. Ed invero, una politica “astensionistica” implica la legittimazione di una prassi, quantomeno sulla base del principio liberale per cui tutto ciò che non è espressamente vietato deve considerarsi lecito. Preso atto che diritto “laico” non è sinonimo di diritto avalutativo – anche la avulatatività comporta un’opzione, in quanto legittimazione di prassi – si deve effettuare una puntualizza- zione di fondamentale importanza. Occorre sottolineare che il diritto, in quanto “laico”, deve comunque avvertire l’esigenza di garantire al massimo il pluralismo. In questa prospettiva, ad esempio, non si deve presidiare con sanzioni giuridiche il valore della sessualità o quello della procreazione. Dunque non può essere condivisa la scelta di prevedere un divieto assoluto delle tecniche eterologhe di fecondazione assistita – la cui violazione comporta l’applicazione di aspre sanzioni afflittive (di natura amministrativa, ma “sostanzialmente” penale) – orientato ad affermare il valore ideale della naturalità della procreazione. Una concezione autenticamente laica deve orientarsi alla individuazione e all’apprezzamento di tutti gli interessi reali in gioco: senza delegittimarne aprioristicamente nessuno. Così, con riguardo ancora alla procreazione medicalmente assistita: il diritto di autodeterminazione della madre (rectius, di entrambi i genitori), nonché il rispetto della sua integrità psi- cofisica; la tutela dell’embrione e i diritti del nascituro (ad es., a “godere” della doppia figura genitoriale); la tutela del genoma umano e, al contempo, della libertà di ricerca. Il diritto penale come extrema ratio conferma che si tratta comunque di un apprezzamen- to selettivo, ossia orientato sulla base di criteri razionali offerti dalle indicazioni ricavabili dai principi costituzionali.

Canestrari, L. Stortoni (a cura di), Valori e secolarizzazione nel diritto penale, Bologna, 2009, p. 7 ss.; S. Canestrari, F. Faenza, Paternalismo penale e libertà individuale: incerti equilibri e nuove prospettive nella tutela della persona, in A. Cadoppi (a cura di), Laicità, valori e diritto penale. The moral limits of the Criminal Law. In ricordo di Joel Feinberg, Milano, 2010, p. 167 ss.; D. Pulitanò, Problema penale e problemi della laicità, in S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni (a cura di), Valori, cit., p. 179 ss.; L. Ferrajoli, Stato laico ed etica laica. Laicità e diritto penale, in S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni (a cura di), Valori, cit., p. 121 ss.; G. Fiandaca, Considerazioni intorno a bioetica e diritto penale, tra laicità e ‘post-secolarismo’, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen”., 2007, p. 546 ss.; Id., I temi eticamente sensibili tra ragione pubblica e ragione punitiva, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2011, p. 1383 ss.; Id., Punire la semplice immoralità? Un vecchio interrogativo che tende a riproporsi, in A. Cadoppi (a cura di), Laicità, cit., p. 207 ss.; E. Dolcini, Laicità, ‘sana laicità’ e diritto penale. La Chiesa cattolica maestra (anche) di laicità?, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2009, p. 1017 ss.; A. Cadoppi, Liberalismo, paternalismo e diritto penale, in S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni (a cura di), Valori, cit., 283 ss.; A. Cadoppi, Presentazione. Principio del danno (harm principle) e limiti del diritto penale, in A. Cadoppi (a cura di), Laicità, cit., VII ss.; G. Forti, Alla ricerca di un luogo per la laicità: il “potenziale di verità” nelle democrazie liberali, in S. Canestrari, L. Stortoni (a cura di), Valori, cit., p. 349 ss.; A. Barbera, Il cammino della laicità, in S. Canestrari (a cura di), Laicità e diritto, Bologna, 2007, p. 33 ss.; L. Risicato, Dal “diritto di vivere” al “diritto di morire”. Riflessioni sul ruolo della laicità nell’esperienza penalistica, Torino, 2008, passim. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

162 “Biodiritto penale” e questioni di inizio vita

In riferimento alle prospettive, in gran parte futuribili, delle manipolazioni genetiche, va esclusa, sul piano dei più fondamentali principi di rispetto della dignità umana, la liceità della clonazione riproduttiva degli esseri umani5. È necessario inoltre operare un contemperamento del maggiore numero di interessi possibili, con peculiare attenzione alla protezione degli interessi dei soggetti più deboli: ritenia- mo che debba valere il criterio generale per cui la tutela giuridica più ampia va apprezzata per chi non è in grado di proteggersi da sé. In conclusione, un diritto correttamente ispirato all’idea della laicità deve assumere decisioni orientate a garantire comunque la libertà dei consociati e la simmetria delle loro reci- proche posizioni e relazioni. E cercare di compensare le decisioni dolorose che sacrificano un interesse con altri strumenti offerti dalla realtà sociale: così, la necessaria rimessione alla libera scelta della donna della decisione di interrompere in determinate circostanze la gravidanza deve essere affiancata dall’approntamento di risorse (economiche, umane, professionali, strutturali, ecc.) che permettano alla donna una scelta realmente libera di fronte a diverse possibilità6. Un’ultima osservazione: una visione realmente laica impone di ritenere inconsistente qualsiasi concezione che si schermi dietro a “etichette” o schemi precostituiti, il cui richiamo privo di argomentazione suona di solito come una excusatio non petita. In questa prospettiva, non ci può essere un diritto (“biodiritto”) laico contrapposto ad uno cattolico: il diritto può essere soltanto un insieme di regole comuni finalizzate alla coesistenza sociale, che tengano seriamente conto, ad esempio, delle prerogative del modello della indisponibilità della vita e di quello della qualità della vita; della prospettiva liberale avalutativa dell’intangibilità delle scelte individuali e di quella etica della salvaguardia delle esigenze di giustizia soprattutto a favore dei più deboli, per selezionare e cristallizzare la base minima di aequitas secondo ap- prossimazioni il più possibile adeguate alla realtà sociale.

3. La disciplina della procreazione medicalmente assistita La legge in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita (legge 19 febbraio 2004, n. 40) doveva soddisfare due esigenze di fondamentale importanza: garantire compiutamente la salute della donna e fornire un’adeguata protezione all’embrione umano. Il raggiungimento di entrambi gli obiettivi non era agevole; si doveva cercare di contemperare istanze contrap-

5 In argomento cfr. J. Habermas, Il futuro della natura umana. I rischi di una genetica liberale, a cura di L. Ceppa, Torino, 2001, p. 57 ss., p. 82 ss., laddove osserva che deve essere vietato il tentativo di determinare a propria discrezione un altro uomo nella sua costituzione naturale. 6 Sulle questioni sollevate dall’aborto cfr., tra i penalisti, M. Romano, F. Stella, Aborto e legge penale. Riflessioni e proposte, Milano, 1975, p. 39 ss.; L. Eusebi, La tutela penale della vita prenatale, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1988, p. 1098 ss.; M. Zanchetti, La legge sull’interruzione della gravidanza, Padova, 1992, p. 50 ss. Più di recente, C. Cassani, Legge 22 maggio 1978, n. 194. Norme per la tutela sociale della maternità e sull’interruzione volontaria della gravidanza, in S. Canestrari (a cura di), I reati contro la vita e l’incolumità individuale, in I grandi temi, Trattato diretto da A. Cadoppi, S. Canestrari, M. Papa, I reati contro la persona, I, Torino, 2006, p. 154 ss.; C. Cassani, voce Aborto, in A. Cadoppi, S. Canestrari, P. Veneziani (a cura di), Codice penale commentato con dottrina e giurisprudenza, Piacenza, 2011, p. 2945 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Canestrari 163 poste, senza adottare soluzioni meramente compromissorie fondate su espedienti o finzioni7. L’attuale disciplina legislativa riconosce che l’embrione è un valore meritevole di tutela, come si desume dalla nostra Costituzione, dalla giurisprudenza costituzionale, dalle leggi vigenti, dai documenti internazionali e delle Istituzioni Europee. Tale consapevolezza ha condotto all’introduzione di numerose figure di reato, che possono essere suddivise in due gruppi. Il primo comprende fattispecie incriminatrici poste a presidio di principi “ampiamente” condivisi, espressione di valori fortemente radicati anche nel contesto delle attuali società plu- ralistiche. Il secondo è composto da illeciti penali che, allo scopo di salvaguardare l’integrità dell’embrione umano, interferiscono mediante vincoli e divieti intransigenti nell’applicazione delle principali metodiche o procedure di procreazione medicalmente assistita.

7 Sulla attuale disciplina si veda, da prospettive diverse, E. Dolcini, Embrione, cit., p. 440 ss.; F. Mantovani, Procreazione medicalmente assistita e principio personalistico, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 326 ss.; G. Fiandaca, Scelte di tutela in materia di fecondazione assistita e democrazia laica, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 339 ss.; A. Manna, La tutela penale della vita in fieri, tra funzione promozionale e protezione di beni giuridici, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 245 ss.; L. Eusebi, La vita individuale precoce: soltanto materiale biologico?, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 457 ss., S. Canestrari, Commento alla legge 40/2004, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2004, p. 416 ss.; L. Risicato, Lo statuto punitivo della procreazione tra limiti perduranti ed esigenze di riforma, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2005, p. 674 ss.; E. Dolcini, La legge sulla procreazione assistita: quali prospettive dopo il referendum del 2005?, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2006, p. 103 ss.; F. Consorte, La procreazione medicalmente assistita: legge 19.2.2004, n. 40, in S. Canestrari (a cura di), I reati contro la vita, cit., p. 215 ss.; E. Dolcini, Fecondazione assistita e diritto penale, Milano, 2008; S. Canestrari, F. Faenza, Il principio di ragionevolezza nella regolamentazione biogiuridica: la prospettiva del diritto penale, in “Criminalia”, 2008, p. 88 ss.; E. Dolcini, Responsabilità del medico e reati in materia di procreazione assistita. Ambiguità e rigori della legge n. 40 del 2004, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2009, p. 27 ss.; E. Dolcini, Embrioni nel numero “strettamente necessario”: il bisturi della Corte Costituzionale sulla legge n. 40 del 2004, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2009, p. 950 ss.; C. Cassani, La diagnosi genetica preimpianto e la sua rilevanza penale, in “Ind. pen.”, 2009, p. 7 ss.; C. Cassani, Artt. 12-14, in Procreazione medicalmente assistita. Legge 19 febbraio 2004, n. 40. Norme in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita, in M. Balestra, S. Canestrari, G.F. Ricci (a cura di), Leggi collegate, in M. Sesta (a cura di), Codice della famiglia. Tomo II. Leggi collegate, Milano, 20092, p. 3716 ss.; E. Dolcini, La procreazione medicalmente assistita: profili penalistici, in S. Canestrari, G. Ferrando, C.M. Mazzoni, S. Rodotà, P. Zatti (a cura di), Il governo del corpo. Tomo I, in Trattato di biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Milano, 2011, p. 1537 ss.; E. Dolcini, La lunga marcia della fecondazione assistita. La legge 40/2004 tra Corte Costituzionale, Corte EDU e giudice ordinario, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2011, p. 428 ss.; A. Vallini, La diagnosi genetica preimpianto: da illecito penale a questione deontologica. Eterogenesi dei fini di un legislatore irragionevole, in “Riv. it. med. leg.”, 2011, p. 1405 ss.; C. Cassani, La diagnosi genetica preimpianto: profili penali e risvolti applicativi, in G. Balbi, A. Esposito (a cura di), Laicità, valori e diritto penale. Atti del Convegno. Santa Maria Capua Vetere, 6 febbraio 2009, Torino, 2011, p. 79 ss.; F. Consorte, L. 19 febbraio 2004, n. 40. Norme in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita, in A. Cadoppi, S. Canestrari, P. Veneziani (a cura di), Codice penale commentato, cit., p. 2981 ss.; F. Consorte, La disciplina della procreazione medicalmente assistita (L. 19-2-2004, n. 40) § 1 - La disciplina della procreazione medicalmente assistita, in I delitti contro la vita e l’incolumità personale, in Trattato di diritto penale diretto da A. Cadoppi, S. Canestrari, A. Manna, M. Papa, Parte speciale, VII, Torino, 2011, p. 623 ss.; A. Vallini, Illecito concepimento e valore del concepito. Statuto punitivo della procreazione, principi, prassi, Torino, 2012, passim; G. Fiandaca, E. Musco, Diritto penale. Parte speciale, II, tomo I, I delitti contro la persona, Bologna, 20135, p. 51 ss.; E. Dolcini, Legge sulla procreazione assistita e laicità dello Stato: da sempre, un rapporto difficile, in “Dir. pen. contemporaneo”, 27 novembre 2013, p. 1 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

164 “Biodiritto penale” e questioni di inizio vita

Un primo gruppo di disposizioni mira a vietare condotte che non sono compatibili con il riconoscimento della natura umana dell’embrione e che offendono il bene giuridico dell’ir- ripetibilità del genoma umano. Tra le altre: a) L’art. 12, comma 6, punisce con la reclusione da tre mesi a due anni e con la multa da 600.000 a un milione di euro «chiunque, in qualsiasi forma, realizza, organizza o pubblicizza la commercializzazione di gameti o di embrioni». b) L’art. 12, co. 7, punisce «chiunque realizza un processo volto ad ottenere un essere umano discendente da un’unica cellula di partenza, eventualmente identico quanto al patrimonio genetico nucleare, ad un altro essere umano in vita o morto» con la reclusione da dieci a venti anni e con la multa da 600.000 a un milione di euro. La norma prevede, altresì, che il medico sia punito con l’interdizione perpetua dall’e- sercizio della professione. c) L’art. 13, co. 1, vieta qualsiasi sperimentazione sugli embrioni. d) L’art. 13, co. 2, consente la ricerca clinica e sperimentale su ciascun embrione umano soltanto a condizione che si perseguano finalità esclusivamente terapeutiche e diagnostiche ad essa collegate volte alla tutela della salute e allo sviluppo dell’embrione stesso, e qualora non siano disponibili metodologie alternative. e) L’art. 13, co. 3, lett. a) commina una pena di particolare rigore nei confronti di chi produce «embrioni umani a fine di ricerca o di sperimentazione o comunque a fini diversi da quello previsto dalla presente legge» (è aumentata fino a un terzo la pena della reclusione da due a sei anni e della multa da 50.000 a 150.000 euro). f) L’art. 13, co. 3, sanziona inoltre «ogni forma di selezione a scopo eugenetico degli embrioni e dei gameti ovvero interventi che attraverso tecniche di selezione, di manipolazione o comunque tramite procedimenti artificiali, siano diretti ad alterare il patrimonio genetico dell’embrione o del gamete ovvero a predeterminarne le caratteristiche genetiche, ad eccezione degli interventi aventi finalità diagnostiche e terapeutiche, di cui al comma 2 del presente articolo» (lett. b); «interventi di clonazione mediante trasferimento di nucleo o di scissione precoce dell’embrione o di ectogenesi sia a fini procreativi sia di ricerca» (lett. c) e la «fecondazione di un gamete umano con un gamete di specie diversa e la produzione di ibridi o di chimere» (lett. d), e la pena della reclusione da due a sei anni e della multa da 50.000 a 150.000 euro è aumentata fino a un terzo. Con il secondo gruppo di disposizioni, il legislatore intende risolvere la delicata questione degli embrioni soprannumerari. a) Il primo comma dell’art. 14 prevede il divieto di soppressione degli embrioni e della pratica della crioconservazione degli stessi. b) Di conseguenza, il secondo comma dell’art. 14 stabilisce che «le tecniche di produzione degli embrioni, tenuto conto dell’evoluzione tecnico-scientifica e di quanto previsto dall’art. 7, comma 3, non devono creare un numero di embrioni superiore a quello strettamente necessario ad un unico e contemporaneo impianto, comunque non superiore a tre», prevedendo la sanzione – di notevole asprezza – della reclusione fino a tre anni e della multa da 50.000 a 150.000 euro. Come vedremo tra poco, la Corte costituzionale ha dichiarato la parziale illegittimità costituzionale dei commi 2 e 3 dell’art. 14. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Canestrari 165

c) Lo stesso art. 14 prevede al comma 4 il divieto di «riduzione embrionaria di gravidanze plurime, salvo nei casi previsti dalla legge 22 maggio 1978, n. 194». I divieti intransigenti introdotti da questo secondo gruppo di fattispecie incriminatrici sono posti esclusivamente per salvaguardare l’embrione. Al bene (di rango superiore) della salute della donna non viene offerta una tutela adeguata, in quanto il legislatore impone al sanitario l’obbligo di adottare metodologie diverse da quelle che la scienza medica ritiene ottimali per rimediare allo stato di infertilità, con l’effetto di rendere meno sicuro il trattamento e di diminuirne le percentuali di successo. Da un lato, infatti, aumenterà il fenomeno delle gravidanze multiple, che espone la donna a seri pericoli di complicanze e il nascituro a un maggior rischio di mortalità perinatale per immaturità (sul problema della liceità della riduzione embrionaria di gravidanza multipla conseguente ad un intervento di procreazione medicalmente assistita, si è pronunciato il Tribunale di Cagliari con decreto 5.06.2004 e con ordinanza 29.06.2004); dall’altro, nella maggior parte dei casi sarà necessario procedere a più cicli di trattamento per ottenere le attuali percentuali di gravidanze. In particolare, il divieto perentorio di «ogni forma di selezione a scopo eugenetico degli embrioni e dei gameti», previsto dall’art. 13, co. 3, lett. b), sembrerebbe vanificare il ricorso alla diagnosi genetica preimpianto anche nei confronti di coppie portatrici di malattie genetiche, trasmissibili al concepito, con problemi di fertilità. Invero, la diagnosi preimpianto può essere effettuata esclusivamente nei casi in cui si perseguono finalità terapeutiche «volte alla tutela della salute e allo sviluppo dell’embrione stesso, e qualora non siano disponibili metodologie alternative» (art. 13, comma 2)8. Nell’ambito delle «Linee guida contenenti le indicazioni delle procedure e delle tecniche di procreazione medicalmente assistita», emanate successivamente dal Ministro della Salute con D.M. 21 luglio 2004, si precisava peraltro (sub art. 13) che «ogni indagine relativa allo stato di salute degli embrioni creati in vitro, ai sensi dell’articolo 14, comma 5, dovrà essere di tipo osservazionale» e che «qualora dall’indagine vengano evidenziate gravi anomalie irreversibili dello sviluppo di un embrione, il medico responsabile della struttura ne informa la coppia ai sensi dell’art. 14, co. 5. Ove in tal caso il trasferimento dell’embrione, non coercibile, non risulti attuato, la coltura in vitro del medesimo deve essere mantenuta fino al suo estinguersi». Inoltre, con riferimento all’art. 14, co. 3 della legge, si stabilisce che «qualora il trasferimento nell’utero degli embrioni non risulti possibile per cause di forza maggiore relative allo stato di salute della donna non prevedibili al momento della fecondazione e, comunque, un trasferimento non risulti attuato, ciascun embrione non trasferito dovrà essere crioconservato in attesa dell’impianto che dovrà avvenire prima possibile». Sul punto sono ritornate le nuove Linee guida in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita emanate dal Ministro della Salute con D.M. 11 aprile 2008, in cui, ribadito il divieto di diagnosi preimpianto a finalità eugenetica (sub art. 13), si stabilisce che «qualora il trasferimento nell’utero degli embrioni non risulti possibile per cause di forza maggiore relative allo stato di salute della donna non prevedibili al momento della fecondazione e, comunque, un trasferimento non risulti attuato, ciascun embrione non trasferito dovrà essere crioconservato in attesa dell’impianto che dovrà avvenire prima possibile. Qualsiasi embrione che non sia trasferito in utero verrà congelato con onere a carico del centro di procreazione medicalmente

8 In merito, v. S. Canestrari, Commento, cit., p. 416; E. Dolcini, Responsabilità, cit., p. 31. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

166 “Biodiritto penale” e questioni di inizio vita assistita in attesa del futuro impianto». Numerosi sono i casi di coppie portatrici sane di malattie genetiche (soprattutto beta- talassemia) che, di fronte al rifiuto di un centro medico di procedere al trasferimento dei soli embrioni risultati sani all’esito della diagnosi preimpianto – rifiuto fondato sull’art. 14, co. 2, della legge 40/2004, che impone il contemporaneo trasferimento di tutti gli embrioni prodotti – si sono rivolte al Tribunale (ai sensi dell’art. 700 c.p.c.) al fine di vedere riconosciuto il diritto di procedere alla diagnosi preimpianto e di ottenere il trasferimento dei soli embrioni sani. Si ricorda il caso del Tribunale di Catania (ord. 3 maggio 2004, in “DFP”, 2005, 75), che ha respinto la richiesta dei coniugi e dichiarato infondata la questione di legittimità dell’art. 14, co. 2, della legge, affermando che la disposizione non viola i diritti fondamentali della persona, ma tutela la vita, contemperando tutti i valori coinvolti (artt. 2, 3 e 32 Cost.). Un diverso indirizzo è stato seguito da alcune pronunce successive relative a casi analoghi: il Tribunale di Cagliari (ord. 16 luglio 2005, in “Foro it.”, 2005, I, 2876) ha infatti riconosciuto il diritto ad ottenere la diagnosi preimpianto dell’embrione già formato ed ha sollevato questione di legittimità costituzionale dell’art. 13 della legge 19 febbraio 2004, n. 40 in riferimento agli artt. 2, 3 e 32 Cost. (questione dichiarata manifestamente inammissi- bile da Corte cost., ord. 369/2006, considerata la “evidente contraddizione” in cui è incorso il Tribunale nel sollevare una questione volta alla dichiarazione di illegittimità costituzionale di una specifica disposizione che sarebbe desumibile anche da altri articoli della stessa legge, non impugnati, nonché dall’interpretazione dell’intero testo legislativo alla luce dei suoi criteri ispiratori). Il Tribunale di Cagliari (sent. 22 settembre 2007, in “Foro it.”, 2007, I, 3245), accertato il diritto della donna di ottenere la diagnosi preimpianto, ha condannato l’Azienda ospedaliera e il medico ad eseguire l’accertamento diagnostico sull’embrione destinato ad essere trasferito nell’utero, al fine di poter accertare lo stato di salute dell’embrione stesso. In questo caso, il giudice ha stabilito che «allo stesso modo in cui per la legge sull’aborto non è consentita l’interruzione della gravidanza a fini eugenetici, rilevando lo stato di salute del feto non di per sé ma solo quale causa del verificarsi di uno stato patologico della gestante, allo stesso modo nella legge n. 40 del 2004 è vietata la selezione degli embrioni a scopo eugenetico; ma negli stessi termini in cui è consentita dalla legge n. 194/78 l’interruzione della gravidanza per la tutela della salute della gestante, allo stesso modo la donna potrà legittimamente rifiutare l’impianto dell’embrione prodotto in vitro allorquando la conoscenza dell’esistenza di gravi malattie genetiche o cromosomiche nell’embrione medesimo abbiano determinato in lei una patologia tale per cui procedere ugualmente all’impianto sarebbe di grave nocumento per la sua salute fisica o psichica. In questo caso, infatti, non si tratterebbe di pratica eugenetica, certamente vietata ai sensi dell’art. 13, ma di impossibilità di procedere all’impianto per “grave e documentata causa di forza maggiore relativa allo stato di salute della donna non prevedibile al momento della fecondazione” che ai sensi dell’art. 14 terzo comma legittima espressamente la crioconservazione dell’embrione sino a quando (e se) l’impedimento all’impianto venga meno». Infine, il Tribunale di Firenze (ord. 17 dicembre 2007, in “Foro it.”, 2008, I, 627) ha accolto il ricorso ex art. 700 c.p.c. e riconosciuto il diritto dei ricorrenti a trasferire e impiantare gli embrioni creati che non presentano in forma conclamata la patologia genetica di cui sono portatori i genitori. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Canestrari 167

Questioni di legittimità costituzionale, già evidenziate dalla dottrina9 sono state sollevate altresì dal Tar Lazio (sent., sez. III quater, 21 gennaio 2008, n. 398, in “Foro it.”, 2008, III, 207), che ha annullato le criticate disposizioni delle linee guida, approvate con d.m. 21 luglio 2004, e rilevato la incostituzionalità dell’art. 14, co. 2 e 3, della legge, in riferimento agli artt. 3 e 32 Cost., nella parte in cui prevede, ai fini dell’applicazione della procedura della procreazione medicalmente assistita, la formazione di un numero limitato di embrioni, fino ad un massimo di tre, da impiantare contestualmente, e vieta la crioconservazione di embrioni al di fuori delle ipotesi ivi previste; dal Tribunale di Firenze (ord. 12 luglio 2008) rispetto all’art. 14, co. 1 e 2, della legge n. 40/2004, per contrasto, quanto ai commi primo e secondo dell’art. 14 cit., con gli artt. 3 e 32, co. 1 e 2, Cost. e dell’art. 6, co. 3, ultima parte, della legge n. 40/2004, per contrasto con l’art. 32, co. 2, Cost., nella parte in cui impongono il divieto di crioconservazione degli embrioni soprannumerari, la necessarietà della creazione di massimo tre embrioni, nonché l’obbligo di un unico e contemporaneo trasferimento di embrioni comunque non superiori a tre, e laddove prevedono la irrevocabilità del consenso da parte della donna al trasferimento in utero degli embrioni creati; dal Tribunale di Firenze (ord. 26 agosto 2008) rispetto all’art. 14, co. 4, della legge n. 40 del 2004, per contrasto con gli artt. 2, 3, 13 e 32 della Costituzione. La Corte costituzionale, investita delle questioni, ha dichiarato l’illegittimità dell’art. 14, commi 2 e 3, della legge 40/2004 (sent. 8 maggio 2009, n. 151), limitatamente alle parole «ad un unico e contemporaneo impianto, comunque non superiore a tre» e nella parte in cui non prevede che il trasferimento degli embrioni, da realizzare non appena possibile, come previsto in tale norma, debba essere effettuato senza pregiudizio della salute della donna. La Corte ha ritenuto che «la previsione della creazione di un numero di embrioni non superiore a tre, in assenza di ogni considerazione delle condizioni soggettive della donna che di volta in volta si sottopone alla procedura di procreazione medicalmente assistita, si pone, in definitiva, in contrasto con l’art. 3 Cost., riguardato sotto il duplice profilo del principio di ragionevolezza e di quello di uguaglianza, in quanto il legislatore riserva il medesimo trattamento a situazioni dissimili; nonché con l’art. 32 Cost., per il pregiudizio alla salute della donna, ed eventualmente, come si è visto, del feto ad esso connesso». L’illegittimità dell’art. 14, co. 2, comporta altresì una deroga al principio generale di divieto di crioconservazione di cui al comma 1 dell’art. 14, posto che si determina la necessità del ricorso alla tecnica di congelamento con riguardo agli embrioni prodotti ma non trasferiti per scelta medica. In seguito alla sentenza della Corte Costituzionale, la giurisprudenza di merito (v. Trib. Bologna, sez. I, ord. 16 giugno 2009 - 17 giugno 2009, Giudice Dott.ssa Borgo, inedita; Trib. Bologna, sez. I, ord. 29 giugno 2009, in DeJure; Trib. Cagliari, ord. 9 novembre 2012, n. 5925, in “Dir. pen. contemporaneo”, 10 dicembre 2012; Trib. Roma, ord. 23 settembre 2013, in http://www.giurcost.org) si è ulteriormente espressa nel senso della liceità penale della diagnosi genetica preimpianto, consentendo altresì che dalle tecniche di fecondazione assistita si possa ottenere un numero di embrioni commisurato alle condizioni fisiche della coppia, nel rispetto della valutazione medica in merito alla quantificazione del «numero ...

9 Si vedano S. Canestrari, F. Faenza, Il principio di ragionevolezza, cit., p. 88 ss.; L. Risicato, Lo statuto, cit., p. 676 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

168 “Biodiritto penale” e questioni di inizio vita strettamente necessario», ex art. 14, co. 2 (v. Trib. Bologna, sez. I, ord. 16 giugno 2009 - 17 giugno 2009, Giudice Dott.ssa Borgo, cit.; Trib. Bologna, sez. I, ord. 29 giugno 2009, cit.). Restano escluse dall’applicazione della legge 40/2004, ai sensi dell’art. 4, le coppie fertili portatrici di malattie genetiche trasmissibili ai figli. Una recente e isolata pronuncia (Trib. Salerno, ord. 9 gennaio 2010, in “Fam. dir.”, 2010, 476 ss.), invece, ha accolto un ricorso finalizzato ad accedere alla diagnosi genetica preimpianto, con successiva selezione degli embrioni sani, in favore di una coppia fertile, portatrice di una malattia genetica, sulla base di un’interpretazione costituzionalmente orientata dell’art. 13, co. 1, alla luce del diritto dei genitori di essere informati sullo stato di salute degli embrioni ex art. 14, co. 5. Tale profilo è stato successivamente oggetto di una sentenza della Corte Europea dei Diritti dell’Uomo, che ha affermato che il divieto, previsto dalla legge italiana, di accedere alla fecondazione assistita da parte di coppie fertili portatrici di malattie genetiche al fine di sottoporsi alla diagnosi genetica preimpianto, è in contrasto con il «diritto al rispetto della propria vita privata e familiare» ex art. 8 CEDU, in quanto la “ingerenza” della legge statale nell’esercizio di tale diritto è sproporzionata, in ragione dell’incoerenza della possibilità, prevista dalla legge 194/1978, di ricorrere all’aborto terapeutico, nel caso in cui, a gravidanza iniziata, il feto sia affetto dalla malattia di cui la coppia è portatrice (Corte Europea dei Diritti dell’Uomo, sez. II, 28 agosto 2012, n. 54270/2010, Costa e Pavan c. Italia)10. Il Tribunale di Roma, adito dai medesimi ricorrenti ex art. 700 c.p.c., ha dato esecuzione alla pronuncia della Corte Europea ai sensi dell’art. 46 CEDU, previa disapplicazione dell’art. 4 l. 40/2004, riconoscendo alla coppia il diritto di accedere alla fecondazione assistita per sottoporre a diagnosi genetica preimpianto gli embrioni eventualmente ottenuti (Trib. Roma, ord. 23 settembre 2013, in http://www.giurcost.org).

4. La tutela penale della vita prenatale Con l’avanzamento delle tecniche mediche nell’ambito della cura e gestione della persona all’inizio della vita umana cresce il potere di disposizione sul concepito e il pericolo di interventi lesivi in fase prenatale11. Il feto, infatti, risulta maggiormente esposto e vulnerabile e l’affermazione dei nuovi diritti e interessi del concepito incrementa la complessità del conflitto con la madre e con il medico (ginecologo o ostetrico). Allo stato attuale, l’attività del medico può costituire una nuova minaccia per l’integrità e la salute del feto, che, quale vero e proprio paziente, ha il diritto di essere curato secondo la miglior scienza e tecnica disponibile.

10 In dottrina v. E. Dolcini, Legge, cit., p. 8 ss.; A. Vallini, Diagnosi preimpianto: respinta la richiesta di rinvio alla Gran Camera CEDU avanzata dal governo italiano nel caso Costa e Pavan contro Italia, in “Dir. pen. contemporaneo”, 18 febbraio 2013, p. 1 ss.; Id., Ardita la rotta o incerta la geografia? La disapplicazione della legge 40/2004 “in esecuzione” di un giudicato della Corte EDU in tema di diagnosi preimpianto, in “Dir. pen. contemporaneo”, 16 dicembre 2013, p. 1 ss. 11 In argomento, v. K. Summerer, Le nuove frontiere della tutela penale della vita prenatale, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2003, p. 1245 ss.; L. Eusebi, La tutela penale, cit., p. 1053 ss.; F. Mantovani, Il c.d. diritto del feto a nascere sano (problemi medico-legali della diagnosi e trattamento del feto in utero), in “Riv. it. med. leg.”, 1980, p. 237 ss. Nella letteratura spagnola, v. C.M. Romeo Casabona, El derecho y la bioetica ante los limites de la vida humana, Madrid, 1994, p. 400. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Canestrari 169

La moderna medicina prenatale ha avviato il processo di autonomizzazione del feto, rivelando i meccanismi del suo sviluppo ed evidenziando la sua distinta soggettività e le sue specifiche esigenze di tutela. A fronte delle nuove e molteplici fenomenologie di rischio, la scarna disciplina predisposta dalla legge 194/1978 a tutela della vita prenatale non può che apparire insufficiente. La previsione della fattispecie di aborto colposo del feto non copre, infatti, la gamma delle potenziali forme di aggressione del feto da parte del medico nello svolgimento delle attività di diagnosi e chirurgia prenatale. Va sottolineato che le emergenti esigenze di tutela (penale) della vita prenatale riguardano lo specifico contesto della gravidanza voluta12, posto che la tutela dell’embrione nell’ambito delle tecniche di procreazione medicalmente assistita (ovvero la tutela dell’embrione in vitro) rientra nella disciplina specifica delle tecniche di procreazione medicalmente assistita, mentre la tutela del nascituro nell’ambito della interruzione della gravidanza da parte della donna è affidata alla legge 194/1978. In fase prenatale non solo non trovano applicazione le fattispecie di lesioni e di omicidio, neppure nell’ipotesi in cui l’evento lesivo tipico si manifesti successivamente alla nascita, ma è esclusa persino la punibilità di condotte che comportino una mera lesione dell’integrità fisica del nascituro. Inoltre, la collocazione del feto nel corpo della madre pone delicati interrogativi in ordine alla determinazione dei presupposti di liceità del trattamento medico, in particolare con riferimento al requisito del consenso informato e del complessivo bilanciamento degli interessi in gioco. L’esigenza di un’estensione della tutela della persona, alla luce dell’evoluzione della medicina e della tecnologia prenatale, nonché della nuova sensibilità nei confronti della vita prenatale, induce ad interrogarsi sulle modalità e sui limiti di un intervento legislativo in questo settore. La riflessione comparatistica può condurre all’elaborazione di efficaci strategie di intervento ed al raggiungimento di un delicato equilibrio tra valori e interessi contrapposti. L’attenzione è rivolta alla soluzione adottata nell’ordinamento spagnolo attraverso la tutela dell’integrità fisica del feto predisposta dalCodigo penal del 1995 (artt. 157 e 158), alle disposizioni penali previste in alcuni ordinamenti nordamericani a tutela del feto, agli orientamenti giurisprudenziali dei Paesi di common law in tema di responsabilità del medico per le lesioni cagionate al feto.

12 Per questa impostazione, v. K. Summerer, Libertà della donna e tutela del nascituro. Il conflitto materno-fetale nella prospettiva del diritto penale, in S. Canestrari, G. Ferrando, C.M. Mazzoni, S. Rodotà, P. Zatti (a cura di), Il governo del corpo, cit., p. 1623 ss., in partic. p. 1647 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character and the so-called criminal paternalism1

Adelmo Manna

Table of contents: 1. Characteristics of heterologous fertilization and the legal nature of the sanction system. – 2. Searching the protected legal right. – 3. The legitimacy of the law n. 40 can not be of religious nature. − 4. Critique of the alleged legal rights in contrast with the principle of secularism. − 5. The Law no. 40 as an expression of the so-called “criminal paternalism”. – 6. The criminal paternalism in the light of the principle of secularism and of a liberal criminal law. – 7. The case-law and the first statements of the European Court of Human Rights. – 8. Statement of the Constitutional Court on the prohibition of implanting more than three embryos in the woman’s body. − 9. The case-law aiming to pass over the prohibition of pre-implanting diagnosis. – 10. The judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights that would legitimize the choices of the Italian legislator. – 11. The “defensive” attitude of the Constitutional Court. – 12. New warrants referred to the Constitutional Court. – 13. The “Gospel” of a jurist: the Constitutional Charter.

1. Characteristics of heterologous fertilization and the legal nature of the sanction system As far as the relationship between law and bioethics is concerned, heterologous fertilization must be pointed out for the importance of the topic and its possible consequences, as regulated by the law no. 40 of 2004 “rules on medically assisted procreation”2. Medically assisted procreation of heterologous character involving

1 Revised and corrected text with the addition of the notes of the Report of the International meeting Genetics, Robotics, Law, Punishment, held in Padua and Treviso, September 30 – October 1, 2013. This paper was in advanced phase of publication when the Italian Constitutional Court, with the decision n. 162 of June, 10th 2014, declared the inconstitutionality of article 4, co. 3, and article 9, co. 1 and 3 – limitedly to the words «in violation of the prohibition of article 4, co. 3» («in violazione del divieto di cui all’articolo 4, comma 3») – and article 12, co. 1, of law n. 40 of 2004, which forbade and sanctioned the realization of interventions of heterologous fertilization. 2 For a frame work of the previous legislation before the introduction of the law. n. 40 S. Canestrari, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

172 The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character transfer of sperm or oocytes is particularly significant. This method is punished, in some circumstances with criminal sanctions, for example in case of so-called “rented uterus”, i.e. surrogate mothers. This prohibition does not exist, however, in other jurisdictions, such as the British one, in which the “supply” of an uterus is not punished if it occurs free of charge (since it can be considered an act of individual and social solidarity) while it can be punished if it is a subject of commercialization. In Italy medically assisted procreation of heterologous nature is always punishable, unlike, for example, in Austria where the law on embryos allows medically assisted procreation of heterologous character “in vivo” while it prohibits the one “in vitro”3. The penalties provided for by Italian Law are particularly afflictive administrative sanctions. In fact they are nominally defined administrative sanctions but they can be considered substantially criminal ones also according to the criteria of ECHR in defining the notion of “criminal matter”. Stefano Canestrari rightly defined this type of penalty a “Label Fraud”4, due to the high amount of the sanction that hides, in fact, a real criminal sanction5. This consideration could , for the reasons which will be developed below, refer to unconstitutionality of the prohibition of heterologous fertilization, art. 4, paragraph 3, the part in which it is punished with a fine amounting from 300,000 to 600,000 Euros6. In addition to these penalties, however, also a disqualification is provided for , actually suspension from professional health care practice from one to three years. Furthermore, in the case of surrogacy, art. 12, par. 6 provides for imprisonment from three months to two years of the woman who rents her uterus. This is also the case of the physician who carries out such a heterologous fertilization, while the parents whose infertility must be medically ascertained, are not punished because they are considered a sort of “vulnerable” persons. Guarantees of individuals get weaker through the above-mentioned “Label Fraud”7 since the use of the administrative sanctions causes a negative impact in terms of guarantees, because administrative offenses are not under the jurisdiction of criminal courts and, for example, the conditional suspension, not applied in

Verso una disciplina penale delle tecniche di procreazione medicalmente assistita? Alla ricerca del bene giuridico tra valori ideali e opzioni ideologiche, in “Ind. Pen.”, 2000, p. 1091 ff.; Id., Bioetica e diritto penale, Torino, Giappichelli, 2012, p. 3 ff. 3 With regards to Austrian law on assisted procreation (Federal law June 4th, 1992 no. 275 on medically assisted procreation – Fortpflanzungsmeizinsgesetz, FMwedG) and in particular on the dispositions of the law regarding heterologous procreation, see E. Dolcini, Fecondazione assistita e diritto penale, Milano, Giuffrè, 2008, p. 82 f.;M. Maiwald, Problemi di bioetica nel diritto tedesco, in G. Marini (a cura di), Bioetica e diritto penale, Torino, Giappichelli, 2002, p. 3 ff. 4 S. Canestrari, Commento alla legge 40/2004, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2004, II, p. 416 ff. 5 S. Canestrari, Bioetica e diritto penale, cit., p. 29 ff. 6 A. Manna, La tutela penale della vita in fieri, tra funzione promozionale e protezione di beni giuridici, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 345 ff. 7 On the exceeding extent of these administrative sanctions overpassing the limits of reasonableness see R. Bartoli, La totale irrazionalità di un divieto assoluto. Considerazioni a margine del divieto di procreazione medicalmente assistita, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2011, p. 90 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Manna 173 administrative sanction, cannot be obtained.

2. Searching the protected legal right In order to test the legitimacy of such a prohibition, it is necessary to identify the protected interest8, i.e. what should justify a total ban of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous nature. In doing so, one prefers to consider the question in a “negative” way, that is a comparison is made between medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character and other types of more “advanced” methods, for example a widow fertilized with the seed of her dead husband or single women and homosexual couples. In these latter cases it is possible to trace a legal right violated including the right of a unborn child to be born in a family with two parental figures of opposite sex, because according to pedagogical science a baby born in a family with two parental figures of opposite sex does not, in fact, suffer traumas. This legal rights, which, at least in my opinion, is the only one with a dignity and a concreteness of its’ own, however, is neither harmed nor endangered by the heterologous fertilization. That being the case, it is difficult to understand why heterologous artificial fertilization should be punished, also because jurisprudence interested in this matter has properly made the comparison with the civil institute for adoption (currently even of international importance) between the differences of biological and foster parents, but not for this reason adoption can be considered from criminal point of view.

3. The legitimacy of the law n. 40 can not be of religious nature An authoritative part of doctrine outlines, however, other legal rights considered able to legitimate the prohibition in question. In this regard it is useful to report the position expressed by Luciano Eusebi and Ferrando Mantovani. For Luciano Eusebi this ban would protect the “dignity of human procreation”9. More specifically, reproduction should only take place with a “real” relationship between the bodies of a man and a woman and not artificially because this would be in conflict with the “dignity of human procreation”. Such a concept cannot, however, at least in my opinion, be related to the dignity of a legal right (in the terms of criminal law)10, because on closer inspections behind

8 On the legitimating role of the legal right, see A. Merli, Introduzione alla teoria generale del bene giuridico, ESI, Napoli, 2006. 9 L. Eusebi, La vita individuale precoce: soltanto materiale biologico?, in “Leg. Pen.”, 2005, p. 357 ff. 10 G. Fiandaca, I temi eticamente sensibili tra ragione pubblica e ragione punitiva, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2011, p. 1383 ff.;Id. , Punire la semplice immoralità? Un vecchio interrogativo che tende a riproporsi, in A. Cadoppi, (a cura di), Laicità, valori e diritto penale. The Moral Limits of the Criminal File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

174 The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character this eventual legal right is hiding an approach to a particular ethical-religious belief. It is, therefore, not a legal right as defined in secular and secularized criminal law11. Ferrando Mantovani has a similar hermeneutic prejudice, even if a different argument, when he refers to the “dignity of women” and the “dignity of the baby”, who would be, in fact, the legal objects harmed by this type of fertilization12. The concept of dignity, however, is vague and indeterminate, able to legitimate any form of protection, but in this way the legal right may lose one of its’ main functions, namely the critical-selective one13. These legal rights are called “vague” or “wandering” in the sense that they do not have real boundaries and, above all, they are used in this field again to “hide” certain ethical and religious beliefs. On this matter one can only agree with Giovanni Fiandaca, who, in an important essay dating back to 200514, after the entry into force of the law in question, rightly labeled such legal rights as utterly elusive.

4. Critique of the alleged legal rights in contrast with the principle of secularism In the absence of concrete and limited interests (rectius beni) the consequence is that the prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character appears to be the result of a certain ethical and religious influence, since this law has embraced both a precise scientific conception and an equally specific ethical- religious conception rejecting the others. This, as far as ethically delicate matters are concerned, is neither in compliance with the democratic principle (in ethically sensitive matters the majority is not enough), nor with the principle of secularism15.

Law. In ricordo di Joel Feinberg, Giuffrè, Milano, 2010, p. 207 ff. 11 M. Donini, ‘Danno’ e ‘offesa’ nella c.d. tutela penale dei sentimenti. Note su morale e sicurezza come beni giuridici, a margine della categoria dell’”offense” di Joel Feinberg, in A. Cadoppi, (ed.), Laicità, valori e diritto penale, cit., p. 41 ff. 12 F. Mantovani, Procreazione medicalmente assistita e principio personalistico, in “Leg. Pen.”, 2005, p. 326 ff. 13 F. Angioni, Contenuto e funzioni del concetto di bene giuridico, Milano, Giuffrè, 1983. 14 G. Fiandaca, Scelte di tutela in materia di fecondazione assistita e democrazia laica, in “Leg. Pen.”, 2005, p. 339 ff. 15 On the issue of secularism and on its complicated historic, political, philosophical, cultural, social and legal implications see A. Ceretti, L. Garlati (eds.), Laicità e Stato di diritto, Milano, Giuffrè, 2007; M. La Torre, M. Lalatta Costerbosa, A. Scerbo (eds.), Questioni di vita o di morte. Etica pratica, bioetica e filosofia del diritto, Torino, Giappichelli, 2007; G. Boniolo (eds.), Laicità. Una geografia delle nostre radici, Torino, Einaudi, 2006; E. Dieni, A. Ferrari, V. Pacillo (eds.), Symbolon/ Diabolon. Simboli, religioni, diritti nell’Europa multiculturale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2005; V. Ferrone, D. Roche, L’Illuminismo nella cultura contemporanea, Bari, Laterza, 2002; G. Giorello, Di nessuna chiesa. La libertà del laico, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2005; J. Habermas, Tra scienza e fede, Bari, Laterza, 2006; E. Lecaldano, Un’etica senza Dio, Bari, Laterza, 2006; J. Rawls, Liberalismo politico, Milano, Edizioni di Comunità, 1994; M. Mori (ed.), Scarpelli, Bioetica laica, Milano, Baldini e Castoldi, 1998; J. Stuart Mill, La libertà, 1859, in La libertà, l’utilitarismo, l’asservimento delle donne, Milano, Rizzoli, 1999; Id., Saggi sulla religione, 1874, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1972; C.A. Viano, Laici File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Manna 175

The subject of secularism, therefore, touches precisely upon the position that the State has to take with regard to one or more religious or moral confessions. A liberal democratic state, above all in criminal matters, can only take on a feature of secularism, i.e. of “impartiality16”, with regards to all existing religious and moral doctrines. In the liberal jurisdictions the coexistence with pluralism goes through two models of integration, an ethical one and a politic one. If a liberal democratic state cannot pretend consensus on values according to which a neutral position would be recommendable, it can, however pretend consensus on the procedures regarding legitimate legal productions and legitimate exercise of power17.

5. The Law no. 40 as an expression of the so-called “criminal paternalism” In a situation where no concrete harmed interest or at least jeopardized one can be traced the norm is, from criminal point of view, void of legitimacy18. On the contrary in artificial fertilization of homosexual couples, of single women or widows fecundated with the seed of their dead husbands further licit causes are required also in my opinion. Let’s think, for example, about the fertilization of a widow, that is prohibited. In the terms of reform one should ask if it makes any sense to punish a widow who has been inseminated with the semen of her deceased husband if it can be considered just an extreme act of love towards the husband and a way for her to preserve his memory and continue the ideal relationship with him through in ginocchio, Bari, Laterza, 2006. On the role of laity as a fundamental principle of modern criminal law see, although sometimes with radically heterogeneous approaches, S. Canestrari, Laicità e diritto penale nelle democrazie costituzionali, in Studi in onore di G. Marinucci, I, Milano, Giuffrè, 2006, p. 139 ff.; E.Dolcini , Embrione, pre-embrione, ootide: nodi interpretativi nella disciplina della procreazione medicalmente assistita (L. 19 febbraio 2004, n. 40), in “Riv. it. dir. pen. proc.”, 2004, p. 440 ff.;L. Eusebi, Laicità e dignità umana nel diritto penale (pena, elementi del reato, biogiuridica), in Scritti per F. Stella, I, Napoli, ESI, 2007, p. 163 ff.; G. Fiandaca, Scelte di tutela in materia di fecondazione assistita e democrazia laica, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 339 ff.;Id. , Laicità del diritto penale e secolarizzazione dei beni tutelati, in Studi in memoria di P. Nuvolone, I, Milano, Giuffrè, 1991, p. 167 ff.; B.Magro , Etica laica e tutela della vita umana: riflessioni sul principio di laicità in diritto penale, in “Riv. it. dir. pen. proc.”, 1994, p. 1382 ff.;S. Moccia, Carpzov e Grozio. Dalla concezione teocratica alla concezione laica del diritto penale, Napoli, ESI, 1979; D. Pulitanò, Laicità e diritto penale, in “Riv. it. dir. pen. proc.”, 2006, p. 55 ff.; M.Romano , Principio di laicità dello Stato, religioni, norme penali, in “Riv. it. dir. pen. proc.”, 2007, p. 493 ff.;Id ., Secolarizzazione, diritto penale moderno e sistema dei reati, in “Riv. it. dir. pen. proc.”, 1981, p. 477 ff.; P.Siracusano , I delitti in materia di religione, Milano, Giuffrè, 1983; F. Stella, Laicità dello Stato: fede e diritto penale, in G. Marinucci, E. Dolcini (eds.), Diritto penale in trasformazione, Milano, Giuffrè, 1985, p. 310; C. Visconti, La tutela penale della religione nell’età post- secolare e il ruolo della Corte costituzionale, in “Riv. it. dir. pen. proc.”, 2005, p. 1029 ff. 16 R. Dworkin, Harmless Wrongdoing, in A. Cadoppi (ed.), Laicità, cit., p. 189 ff. 17 J. Habermas, L’inclusione dell’altro. Studi di teoria politica, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1998, 106; J. Rawls, Liberalismo politico, cit., p. 206, footnote 32; p. 303. 18 M. Romano, La legittimazione delle norme penali: ancora su limiti e validità della teoria del bene giuridico, in “Criminalia”, 2011, p. 33 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

176 The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character their son. Such a hypothesis could therefore be included in the criterion of “not pretending” in the sense of not being able to demand a different type of behaviour, in compliance with law19, because the motion of affects here, of course, prevail. The same criterion can also be applied to homosexual couples: in this case, criticizing the absolute prohibition of law no. 40 – as supported20 by the geneticist Flamigni, in due course, a medical committee could be established. This committee could analyze a case by case whether homosexual couples, or single women are able to continue the pregnancy and, afterwards, above all, to educate in the best way their child. Criminal law could be applied only in case of violation of any negative judgment21. On this point, of course, different opinions can be supported. What, however, appears at this point without doubt, is the consequent de-legitimacy of the absolute prohibition of heteologous fertilization present in the law no. 40. This because, unlike the case recently examined , no legal right , neither jeopardized nor harmed seems to be present. Consequently in the absence of what could justify the intervention of criminal law, punitive one, “paracriminal” (or whichever classification one prefers), it is clear that the law no. 40 is an expression of the so-called criminal paternalism22.

6. The criminal paternalism in the light of the principle of secularism and of a liberal criminal law What is, however, criminal paternalism? It is an expression dating back to a great nineteenth-century philosopher, John Stuart Mill, whose ideas were taken, reaffirmed and systematized by a great American jurist, Joel Feinberg23, who justifies the intervention of criminal law on the strength of two fundamental principles: the principle of “harm to others” and the principle of “offense”. The latter is less serious than “harm to others” because offense means causing disgust, disregards and, in any case, harassment to persons24. According to this approach, the main task of criminal

19 G. Fornasari, Il principio di inesigibilità nel diritto penale, Padova, CEDAM, 1990; please also note A. Manna, L’art. 384 c.p. e la “famiglia di fatto”: ancora un ingiustificato ‘ diniego di giustizia” da parte della Corte Costituzionale?, in “Giur. Cost.”, 1996, p. 90 ff. 20 A. Manna, La tutela penale, cit., p. 345 ff. 21 Amplius: M. Romano, Repressione della condotta antisindacale, Milano, Giuffrè, 1975, p. 110 ff. 22 On this point see the essays of A. Cadoppi, Paternalismo e diritto penale: cenni introduttivi, L. Cornacchia, Placing Care. Spunti in tema di paternalismo penale, D. Micheletti, Il paternalismo penale giudiziario e le insidie della Bad Samaritan Jurisprudence, S. Tordini Cagli, Il paternalismo legislativo, published in il punto su … Paternalismo legislativo e paternalismo giudiziario, in “Criminalia”, 2011, pp. 223 – 340. 23 J. Feinberg, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. Vol. I: Harm to Others, Oxford U.P., Oxford, 1984; cui adde L. Ferrajoli, Diritto e ragione. Teoria del garantismo penale, Bari, Laterza, 1989, chs. IV-VIII. 24 On these topics, see the last essay of S. Tordini Cagli, Principio di autodeterminazione e consenso dell’avente diritto, Bologna, BUP, 2008, p. 101 ff.;A. Cadoppi, Presentazione. Principio del danno e File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Manna 177 law is to protect certain legal rights from eventual offenses, which, according to Feinberg, have criminal relevance only in case of harm to others25 or , at most, an offense to others. Nonetheless, in this perspective, many of the cases referred to in our jurisdiction are lacking legitimacy. Just consider, for example, drug cultivation for personal use, since the drug addict, in this case, causes harm to himself, but not to others26. Now let’s think of the crime of illegal entry into the territory of a State (art. 10 immigrations law) or the offense of non-compliance with the order of expulsion (art, 14, para. 5b, immigrations law). In these cases action in which no harm is caused to others but only to legal rights, often too elusive, easily attributable to general expression of law and order is punished27. In particular, the principle of harm to other, taken literally, is therefore selective in defining the area of criminally relevant offense, since it is not always easy to recognnize which incrimination produces harm to others. In fact, in his work, Feinberg reduces the range of the principle of harm to others, admitting precisely the legitimacy of incrimination that even if they do not harm others, they are, however, offending, harassing and damaging the sensibility of others. This is, I suppose, just “public morals” (principle of offense)28. In this attenuated vision of paternalism, i.e. weakened forms of moral protection by the State, however, the protection of the morals could turn out to be legitimate since prostitution, begging and wandering in certain societies might be considered contrary to morality29. Such conclusions must be presently rejected, since they risk to continue to legitimate offenses concerning feelings30, and in any case, legal rights of very little importance31. All this, without considering that all those offences which punished limiti del diritto penale, in Id. (ed.), Laicità, cit., VII ff. 25 J. Feinberg, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. Vol. I: Harm to Others, Oxford U.P., Oxford, 1984; L. Ferrajoli, Diritto e ragione. Teoria del garantismo penale, Bari, Laterza, 1989, chs. IV-VIII. 26 C. Ruga Riva, Il lavavetri, la donna col burqa e il Sindaco. Prove atecniche di “diritto penale municipale”, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2008, p. 133 ff. 27 F. Viganó, L. Masera, Inottemperanza dello straniero all’ordine di allontanamento e “direttiva rimpatri” UE: scenari prossimi venturi per il giudice penale italiano, in “Cass. Pen.”, 2010, p. 1711 ff. 28 For a critique , on this point, regarding the way of thinking of Feinberg, v. M. Donini, “Danno” e “offesa” nella c.d. tutela penale dei sentimenti.Note su morale e sicurezza come beni giuridici, a margine della categoria dell’“offence” di Joel Feinberg, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen”, 2008, p. 1546 ff.; G. Fiandaca, Diritto penale, tipi di morale e tipi di democrazia, in G. Fiandaca, G. Francolini, Sulla legittimazione, cit., p. 153 ff. 29 For a deepened analysis, for example, of the offende pursuant to the code of Ticino, seeA. Manna, Di alcune trasgressioni nel codice penale ticinese del 1873 e dei rapporti fra diritto penale e morale, in Aa.Vv., Codice penale per il Cantone del Ticino, Padova, 2011, CCXIII. 30 Contrary to such a possibility is G. Fiandaca, Considerazioni intorno a bioetica e diritto penale, tra laicità e post-secolarismo, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2007, p. 554. 31 See A. Manna, Beni della personalità e limiti della protezione penale, Padova, 1989, p. 86. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

178 The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character either a status, or worse, lifestyles can only conflict, even before the principle of offensiveness and of guilt, with the principle of secularism of jurisdiction, according to which a liberal-democratic state has to take a neutral position with respect to all ethical and religious concepts of the jurisdiction32. As J. Rawls establishes, the only way to ensure peaceful coexistence in modern and multicultural societies is that of creating a “cross section consensus” on democratic principles, leaving, nonetheless, citizens free to profess, practice and believe in their values33. Therefore I consider only the principle of harm to others really useful, that is the real Harm to others, which in fact is the only distinguishing criterion, both for its heuristic validity and for its possibility of being justifiable, between what has criminal relevance and what can only justify less intensive forms of protection34, such as, in particular, administrative offense. Using that latter criterion of the prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character, it can be verified that taking into account the principle of harm to others, the illegality of the prohibitions of heterologous fertilization becomes evident. In truth, it would be possible, in theory, also without any specific reference to the principle of harm to others, since our dogmatic categories contemplate in any case the principle of offensiveness35. At least as a hermeneutic criterion, and not only as a constitutional one, even if in a reduced version adopted by the Constitutional Court in the sense of reasonableness36, it can hardly lead to uphold the legitimacy of the prohibition of heterologous fertilization, because of the lack of any form of offence of protected right37. Furthermore, if a child is born to parents of different sex, as far as offence is concerned, no problems of any kind can raise in relation to offence. Thus, in this perspective, thanks to the prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character criminal law inevitably assumes a paternalistic function38. In other words, there is the risk of imposing a certain ethical-religious idea about fertilization. This does not only contrast with the well-established principles of criminal law, but it also seems to be closely dependent on a particular “world view”

32 G. Salcuni, Multiculturalismo e forme di democrazia, in L. Stortoni, S. Tordini Cagli (eds.), Cultura, culture e diritto penale, Bologna, BUP, 2013, p. 112 ff. 33 J. Rawls, Liberalismo politico, cit., p. 34 ff.; p. 206 ff. 34 See one more time A. Manna, Di alcune trasgressioni, cit., CCXXIV. 35 M. Donini, Danno e offesa, cit., p. 57 ff. 36 Constitutional Court, no. 333 of 1991, in “Foro it.”, 1991, I, 2628, with a note of G. Fiandaca, La nuova legge anti-droga tra sospetti di incostituzionalità e discrezionalità legislativa.; on these aspects, see V. Manes, Il principio di offensività nel diritto penale. Canone di politica criminale, criterio ermeneutico, parametro di ragionevolezza, Torino, Giappichelli, 2005, p. 25 ff. 37 E. Dolcini, La lunga marcia della fecondazione assistita: la legge 40/2004 tra Corte costituzionale, Corte EDU e giudice ordinario, in Aa.Vv., Studi in onore di Mario Romano, Jovene, Napoli, 2011, p. 1475 ff. 38 G. Di Cosimo, Quando il legislatore predilige un punto di vista etico/religioso: il caso del divieto di donazione dei gameti, in http://www.penalecontemporaneo.it/upload/1381941442DI%20 COSIMO%202013a.pdf. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Manna 179 in which, however, not all citizens identify themselves, above all in modern “liquid” society39. In fact, the first project in this field dating back to the sixties of the last century , the one presented by Mr. Gonella, who was also Minister of Justice and one of the most important leaders of the Christian Democrats, not surprisingly, equated assisted heterologous fertilization even with adultery. This, however, does not belong only to the “history of the criminal law”, because even recently the ex- undersecretary for Health, Mrs. Roccella was of the same opinion: she justified the ban of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character considering it a sort of genetic betrayal40.

7. The case-law and the first statements of the European Court of Human Rights Case law has, however, shown a reaction to the provisions of the law no. 40, which is not, however, so drastic as far as the heterologous fertilization is concerned. When legislation intervenes in relation to ethical (and therefore politically) sensitive matters, it is not easy to quickly eliminate the prohibitions41. There has been, however, some issues deferred to the Constitutional Court; the idea that the ban of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character is against the Constitution, was considered a not manifestly unfounded matter42. In the meantime, the European Court of Human Rights judged a conflict between the Austrian law that only allows “in vivo” fertilization and not “in vitro”, with articles 8 and 14 of the ECHR, in light of right of privacy, in the sense that the state in this way enters the sphere of family life of citizen, and the principle of non-discrimination43. In particular, the Court holds

39 Taken for granted quote to Z. Bauman, Modernità Liquida, Bari, Laterza, 2006. 40 E. Roccella, Eterologa è tradimento genetico, 7 ottobre 2010, www.adnkronos.it.; on this combination of morals and law, in critical sense, see E. Dolcini, Laicità, “sana laicità” e diritto penale, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2009, 1017; L. Risicato, “Dal diritto di vivere” al “diritto di morire”. Riflessioni sul ruolo della laicità nell’esperienza penalistica, Torino, Giappichelli, 2008, p. 41 ff. 41 The boundary between political discretion and technical control is rather ephemeral in similar cases, see G. Fiandaca, Sui «giudizi di fatto» nel sindacato di costituzionalità in materia penale, tra limiti ai poteri e limiti ai saperi, in Aa.Vv., Studi in onore di Mario Romano, Napoli, Jovene, 2011, p. 265 ff.;D. Pulitanò, Giudizi di fatto nel controllo di costituzionalità di norme penali, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2008, p. 1004 ff. 42 Court of Catania, October 21, 2010 Judge Distefano, in penalecontemporaneo.it, January, 14, 2011, with a note of E. Dolcini, Fecondazione eterologa: ancora un’ordinanza di rimessione alla Corte costituzionale; Court of Milan, I civ., December, 28, 2010, in http://www.penalecontemporaneo.it/ upload/ordinanza%20Milano_procreazione%20ass..pdf; court of Florence, September, 6, 2010, in http://www.altalex.com/index.php?idnot=12123. 43 ECHR 1. Sec., April 1, 2010, S.H. and others C/ Austria, n. 57813/00, in http://www.echr.coe.int/ Pages/home.aspx?p=home. A. Catalano, Ragionevolezza del divieto di procreazione assistita eterologa, tra ordinamento italiano e CEDU, in www.associazionedeicostituzionalisti.it, July, 2, 2010; V. Pellizzone, Fecondazione eterologa e Corte europea: riflessioni in tema di interpretazione convenzionalmente conforme e obbligo del giudice di sollevare la questione di legittimità costituzionale, ivi, July, 2, 2010. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

180 The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character up that legal order that allows the artificial procreation respects the right of a couple to conceive a child, in accordance with the art. No. 8 of ECHR. Therefore bans of access to some techniques of artificial procreation (fertilization “in vitro” with seed of a third person, fertilizations through oocyte donation) are discriminatory, since they pose a sterile couple in differentiated position compared with the other ones, in accordance with the provisions of art. 14 ECHR, if not justified by an objective and reasonable purpose and observance of the principle of proportionality between the means used and objectives pursued.

8. Statement of the Constitutional Court on the prohibition of implanting more than three embryos in the woman’s body In this perspective it must be considered that an ablative intervention of the Constitutional Court declared that it is against the Constitution to graft in the woman’s body, with regard to homologous artificial fertilization, a maximum of three embryos44. This decision is justified because the law on medically assisted procreation violates the art. 3 of the Constitution, from two points of view, that of the principle of reasonableness and that of equality, where it provides a production of no more than three embryos at a time, to be planted at the same time and where the transfer of the embryos to be implemented as soon as possible is provided, without prejudice to the health of the woman. From this it follows, also, that the “grafting” can lead to considerable suffering of the woman. This is the reason why it was declared illegal also in contrast with art. 32 of the Constitution45. The unconstitutionality of the art. 14, par. 2, is limited to the words “to a unique, contemporary grafting, not exceeding three”, leaving untouched the principle that embryos should not be created in number exceeding what is necessary, excluding, however, the requirement for a unique and contemporary grafting and the maximum number of embryos to be implanted: this also introduces an exception to the general principle of the prohibition of cryopreservatios referred to in par. 1 of that article 14, with the consequent result

44 Const. Court, sentence of May, 8 , no. 151, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen”, 2009, n. 928, with a note of E. Dolcini, Embrioni nel numero “strettamente necessario”: il bisturi della Corte costituzionale sulla legge n. 40 del 2004, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2009, p. 963 ff.; G. Di Genio, Il primato della scienza sul diritto (ma non su i diritti) nella fecondazione assistita, in http://www.forumcostituzionale. it/site/images/stories/pdf/documenti_forum/giurisprudenza/2009/0003_nota_74_2009_carboni. pdf.; L. Trucco, Procreazione assistita: la Consulta, questa volta, decide di (almeno in parte) decidere, in http://www.giurcost.org/; D. Chinni, La procreazione medicalmente assistita tra “detto” e “non detto”. Brevi riflessioni sul processo costituzionale alla legge n. 40/2004, in http://www.giurcost.org/; S. Agosta, Dalla Consulta finalmente una prima risposta alle più vistose contraddizioni della disciplina sulla fecondazione artificiale, in http://www.forumcostituzionale.it/site/images/stories/pdf/documenti_ forum/giurisprudenza/2009/0003_nota_74_2009_carboni.pdf. 45 On this issue, see C. Cassani, La diagnosi genetica preimpiano: profili penali e risvolti applicativi, in G. Balbi, A. Esposito (a cura di), Laicità, valori e diritto penale, Torino, Giappichelli, 2011, p. 79 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Manna 181 of the need of the freezing technique of the embryos produced but not implanted because of medical reasons involving the declaration of unconstitutionality also of the par. 3 of art. 14.

9. The case-law aiming to pass over the prohibition of pre-implanting diagnosis The development of case-law is based on the above-mentioned statement of the Constitutional Court: the Court of Bologna, in 200946, and the Court of Salerno, in 201047, stated on the basis of a constitutionally-oriented interpretation of the law 19 February 2004, no. 40, even after the declaration of unconstitutionality of paragraphs 2 and 3 of art. 14 of the Act, made by Constitutional Court on April 18, 2009, n. 151, that the genetic diagnosis shall be admitted before implantations of the embryo48. So that, to protect the right of self-determination in the reproductive choices of a married couple, both carriers of a serious genetically transmissible disease, pursuant to art. 700 of the Code a medical center must fulfill a contract for professional services consisting in the medically assisted procreation techniques based on scientific practices, pre-implantation diagnosis of embryos to be produced and the transfer into the uterus of the woman of embryos that do not outline any genetic malformation. This solution is necessary also to respect the principle of equality, art, 3 of the Constitution, since a different treatment of the abortion law occurred, where instead pre-implantation diagnosis is allowed. Also, by not allowing to check whether in the embryo that was implanted in a woman’s body there were genetic diseases there was the risk to put in danger the right to health of the unborn child, who was in danger of being born with genetic diseases49. It was also important to give the possibility to the woman, after having discovered the genetic disease of the fetus, to abort if she wanted.

10. The judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights that would legitimize the choices of the Italian legislator One must, however, report the decision of a contrary opinion, compared to that of the first degree of the Grand Chamber of the European court of Human Rights,

46 Court of Bologna, decree June 29, 2009, in “Famiglia e diritto”, 2009, p. 1854 ff. 47 Court of Salerno, warrant January 9, 2010, in “Guida al dir.”, 2010, fasc. 9, p. 62 ff. On some ambiguities present in the warrant of the Court of Salerno regarding the concept of infertility, see E. Dolcini, La procreazione medicalmente assistita: profili penalistici, in S. Rodotà, P. Zatti (eds.), Trattato di biodiritto, Il governo del corpo, Miano, Giuffrè, 2011, t. II, p. 1576. 48 See also Court of Cagliari November 9, 2012 no. 5925, in http://www.penalecontemporaneo.it/ upload/1354806458ordinanza%20Tribunale%20Cagliari.pdf 49 E. Dolcini, La lunga marcia della fecondazione assistita, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2011, p. 429 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

182 The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character which, with particular regard to art. 8 stated that non infringement of the so − called domestic privacy occurs, at least in terms considered in the first instance, in the case of the prohibition of assisted fertilization of heterologous character in vitro by Austrian law50. The prohibition of heterologous artificial insemination (i.e. gametes from a donor), according to Austrian legislation – concerning in vitro fertilization with oocytes donations and that of sperm (but not in vivo with sperm donor, or artificial insemination) – even if constituting an interference with the right to respect for private and family life of parents, concerns a controversial and ethically sensitive matter for which normative discipline gives to the State wide margin of appreciation and it is the result of an acceptable balance between the rights of the intended parent and those of third parties and the society. In particular, the Grand Chamber considered the art. 8 ECHR in its negative dimension (that is as a source of abstention obligations in a State) in order to assess whether the prohibition under Austrian law on the subject of heterologous fertilization constituted a lawful, necessary and proportionate interference according to art. 8 § 2 ECHR, compared with the right to respect for private and family life enshrined in that provision (§88). The Court stated that one must evaluate whether there were sufficient reasons for the adoption of such a limiting regulation of heterologous fertilization and whether the interference with the right to respect for private and family life could be considered proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued by the Austrian legislature (§91). In this regards, the Grand Chamber, while recognizing the existence within member states of the Council of Europe of a clear trend towards the recognition of the possibility of accepting the donation of gametes for the purposes of in vitro fertilization, however, did not reconnect to it a decisive impact on the margin of appreciation of member States in the field of medically assisted procreation. It pointed out that this trend does not represent a consolidated guide line at European level, but rather “an aspect” of the law that is not yet established and which cannot be evaluated as such to limit the discretion of the national legislature (§96).

11. The “defensive” attitude of the Constitutional Court This situation has provoked an unexpected decision, since the only one of its kind, by the Italian Constitutional Court, because the Court referred the matter

50 ECHR, Grand Chamber, sent. 3.11.2011, Pres. Costa, ric. n. 57813/00, S.H. c. Austria, in “Foro it.”, 2012, 5, 4, p. 209 with a note of E. Nicosia. For a first comment of that sentence seeE. Beduschi, A. Colella, La Corte EDU salva (per ora) la legislazione austriaca in materia di procreazione medicalmente assistita, in penalecontemporaneo.it, November 7, 2011. Critical analisys of the decision of the court of Strasbourg see M. D’amico, B. Liberali (eds.), La legge n. 40 del 2004 ancora a giudizio. La parola alla Corte costituzionale, Milano, Giuffrè, 2012, p. 269. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Manna 183 back to the referring courts for further consideration51. All this suggests that the Constitutional Court wanted to affirm the obligation to take into account the approach adopted by the Grand Chamber, so implicitly asking the lower courts to argue otherwise on raised issues. In this perspective, the Court recalls that the judge is obliged to a conforming interpretation of national laws, in the lights of the law of the ECHR, whenever this is allowed by law. Only where the contrast between the national standards and the norms of the ECHR cannot be overcome by means of interpretation, the Court is obliged to raise the issue of constitutionality for violation of art. 117, par. 1 of Const.52. So that, the national courts will consider the articles 8 and 14 of the ECHR as interpreted by the Grand Chamber of the European Court and verify whether or not there is an alleged contrast and if it, eventually, can be solved through interpretation.

12. New warrants referred to the Constitutional Court The Courts of Milan53, Catania54 and Florence55, with other three orders, one

51 Const. Court., ord. May 22, 2012, n. 150, dep. June 7 2012, in http://www.giurcost.org/ decisioni/2012/0150o-12.html. For an examination of the reflects of law case of Strasbourg on Italy see E. Dolcini, Il punto sulla procreazione assistita: in particolare il problema della fecondazione eterologa, in “Il Corriere del merito”, 2013, p. 8 ff. 52 G. Salcuni, L’europeizzazione del diritto penale: problemi e prospettive, Milano, Giuffrè, 2011, p. 373 ff. 53 Court of Milan, 1. Civil Sect., hearing March 29, 2013 (dep. April 9, 2013), Pres. Bichi, Est. Dorigo, in http://www.ilsole24ore.com/pdf2010/SoleOnLine5/_Oggetti_Correlati/Documenti/ Norme%20e%20Tributi/2013/04/tribunale-milano-fecondazione.pdf?uuid=1fed6df2-9d43-11e2- 8310-7be55e1e589c. Cf. the comment of A. Verri, Il Tribunale di Milano rimette nuovamente alla Corte costituzionale la questione concernente la legittimità costituzionale della fecondazione eterologa, in http://www.penalecontemporaneo.it/materia/-/-/-/2227-il_tribunale_di_milano_rimette_ nuovamente_alla_corte_costituzionale_la_questione_concernente_la_legittimit___costituzionale_ della_fecondazione_eterologa/; E. Malfatti, Ancora una questione di costituzionalità sul divieto di fecondazione eterologa, tra incertezze generate dalla Corte costituzionale (ord. n. 150/2012) ed esigenze del “seguito” alle pronunce di Strasburgo, in http://www.penalecontemporaneo.it/area/3-/24-/-/2252- ancora_una_questione_di_costituzionalit___sul_divieto_di_fecondazione_eterologa__tra_incertezze_ generate_dalla_corte_costituzionale__ord__n__150_2012___ed_esigenze_del____seguito____alle_ pronunce_di_strasburgo/. 54 Court of Catania, 1. Sect. April 13, 2013, Pres. Morgia, Est. Sabatino, in http://www. penalecontemporaneo.it/upload/1366820711Fecondazione%20eterologa_Ordinanza%20 rimessione%20Catania.pdf. Cf. also the comment of V. Tigano, Il divieto della fecondazione eterologa di nuovo al vaglio della Consulta: l’ordinanza di rimessione del Tribunale di Catania, in http://www. penalecontemporaneo.it/materia/-/-/-/2247-il_divieto_della_fecondazione_eterologa_di_nuovo_al_ vaglio_della_consulta__l_ordinanza_di_rimessione_del_tribunale_di_catania/. 55 Court of Florence, March 29, 2013, Judge Paparo, in http://www.penalecontemporaneo.it/ upload/1368192960ordinanza%20rim%20firenze%20ap%202013.pdf, comment of A. Verri, Anche il Tribunale di Firenze, dopo quelli di Milano e Catania, rimette alla Corte costituzionale la questione di legittimità costituzionale della fecondazione eterologa, in http://www.penalecontemporaneo.it/materia/- /-/-/2244-anche_il_tribunale_di_firenze__dopo_quelli_di_milano_e_catania__rimette_alla_corte_ File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

184 The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character dated March 29, 2013, the other April 13, 2013 and the last March 29, 2013, again raised the question to the Constitutional Court. Only the Court of Milan, referring to art. 117, para. 1, which imposes the State to comply with EU rules and principles of international law, considers that the question of the prohibition must be appreciated in light of the scientific and social progress, so that such a parameter, weak and vague, may allow the judgment of Constitutional Court to take into account, in addition to supranational parameters, also the model of society obtainable by the Constitution and, in particular, by articles 2,3,19,21 and 32. Indeed the European Court of Human Rights (judgment dated November 3, 2011, no. 57813 SH and others, Austria) provides, however, that the choice of the contracting State to authorize the type of heterologous artificial insemination and, only exceptionally, fertilization with sperm donation, is justified as long as it reflects the state of medical science and the degree of existing consensus in society at that time56. The courts of Catania and Florence consider again the questions not manifestly not-founded and relevant, but only on the basis of national parameters, such as articles 2 (inviolable rights of man), 3 (principle of equality), 29, 31 (the right to family, which also means, of course, the rights to procreate children)57, and finally the art. 32 (such as the right to health) because infertility is considered a disease and the prohibition of heterologous fertilization means stopping therapy of a disease like that of infertility58. The decision by the Constitutional Court, this time I hope “more courageous”, however is expected for 2014 (see before, note nr. 1).

13. The “Gospel” of a jurist: the Constitutional Charter One can in this view also consider two other constitutional provisions to assume that the law contrasts with the principle of secularism. As to the nature of the relationship between secularism and criminal law, according to a recent thesis, secularism is only a character of criminal law, i.e. a line of criminal policy that should be followed, but not an obligation for the legislature59. On the contrary, I believe that secularism is a principle and not a character60, costituzionale_la_questione_di_legittimit___costituzionale_della_fecondazione_eterologa/. 56 M. Murgo, La legge n. 40 e la CEDU, in “Nuova Giur. Civ.”, 2012, 3, 1, p. 224. 57 E. Dolcini, Stretto d’assedio il divieto di fecondazione assistita di tipo eterologo, in www. penalecontemporaneo.it, February 14, 2011. 58 R. Bartoli, La totale irrazionalità di un divieto assoluto, cit., p. 96 ff.; E. Dolcini, Strasburgo – Firenze – Roma: il divieto di fecondazione eterologa si avvia al capolinea?, in www.penalecontemporaneo. it, October 21, 2010. 59 R. Bartoli, La totale irrazionalità di un divieto assoluto, cit., p. 96 ff.;E. Dolcini, Strasburgo – Firenze – Roma: il divieto di fecondazione eterologa si avvia al capolinea?, cit. 60 For secularism as a principle see M. Donini, Il volto attuale dell’illecito penale, Milano, Giuffrè, 2004, p. 30 ff.;B. Magro, Etica laica e tutela della vita umana: riflessioni sul principio di laicità in diritto penale, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Manna 185 since it can be estimated from a set of constitutional rules that impose the State to assume a neutral position with respect to religion and morality. More specifically, as the Constitutional Court itself teaches61, secularism is a principle of supreme law in our constitutional system, obtainable by art. 3 of the Constitution, which guarantees the equality of citizens before the law without distinction of religion, art, 21 of the Constitution, which gives everyone the right to openly express their thoughts and art. 8, para, 1 and 19 of the Constitution, as far as equality and freedom of all religious denominations are concerned62. The principle of secularism also connects to the principle of harm, where pursuant to art. 25, par 2 of the Constitution, it is expressly forbidden to punish individuals for the commission of a harmless fact, i.e. without harm to a legal right, at least in the meaning that I have described above. The State cannot, in fact, enact positive moral judgments on conduct falling into the lawfulness, or make negative moral judgments if the conduct is illegal. Offences must be evaluated negatively, but only from a legal point of view, i.e. when they produce social harm63. The contrast with the principle of freedom is therefore due to the fact that the law no. 40 is an expression of “criminal paternalism” and, as a result, causes, paradoxically, a criminogenic effect, because it involves so-called “tourism of rights” (in France, Greece, Spain, California)64. Couples can go abroad because Italy is one of the few countries where there is still a complete prohibition of assisted fertilization of heterologous character65. This practice is discriminatory because these “trips” are expensive and therefore discriminatory in relation to social position66. Furthermore, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.” , 1994, p.1392 ff.;G. Salcuni, Art. 402, in A. Cadoppi, S. Canestrari, A. Manna, M. Papa, Trattato di diritto penale, Parte Speciale, III, Torino, UTET, 2008, p. 873 ff. 61 Const. Court, April 12, 1989, n. 203, in “Giur. cost.”, 1989, pp. 890 ss., with a note of Masselli; Const. Court., October 8, 1996, n. 334, ibid., 1996, pp. 2919 ss., with notes of S. Mangiameli e G. Di Cosimo. 62 In addition, articles 2 e 13 Const., that guarantee liberty and autonomy of personal choices according to E. Dolcini, Il divieto di fecondazione assistita “eterologa”...in attesa di giudizio, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2011, p. 353 ff. and, quivi, p. 356 ff. 63 M. Donini, Il volto attuale, cit., p. 31 ff. 64 On criminal aspects of so-called trips of rights see E. Dolcini, Responsabilità del medico e reati in materia di procreazione assistita. Ambiguità e rigori della legge italiana n. 40 del 2004, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2009, p. 47 ff.;M. Maiwald, op. cit., p. 10 ff. 65 For a wide framework of European legislature see E. Dolcini, Il punto sulla fecondazione assistita “eterologa”, in E. Mori (ed.), C. Flamigni, Medicina, impegno civile, bioetica, letteratura, Firenze, Le lettere, 2013, p. 130 ff.In particular the author observes how, besides Italy, only Lithuania and Turkey consider an absolute ban of heterologous assisted procreation with donation of female and male gametes, both in insemination in vivo and in vitro. 66 G.D. Dodaro, Uguaglianza e diritto penale, Milano, Giuffrè, 2012, p. 112 ff.; A. Manna, La tutela penale della vita in fieri, cit., p. 345 ff.; E. Boario, Bioetica e diritto penale, in G. Marini (ed.), Bioetica, cit., p. 107 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

186 The prohibition of medically assisted fertilization of heterologous character the most important problem lies in the fact that this prohibition “in Italian way”67 may lead poorest families, as was the case at the time of abortion, that is − illegal abortions – but still willing to have children, to use unscrupulous doctors who work on a “parallel” market of fertility”, with obvious risks for the health of the woman and the unborn child, especially from the hygiene-health point of view. Finally, concluding my considerations, I want to recall a great catholic jurist, Federico Stella68, recently passed away, who in his famous essay “Secularism and faith” argued that even for a catholic jurist the “table of values” cannot be found in the Gospel and the Scripture, but only in the Constitution.

67 Critical of proihibition politics, even if from different point of view, see D. Pulitano’, Paternalismo e diritto penale, in Aa.Vv., Studi in onore di Mario Romano, cit., p. 479; M. Romano, Danno a sé stessi, paternalismo legale e limiti del diritto penale, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2008, p. 984 ff. 68 F. Stella, Laicità dello Stato, fede e diritto penale, in G. Marinucci, E. Dolcini (eds.), Diritto penale in trasformazione, Milano, Giuffrè,1985, p. 309 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Genetics, robotics and crime prevention

Lorenzo Pasculli

Table of contents: 1. Introduction and definitions. – 1.1. Crime prevention. – 1.2. Genetics. – 1.3. Robotics. – 2. The employment of genetics in crime prevention. – 2.1. Human behavioural genetics and criminal trial (special prevention). – 2.2. The collection and retention of DNA materials – 3. The employment of robotics in crime prevention. – 3.1. Surveillance. – 3.2. Formation, education and information. – 3.3. Police guarding and patrolling. – 3.4. Use of force. – 4. Genetics, robotics, crime prevention and human rights. – 4.1. Genetics, robotics and individual dangerousness. – 5. Conclusive remarks.

1. Introduction and definitions Amongst the many fields of law affected by genetics and robotics there is also crime prevention. I will consider here some of the current and the possible future employments of genetics and robotics in crime prevention and some of the issues they raise with special regard to the protection of fundamental individual rights and freedoms.

1.1. Crime prevention First of all, it is necessary to clarify what I mean by «crime prevention», since it is a concept of almost unending elasticity1. «Crime prevention» may be intended either as an end or as a means2. In this paper with the expression «crime prevention» I will refer to the means of elimination or reduction of the causes of crime (and therefore of the risk of crime). In such a

1 A. Crawford, Crime, Prevention & Community Safety. Politics, Policies & Practices, London, Longman, 1998, p. 7. 2 Cf., amplius, L. Pasculli, Dangerous Prevention. A General Theory of the Negative Measures of Global Crime Prevention, Padova, forthcoming. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

188 Genetics, robotics and crime prevention wide conception I include both the so-called positive and negative models of crime prevention: 1) the positive model consists of measures that expand, promote, improve the individual legal sphere (for instance: educational programmes, developmental crime prevention, psychological and social support, restorative justice, community policing, situational prevention etc.) 2) the negative model, instead, consists of measures compressing the individual legal sphere, and especially individual liberty, generally through the direct or indirect use of force (for instance: preventive detention; confiscation of property; asset freeze; civil and criminal forfeiture; repatriation of immigrants etc.)3. Due to its negative contents, the negative model poses several threats to fundamental rights and liberties, especially when negative measures are applied to merely «dangerous» subjects, before they commit any crime (pre-crime or praeter delictum measures).

1.2. Genetics Genetics is the study of heredity in general and of genes in particular. Genetics forms one of the central pillars of biology and overlaps with many other areas such as agriculture, medicine, and biotechnology4. While classical genetics – which remains the foundation for all other areas in genetics – is concerned primarily with the method by which genetic traits are transmitted in plants and animals, genetics covers several areas of study, such as cytogenetics (the microscopic study of chromosomes), microbial genetics (the study of microorganisms), molecular genetics (the study of the molecular structure of DNA), genomics (the study of the structure, function, and evolutionary comparison of whole genomes), population genetics (the study of genes in populations of animals, plants, and microbes), behaviour genetics (the study of the influence of heredity on behaviour), etc. As we will see, the two most relevant areas of genetics in crime prevention are behavioural genetics and genomics (which dominates also genetics research in general and which is also a useful way to explore the genetic factors involved in complex human traits such as behaviour).

3 For a first outline on the several models of crime prevention, also in comparative and supranational/ international perspective, see L. Pasculli, Le misure di prevenzione del terrorismo e dei traffici criminosi internazionali, Padova, Padova University Press, 2012, also for further references. 4 Entry «Genetics», in Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013, (30 November 2013). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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1.3. Robotics A robot is any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort, though it may not resemble human beings in appearance or perform functions in a humanlike manner5. By extension, robotics is the engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction, and operation of robots. Many aspects of robotics involve artificial intelligence; robots may be equipped with the equivalent of human senses such as vision, touch, and the ability to sense temperature. Some are even capable of simple decision-making, and current robotics research is geared toward devising robots with a degree of self-sufficiency that will permit mobility and decision- making in an unstructured environment6. Today’s industrial robots generally do not resemble human beings, although many advances are being accomplished toward that direction (recently, the 11th July 2013, the U.S. company Boston Dynamics revealed an experimental version of Atlas, the «Agile Anthropomorphic Robot»)7. A robot in human form is called an android. Robots may be manned, that is to say, transporting or operated by men, or unmanned, that is, machines capable to perform their actions without the direct human intervention. Such a distinction is not coincident with the distinction between autonomous and non-autonomous robots: a) autonomous robots are systems capable of operating (therefore, performing functions, actions and tasks) in the real-world environment without a form of external control for extended periods of time8; b) non-autonomous robots are machines that cannot autonomously survive or perform useful tasks in the real world for extended periods, except in highly structured, stable and non-disturbed situations9.

2. The employment of genetics in crime prevention Genetics may be used in crime prevention basically in two ways: 1. to establish whether a person is genetically predisposed to crime or antisocial behaviours (that is, to assess his dangerousness). 2. to collect and retain DNA samples of individuals in special databases or banks

5 Entry «Robot», in Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013, (8 September 2013). 6 Entry «Robotics», in Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013, (8 September 2013). 7 More info on the Boston Dynamics Website (12 April 2014) and on (12 April 2014). 8 G.A. Bekey, Autonomous Robots: From Biological Inspiration to Implementation and Control, Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, 2005, p. 1. 9 Id., ibid., p. 2. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

190 Genetics, robotics and crime prevention

in order to compare them with those found on the scenes of crimes, so to detect the authors of crimes.

2.1. Human behavioural genetics and criminal trial (special prevention) The finding of genetic predisposition to crime is entrusted to the area of human behavioural genetics and it serves purposes of special prevention. Genetic evidence of a predisposition to crime might be used to demonstrate the dangerousness of a person and to determine whether the person should be subjected to particular pre-crime or post-crime measures. Moreover, genetic determination to crime may be considered a ground to exclude (or reduce) personal criminal responsibility as well as a mitigating factor. A concrete example of the use of genetics to measure individual criminal responsibility is offered by American and Italian case law. During the last two decades, U.S. courts have been variously considering behavioural genetics evidence in more than eighty criminal cases, starting from the case of Stephen Mobley10. The overall impact of such cases and the trends they demonstrate have been thoroughly analysed by Deborah Denno’s «longitudinal» studies11, which conclude that generally U.S. courts «accept behavioral genetics evidence in the majority of cases in which defense attorneys attempt to offer it»12. In Italy two particular cases, in which two different courts maintained the defendants’ partial mental insanity («vizio parziale di mente»)13 also due to genetic alterations, are worth being mentioned: the decision n. 5 of 18 September 2009 of the Assize Court of Appeal of Trieste14 and the decision of 25 May 2011 of the judge for the preliminary investigations of Como in the Albertani case15.

10 Mobley v. State, 426 S.E.2d 150, 151 (Ga. 1993); Mobley v. State, 455 S.E.2d 61, 65 (Ga. 1995); Turpin v. Mobley, 502 S.E.2d 458, 461 (Ga. 1998). 11 D. Denno, Courts’ Increasing Consideration of Behavioral Genetics Evidence in Criminal Cases: Results of a Longitudinal Study, in “Michigan St. L. Rev.”, 2011, pp. 967-1047; Id., Revisiting the Legal Link Between Genetics and Crime, “Law & Contemp. Probs.”, 68, 2006 pp. 209-57; Id., Behavioral Genetics Evidence in Criminal Cases: 1994-2007, in N. A. Farahany (ed.), The Impact of Behavioral Sciences in Criminal Law, New York, Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 317-54, 465-98. 12 D. Denno, Courts’ Increasing Consideration, cit., p. 1028. 13 The Italian penal code distinguishestotal insanity («vizio totale di mente») from partial insanity (or «semi-infirmity»). The former excludes mental competence (that is the capability of understanding and willing) and, therefore, imputability: the offender will not be punished at all. The latter simply diminishes mental competence and therefore does not exclude imputability, but punishment is mitigated (articles 85, 88 and 89 of the penal code). 14 Corte d’Assise d’Appello di Trieste, n. 5 of 18 September 2009, in “Riv. pen.”, 2010, p. 70 ff., with a comment by A. Forza, Le neuroscienze entrano nel processo penale. 15 G.i.p. Como, 20 September 2011, in “Guida al diritto”, 30 agosto 2011, con nota di P. Maciocchi, Gip di Como: le neuroscienze entrano e vincono in tribunale. See also F. Casasole, Neuroscienze, genetica comportamentale e processo penale, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2012, p. 110 ff. and M.T. ollicaC , Il File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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Without repeating here what others have already told (with much more detail), I just want to point out three common features of the decisions of the Courts of both Countries: 1. both American and Italian courts are oriented to admit the use of genetic evidence in criminal trial; 2. so far, both American and Italian courts used it in favour of the defendant, generally considering the genetic predisposition to crime as a mitigating factor16; 3. so far, both American and Italian courts have considered genetic factors not as isolated criteria to assess the personality of the defendant, but as one of the many variables influencing human behaviour (such as environmental and developmental factors). So far…

2.2. The collection and retention of DNA materials The collection and retention of DNA samples and profiles is entrusted to the area of genomics and, other than having investigative purposes, it has also general preventive effects. The fact that State authorities retain the DNA profile of an individual may deter him from committing any crimes, for fearing that he might be easily individuated as the author of the crime if the DNA traces found on the crime scene should match his stored DNA profile. An example of such practice is given by the legislation of the United Kingdom, which was the first country to use a DNA dragnet and to develop a national DNA database17. Until recently, U.K. law consented the indefinite retention of DNA material from anybody arrested, whether innocent or convicted. The system had a statutory basis in section 64 (1A) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) – as amended by the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (CJPA) and the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (CJA)18 – which provides for powers for the taking, retention and use of fingerprints and samples, and the retention and use of DNA profiles. Particularly, according to section 64 of PACE (as amended by CJA), when investigating on a crime, the police riconoscimento del ruolo delle neuroscienze nel giudizio di imputabilità, in “Dir. pen. contemporaneo”, 15 February 2012, in (10 April 2014). 16 Cf. also D. Denno, Courts’ Increasing Consideration, cit., p. 1027 ff. 17 N. Beniquez, We Have Your DNA, Come Out with Your Hands Up! The Three D’s of DNA: A Fourth Amendment Analysis of the Trilemma, in “T.M. Cooley J. Prac. & Clinical L.” 13, 2010-2011, p. 540. 18 Further amendments were introduced by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 and the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

192 Genetics, robotics and crime prevention may collect and store in the National DNA Database (NDNAD) DNA samples from people arrested for any recordable offence (that is, from mere suspects). Later, such system expanded under what has been described as regulatory «light touch»: no statutory guidance for decisions about the retention of samples, no readily accessible mechanism whereby individuals can challenge the decision to retain their records (other than judicial review) and no independent oversight by a designated regulatory body19. Police ended up with indefinitely retaining the DNA profile obtained from such samples even if the individual was never charged or even if the person was later acquitted of any crime. UK courts denied that such retention constituted an interference with privacy rights (and especially with the rights set by article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights). This was clearly stated by the Divisional Court and by the House of Lords in the S. and Marper case20. It was the European Court of Justice that affirmed, in the same case, that such a regulations violated the individual right to private life21. The European Court found that «the blanket and indiscriminate nature of the powers of retention of the fingerprints, cellular samples and DNA profiles of persons suspected but not convicted of offences» (our emphasis), as applied in the S and Marper case, «fails to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests» and that the United Kingdom has overstepped any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard. Accordingly, the Court maintained that the retention at issue constitutes a disproportionate interference with the applicants’ right to respect for private life and cannot be regarded as necessary in a democratic society22. Following the European Court’s decision, the Unite Kingdom enacted the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, in the aim of striking a new balance between protecting the privacy and human rights of the public, and protecting them from crime by keeping the right people on the DNA and fingerprint databases. According to such Act the DNA samples shall be in any case destroyed after six months from being taken. Nevertheless, the DNA profiles obtained from such samples may still be retained according to different regimes. If later the arrested suspect is convicted, his DNA profile can be retained indefinitely (except for minor offences committed by minors). If the arrested suspect is not convicted, his DNA profiles may be retained for up to five years, under particular conditions. In any case, the Act allows speculative searches of DNA profiles against crimes stored on the databases, to check if they match to any crime on the database. Once a speculative search has been completed, the profile and fingerprints are deleted.

19 S. Beattie, S and Marper v UK: privacy, DNA and crime prevention, in “Eur. Hum. Rights L. Rev.”, 2009, pp. 229-230. 20 S and Marper [2002] “EWHC” 478; [2002] “Po. L.R.” 273; S and Marper [2004] “UKHL” 39; [2004] 1 “W.L.R.” 2196. 21 E.Ct.H.R., S and Marper v. United Kingdom (App. Nos 30562/04 & 30566/04), judgment of 4 December 2008. 22 E.Ct.H.R., S and Marper v. United Kingdom, cit., p.125. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

L. Pasculli 193

3. The employment of robotics in crime prevention Many countries already use robots for different preventive purposes. Although the employment of robotics in crime prevention is far more variegated than that of genetics, it often passes unnoticed to the eyes of the lawyer, as it is still relegated to the field of mere praxis, lacking specific legal regulations.

3.1. Surveillance Surveillance is one of the most typical means of crime prevention. It can be used either as a generic measure, to watch over the activities of the general population in certain areas, or within the application of individual measures, to watch particular dangerous or suspect individuals23. Surveillance may be useful either to prevent the immediate commission of a crime (allowing an early intervention of police forces, as soon as they perceive through their surveillance ongoing criminal activities) and to serve as a general deterrent for the remote commission of a crime (knowing that some areas are under surveillance, people avoid to perpetrate any offence fearing they would be discovered). Robot machines allow for several kinds of surveillance and in the most disparate conditions, such as air surveillance, ground surveillance, climbing surveillance. As for air surveillance, for instance, Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield reported that the police in Liverpool and Glasgow acquired German made hicam microdrones for surveillance operations and that the Staffordshire police deployed one at the 2007 V music festival24. Another example of flying robot suitable for air surveillance is the DelFly dragonfly-shaped flying surveillance drone developed by the Delf University of Technology, Netherlands25. As for ground surveillance, a most significant example is given by small robots, generally equipped with cameras, sensors and alarms, used to patrol the grounds in

23 On the distinction between generic and individual preventive measures see L. Pasculli, Dangerous Prevention, forthcoming. See also G. Canepa, Aspetti criminologici delle misure di prevenzione con particolare riguardo alla legge 27 dicembre 1956, n. 1423, in Le misure di prevenzione, Atti del Convegno «Enrico De Nicola» (Alghero, 26-28 aprile 1974), Milano, Giuffrè, 1975, p. 109 ff. 24 N. Sharkey, 2084: Big Robot is watching you. Report on the future of robots for policing, surveillance and security, 2008, in (9 September 2013). 25 J.V. Caetano, J. Verboom, C.C. de Visser, G.C.H.E. de Croon, B.D.W. Remes, C. de Wagter, M. Mulder, Near-Hover Flapping Wing MAV Aerodynamic Modelling - a linear model approach, in “Int’l J. Micro Air Vehicles”, 5, 4, 2013; G.C.H.E., de Croon, M.A. Groen, C. De Wagter, B.D.W. Remes, R. Ruijsink, B.W. van Oudheusden, Design, Aerodynamics, and Autonomy of the DelFly, in “Bioinspiration and Biomimetics”, 7 (2), 2012; G.C.H.E., de Croon, K.M.E. de Clerq, R. Ruijsink, B. Remes, C. de Wagter, Design, aerodynamics, and vision-based control of the DelFly, in “Int. J. Micro Air Vehicles”, 1(2), 2009, p. 71 ff.; K.M.E. de Clerq, R. de Kat, B. Remes, B.W. van Oudheusden, H. Bijl, Aerodynamic Experiments on DelFly II: Unsteady Lift Enhancement, in “Int. J. Micro Air Vehicles”, 1(4), 2009, p. 255 ff. For more info and references see (11 April 2014). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

194 Genetics, robotics and crime prevention various situations. Two robots of this kind are OFRO, meant for outdoor surveillance, and MOSRO, meant for indoor surveillance, both produced by Mega Italia S.p.a.26. OFRO was employed by the Seoul authorities to watch out for potential paedophiles in school playgrounds and to provide surveillance at the Seoul World Cup in 2006 (China used two analogous robots, the Dragon Guard X3 portable robot developed by Shanghai’s Grandar Robotics and the RAPTOR made by Beijing Universal Pioneering Technology Co., Ltd., for surveillance purposes at the Beijing Olympics in 2008)27. MOSRO is aimed at offering continuous surveillance in interior environments, such as private houses, banks, offices and so on. The recent developments in robotics also brought to the creation of climbing robots that could be employed for the most disparate military or police operations. One example is the RiSE robot developed by Boston Dynamics in conjunction with researchers at University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Lewis and Clark University and funded by DARPA28. Curiously enough, the absence of regulations concerning the use of robotics for surveillance purposes led to cases of prevention of police abuses by private citizens. During the Occupy Wall Street manifestation in New York one of the protesters, Tim Pool, purchased and used a Parrot AR drone (called «occucopter») to watch over possible police abuses29.

3.2. Formation, education and information Some of the most important (positive) measures of prevention are those aimed at fostering the spontaneous adhesion of the general public and of possible offenders to the values of society, as well as those aimed at developing an adequate awareness of the risks of crime and the preventive remedies amongst possible victims (so-called prevention of victimisation, also fostered by supranational and international law)30. Robots may be well employed to such purposes. Several Police Departments in the United States of America, such as, for instance, the Crime Prevention Officers of the Gainesville Police Department (Florida)31,

26 F. Tarissi, Ecco i robots vigilantes, in “La Repubblica”, 12 March 2007, (11 April 2014). 27 N. Sharkey, 2084: Big Robot is watching you, cit. 28 A. Asbeck, S. Kim, M.R. Cutkosky, W.R. Provancher, M. Lanzetta, Scaling Hard Vertical Surfaces with Compliant Microspine Arrays, in “Int. J. Robotics Research”, 25 (12), 2006, pp. 1165 ff.; K. Autumn, A. Dittmore, D. Santos, M. Spenko, M. Cutkosky, Frictional adhesion: a new angle on gecko attachment, in “J. Exp. Biol.”, 209, 2006, p. 3569 ff. 29 Cf. N. Sharkey, S. Knuckey, Occupy Wall Street’s «occucopter» – who’s watching whom?, in “The Guardian”, 21 December 2011, in (9 September 2013). 30 Cf. L. Pasculli, Le misure di prevenzione del terrorismo e dei traffici criminosi internazionali, cit., pp. 110-119 and 190. 31 See the official Website of the Gainesville Police Department

L. Pasculli 195 incorporate the use of robots to divulgate among young students crime prevention information in schools, in order to help make crime prevention more memorable. Another example of robot use for educational and informational purposes is the R Bot 001, a police robot developed by Moscow State Technical University and factually experimented in the Russian city of Perm. R Bot 001 can record offences against the law using its five cameras, and also urge citizens to legality, for instance by reciting local statutes or by inviting drinkers to take their alcohol indoors. Moreover the robot has a panic button for passersby to call the police32.

3.3. Police guarding and patrolling Of course, the possibility of combining surveillance skills with information skills suggested the creation of more complex robots capable of providing certain services typical of policemen on patrol. Other than the Russian R Bot 001, an example of robot «policemen» is the robot experimented in China by the Changping District of Beijing police, meant to be used where cameras cannot be installed and where incidents happen frequently. It is a humanoid robot equipped with four video cameras: three in the head and a pinhole camera in its chest. By pressing a red button on the robot’s stomach citizens will be automatically connected with police headquarters and speak directly to an officer using a microphone installed on the robot’s chest33. Robots made their way also as prisons guards. A prison in Pohang, South Korea, is running a field trial of roving and autonomous robotic prison guards (called «Robo-Guards») developed by the Asian Forum for Corrections in concert with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute and manufacturer SMEC34. Such robot guards are equipped with 3D depth cameras, a two-way wireless communication system, and software programmed to recognize certain human behaviours and a cycloptic eye aimed at identifying troubles while patrolling the corridors of the prison block. The robot is designed to conduct self-directed patrols, php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47:crime-prevention&catid=40:information&Item id=58> (11 April 2014). 32 A.F.P., Un robot policier en patrouille dans les rues de Perm en Russie, in “Libération”, 30 June 2007, in (9 September 2013); see also N. Sharkey, 2084: Big Robot is watching you, cit. 33 N. Sharkey, 2084: Big Robot is watching you, cit. 34 See A. Knapp, South Korean Prison To Feature Robot Guards, in “Forbes”, 27 November 2011, (12 April 2014); C. Palis, Robo-Guard: Robot Prison Guard Is The First Of Its Kind, in “Huffington Post”, 16 April 2012, (12 April 2014); L. Kim, Meet South Korea’s New Robotic Prison Guards, in “www.digitaltrends.com”, 21 April 2012, (12 April 2014); BBC News – Technology, 25 November 2011, in (8 September 2013). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

196 Genetics, robotics and crime prevention guided by navigation tags located along corridor ceilings, but is supervised by a human guard and can be controlled via iPad. The pattern recognition algorithms focus on «risky behaviour»35 that signals trouble and can alert controllers, so that in case of emergency (e.g., suicide attempt, assault, arson…) correctional officers may respond. In less serious situations, two-way cameras and microphones allow the human guards at the control centre to communicate directly with restive prisoners, so to prevent any disorder. At the moment, this «Robo-guard» does not incorporate any features that would involve physical interaction with prisoners (alleviating the reservations of inmates, apparently concerned with the possibility of being roughly handled by the machines). Nevertheless, according to the press, although still unrealised, the idea of incorporating a functionality capable of conducting body searches is already in the mind of the robot’s designers36. Patrolling robots are also used in Nevada, where the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration employed a robot machine called MDARS («Mobile Detection Assessment Response System») to patrol its radioactive waste facility37.

3.4. Use of force Robots are also employed in crime prevention activities to exercise physical force against things or against persons (coercion), so to prevent harm and injuries to human agents (generally policemen or soldiers, but also citizens and possible crime victims). An example of robots using force against things in police operations are the robots employed by police and SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) teams for the most disparate dangerous tasks such as breaking down doors, approaching hostage takers, searching buildings, smashing windows and taking mobile phones to barricaded suspects38. Amongst such robots there are, for instance, the ANDROS Remotec, a machine originally intended for bomb disposal, used by police and military forces all over the world, and the Dragon Runner, a lightweight, back-packable, multi-terrain robot capable of detecting a variety of devices without putting the operator in harm’s way, which helps bomb disposal experts find and deactivate improvised explosive devices. Dragon Runner also has the ability to dig around suspicious objects with a manipulator arm, pick them up and move them, place small charges to disrupt suspect devices, send video footage back to the operator at a safe distance thereby enabling troops to assess a situation prior to moving forward or entering a structure, potentially safeguarding lives. Further enhancements, including the incorporation of

35 A. Knapp, South Korean Prison To Feature Robot Guards, cit. 36 L. Kim, Meet South Korea’s New Robotic Prison Guards, cit. 37 L. Benedictus, Robot soldiers patrol America’s radioactive waste dump, in “The Guardian”, 24 October 2010, in (8 September 2013). 38 N. Sharkey, 2084: Big Robot is watching you, cit. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

L. Pasculli 197 wire-cutters, have been implemented. Dragon Runner was used by British troops in Afghanistan39. The mechanical force of robots may be also employed against human persons. In 2007 the American iRobot corporation teamed up with Taser Inc., a stun-gun manufacturer, to arm track-wheeled robots for the police and the Pentagon. Such robots (called PackBot) incorporate Taser X26 guns, non-lethal electroshock weapons using electrical current to disrupt voluntary control of muscles causing neuromuscular incapacitation. South Korea uses armed sentry robots to protect its borders40: SGR-A1, a gun-toting sentry robot, developed five years ago bySamsung Techwin Co. for the South Korean government is a fixed robot using pattern recognition software to spot humans and a machine gun if needed. The South Korean defence company DoDAAM is developing robotic gun turrets for export which can be programmed to open fire automatically41. Similar robots are also used in Israel, where G-NIUS Unmanned Ground Systems (UGS) Ltd., an equally shared company of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit Systems Ltd., developed Guardium, an unmanned security vehicle capable remotely controlled by a command centre, equipped with cameras, night-vision, sensors and suitable to be armed with machine-guns or less-lethal weaponry42. Conclusively, robots may be used as means of both positive and negative prevention. Of course, it is the latter that gives rise to most problems, especially with regard to the possible compressions or intrusions on fundamental human rights by robot devices. At the present moment, the most worrisome developments in the employment of robotics for negative prevention are represented by the use of drones as weapons or robot soldiers in war. One might be tempted to consider such developments useful and legitimate, as they might save human lives by replacing human soldiers with robots in the most critical missions, but the issues at stake are many and disquieting. First of all, robots, like humans (and inasmuch as programmed or controlled by humans), are fallible, so they can commit mistakes (e.g. killing a civilian or a friend target, instead of an enemy) and when such mistakes involve the use of lethal weapons they cannot be considered light-heartedly. Secondly, the employment of robots may entail the increase of violence in war, as robots have not the human feelings of prudence, compassion, justice and common sense that can spare many lives and, generally, bring some humanity in theatres of war. Finally, it is well known that a recent trend

39 More information can be found on the British Army’s official Internet website (8 September 2013). 40 L. Kim, Meet South Korea’s New Robotic Prison Guards, cit. 41 BBC News – Technology, 25 November 2011, cit. 42 Cf. N. Sharkey, 2084: Big Robot is watching you, cit.; A. Krishnan, Killer Robots: Legality and Ethicality of Autonomous Weapons, Ashgate, Farnham 2009, p. 72; L. Benedictus, Robot soldiers patrol, cit. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

198 Genetics, robotics and crime prevention in crime prevention is resorting to emergency or war measures to prevent («fight») exceptional forms of criminality, often very close to acts of war (such as terrorism). It cannot be excluded that such trend might expand as to include the employment of military armed robots to preventatively protect society from «extraordinary» criminal aggressions also in normal (non-emergency) times. We also know that the use of emergency measures for normal situations carries the risk of the normalisation of such measures, that is, the definitive settlement in the legal order of exceptional measures (as such, derogating the principles and safeguards normally protecting human rights) as ordinary means to prevent crime43. Thus, balances of interests stroke for the peculiar context and reasons of war end up with being unreasonably (and unjustifiably) applied also in perfectly normal circumstances, which call for totally different tradeoffs. If this is the trend, then I would not be surprised if some day soon someone suggested the use of military drones or deadly armed robots in ordinary police activities. Moreover, some recent developments in robotics make it possible to predict that robots could be used, possibly together with genetic techniques, to assess individual dangerousness. There exist already robots that are capable to recognize behavioural patterns, such as the Pohang «Robo-Guards» or the South Korean SGR-A1 sentry robot, and also voice tone and facial expression, such as the so called «conversational robots» like Robita and, especially, Robisuke and its less publicised evolution Schema, all developed by Waseda University’s Kobayashi Lab of Perceptual Computing in Japan, respectively in 1999, 2003 and 2009. Robisuke, in particular, has gaze direction recognition, head gesture recognition, and facial expression recognition44. Now, it is

43 On the so-called normalization of emergency see, amongst others, O. Gross, F. Ní Aoláin, Law in Times of Crisis. Emergency Powers in Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (MA) 2006; O. Gross, Chaos and Rules: Should Responses to Violent Crises Always Be Constitutional?, in “Yale L.J.”, 112, 2003, p. 1011 ff.; K.L. cheppeleS , North American emergencies: The use of emergency powers in Canada and the United States, in “Int’l J. Const. L.”, 4, 2006, p. 213 ss. With specific regard to criminal law, see M. Pelissero, Il diritto penale politico tra esigenze di normalizzazione ed istanze deflattive. Il contributo di Mario Romano alla riforma, in M. Bertolino, L. Eusebi, G. Forti, (a cura di), Studi on. Mario Romano, I, Napoli, Jovene, 2011, p. 453 ff.; S. occiaM , La perenne emergenza, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli 1997; A. Bernardi, Ombre e luci della politica criminale italiana nell’era delle perenne emergenza, in “Annali dell’Universita di Ferrara – Scienze Giuridiche”, XVII, 2003, p. 17 ff. On the normalization of emergency in (negative) crime prevention (and also for further references) see L. Pasculli, Le misure di prevenzione, cit., pp. 96, 124 ff., 200-201, 260-261. 44 For some of the developments of the research staff at the Kobayashi Laboratory on such robot features see S. Fujie, Y. Matsuyama, H. Taniyama, T. Kobayashi, Conversation robot participating in and activating a group communication, in Interspeech 2009, proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (Brighton, U.K., 6-10 September, 2009), 2009, p. 264 ff.; K. Hoshiai, S. Fujie, T. Kobayashi, Upper-body Contour Extraction Using Face and Body Shape Variance Information, in proceedings of The 3rd Pacific-Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology (PSIVT2009, Tokyo, 13-16 January 2009), 2009, p. 862 ff.; S. Fujie, Y. Ejiri, Y. Matsusaka, H. Kikuchi, T. Kobayashi, Recognition of para-linguistic information and its application to spoken dialogue system, in proceedings of IEEE ASRU 2003 (Automatic Speech Recognition and File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

L. Pasculli 199 not difficult to imagine that the further evolution of such robots could be their employment to infer personal dangerousness from human attitudes or expressions, perhaps based on catalogues of expressions such as those elaborated by Paul Ekman45. There is no need to say that if someday such abilities will be combined in the same robot with the ability to autonomously use deadly weapons against those that the AI algorithms of the robot recognise as suspect or dangerous, the result will be most disturbing, especially considered the above mentioned lack of any human feeling in robots. In any case, as the employment of robots increases, soon some solid regulation will be needed.

4. Genetics, robotics, crime prevention and human rights Crime prevention is but a means of protection against the most harmful aggression to the most significant interests and goods of the human person, both as an individual and as a member of a social formation. If crime prevention aims at protecting the human person, then the condition for its legitimacy is that crime prevention itself does not turn into an arbitrary violation of the human person. Any preventive measure entailing irrational (inasmuch as determined by fear or by the sense of insecurity rather then by rational assessments or because of their indemonstrable effectiveness) orunreasonable (inasmuch as based on unacceptable balances of interests) sacrifices of rights and liberties of the human person would be unjust46 and, therefore, illegitimate.

Understanding Workshop, St. Thomas, U.S., 30 November-3 December 2003), 2003, p. 231 ff.; Y. Matsusaka, T. Tojo, T. Kobayashi, Conversation Robot Participating in Group Conversation, in “IEICE Trans. on Information and Systems”, vol. E86-D, n.1, 2003, p. 26 ff. Other references in the official Internet Website of the Kobayashi Laboratory of Waseda University: (8 September 2013). 45 P. Ekman, Emotions Revealed. Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life, Holt, New York, 20072; P. Ekman, W.V. Friesen, Unmasking the Face: A Guide to Recognizing Emotions from Facial Clues (1975), Cambridge (MA), Malor Books, 2003; P. Ekman, Darwin and Facial Expression: A Century of Research in Review, New York, Academic Press, 1973, drawing on C. Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), anniversary ed., with an introduction, afterword and commentaries by Paul Ekman and an essay on the history of the illustrations by Phillip Prodger, London, Harper, 2009. 46 For a conception of man as a reasonable and rational animal see G. Bettiol, Sistema e valori nel diritto penale, in “Jus”, 1940, now in Id., Scritti giuridici, I, Padova, CEDAM, 1966, p. 498 (for further notes and references: S. Riondato, Un diritto penale detto «ragionevole». Raccontando Giuseppe Bettiol, Padova, CEDAM, 2005, pp. 1 ff.). Cf. also J. Rawls, Political Liberalism, New York, Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 50 ff.; Id., A Theory of Justice (1971), rev. ed., Cambridge (MA), Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999, passim; Id., Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, 2007, p. 54 ff. (also referring to T. obbesH , Leviathan, London, Andrew Crooke, 1651). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

200 Genetics, robotics and crime prevention

The minimum threshold of legitimacy of any genetic and robotic measure of crime prevention shall be its compliance with the safeguard of fundamental individual rights and liberties typical the rule of law and protected by international human rights law. Many rights and principles are at stake, such as the right to liberty and security, the right to respect for private and family life, right to health and the prohibition of any discrimination.

4.1. Genetics, robotics and individual dangerousness In this regard, one of the most interesting problems is the trust that some might place on the capacity of genetics and robotics to detect individual dangerousness, which in many jurisdictions is the ground for the application of the most disparate – also restrictive and incapacitating – preventive measures. Human behaviour is a complex phenomenon. Genetics may have a role in influencing human behaviour, but many scholars recognize that: 1. other variables, such as environmental factors, seem to have even a more significant effect on human behaviour than genes; 2. being genetically predisposed to crime does not necessarily mean to be determined to crime47. Predisposition could at the best individuate the mere possibility that an individual engages in criminal activities (that is a generic risk of crime) rather than the probability of which individual dangerousness consists. This conclusion seems to be well known to Italian and American courts, which consider genetic information together with many other factors to assess individual responsibility and dangerousness. Given the difficulty determining the weight of each of these factors, the self-constraint of Italian and American courts in limiting the use of genetics only when favourable to the defendant is worth appreciation. Nevertheless, the absence of a specific legal regulation of these issues cannot prevent that the courts start using genetics also to prove criminal responsibility and individual dangerousness. The introduction of some legal constraint is, therefore, needed. Law should intervene to set the limits of the possible use of genetics for penal and crime preventive purposes, according to the in dubio pro reo principle. Such limits shall be individuated in the margins of uncertainty of genetics: where the results of genetic analysis cannot lead to certain conclusions they should not be used against a defendant (whereas, on the contrary, they could be well use in favour of a defendant even if they are uncertain). More generally, the proved impact of genetic factors on the causation of criminal behaviours shall be considered as a key feature of a system

47 On these two propositions cf. the «points of (near) consensus» listed by O.D. Jones, Behavioral Genetics and Crime, in Context, in “Law & Contemp. Probs.”, 68, 2006, pp. 86-88. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

L. Pasculli 201 of positive measures aimed at improving the whole life conditions of an individual so to attract him to legality, while subtracting him from crime. As for robotics, one of the most worrisome scenario is the development of robots capable to perform autonomous actions (which may also be harmful for human beings), autonomous evaluations and to take autonomous decisions, that is, to think and act against man without the control of man. Being the human person the very foundation of crime prevention, it would not be admissible that a robot device could assess individual dangerousness and decide whether and in what measure to restrict human liberty or to harm or incapacitate a human being for preventive purposes. As a reasonable and rational animal, man (even the most dangerous man) deserves to be dealt with only by other reasonable and rational animals, according to the principles of rationality and reasonableness and to that sense of justice typical of humanity48. Besides, that is why criminal law jurisprudence has been moving so many steps towards humanisation in the last centuries49. Entrusting robots with the administration of preventive functions and measures that, like punishment, entail the compression of fundamental right would represent a serious regression: a de- humanisation of criminal law and crime prevention. In particular, the robot assessment of individual dangerousness would necessarily imply the codification of a sort of catalogue of indicators of dangerousness, which the machine should be programmed to detect and to react to. Such a codification would be unavoidably based on statistics and therefore would not be able to ensure that degree of certainty that is necessary to lawfully compress individual liberty or physical integrity. Without the control of the man there could always be the case of false positives. For instance, how could a robot policeman programmed to detect and react to facial expressions understand if the aggressive expression on the face of a suspect is real or fake or playful? How can a robot soldier programmed to kill soldiers wearing enemy uniforms distinguish real enemies from infiltrated friendly soldiers in disguise? How can a sentinel robot programmed to shoot at those who trespass the boundaries of a country recognise and spare a children who is just chasing his balloon in the foreign territory? Given such risks, robots shall never be employed to autonomously determine any harm or restriction to the individual legal sphere, without proper human control. On the contrary, a healthy and interesting development of robotics shall consist in their use for positive measures, to perform tasks that the human being could never

48 On the conception of man as a reasonable and rational animal see G. Bettiol, Sistema e valori nel diritto penale, cit. 49 G. Bettiol, Sull’umanizzazione del diritto penale, in “Riv. it. dir. pen.”, 1949, p. 1 ff., now in Id., Scritti giuridici, II, cit., p. 746 ff. (on Bettiol’s opinions see G. arinucciM , Giuseppe Bettiol e la crisi del diritto penale negli anni Trenta, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2008, p. 929 ff.). Cf. also G. Delitala, Il rispetto della persona umana nell’esecuzione della pena, in “Iustitia”, 1956, p. 316 ff. and M.A. Cattaneo, Pena, diritto e dignità umana, Torino, Giappichelli, 1990. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

202 Genetics, robotics and crime prevention perform (e.g. aerial surveillance), to prevent harm to police forces, to criminals and to victims (e.g. bomb disposal robots), to carry materials too heavy for men (e.g. Big Dog and LS3 robots, developed by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - DARPA – and Boston Dynamics) 50 and also for informative, educational, therapeutic purposes. Thus, genetics and robotics reflect once again the old question of the means of crime prevention. Against the insistent (almost obsessive) suggestions that the only way to «fight» a criminality that (especially in our global era) is getting more and more «exceptional» are negative measures, I insist in suggesting that positive measures are still the most efficient and legitimate way to prevent crime51. The resources, technologies and products of globalisation – amongst which robotics and genetics – would be better invested in the development of instruments to support and enhance the personality of the human being, rather than in the multiplication of weapons and measures that compress, incapacitate, neutralise, eliminate this personality in an escalation of violence and (preventive) repression52 which ultimately is more criminogenic than preventive – especially on the global scale and over the long term53.

5. Conclusive remarks I conclude with two propositions. First, if crime prevention is the protection of the human being, then the human being shall be, therefore, the only and ultimate paradigm around which any robot or genetic measure shall be construed. The human person shall remain the value to protect, while genetics and robotics are mere instruments of protection. This also means that genetics should not pretend to alter human nature, as robotics should not pretend to replace it.

50 For more information on BigDog see the official Boston Dynamics Internet Website (8 September 2013). For details on the locomotion system of such robots see D.E. Koditschek, R.J. Full, M. Buehler, A Principled Approach to the Bio-inspired Design of Legged Locomotion Systems, in proceedings of the SPIE (Defense and Security Symposium), 5422, Unmanned Ground Vehicle Technology VI, 2004, p. 86 ff.; D.E. oditschekK , R.J. Full, M. Buehler, Mechanical Aspects of Legged Locomotion Control, in “Arthropod Struct. Dev.”, 33, 2004, p. 251 ff. 51 Cf., for instance, F. Bricola, Forme di tutela «ante-delictum» e profili costituzionali della prevenzione, in Le misure di prevenzione, Proceedings of the «Enrico De Nicola» Conference (Alghero, 26-28 April 1974), Milano, Giuffrè, 1975, p. 37 ff. (especially p. 74) and G. Canepa, Aspetti criminologici delle misure di prevenzione con particolare riguardo alla legge 27 dicembre 1956, n. 1423, ibid., p. 109 ff. (especially p. 118). 52 On the concept of «preventive repression» («repressione preventiva») see L. Pasculli, Le misure di prevenzione, cit., pp. 42-43. 53 Cf. Z. Bauman, Liquid Fear, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2006, p. 96; Id., Modus vivendi. Inferno e utopia del mondo liquido, transl. by S. D’Amico, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2008, pp. 1-7. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

L. Pasculli 203

Secondly, crime prevention should go beyond mere protection of the human personality (negative measures), as it should consist, more profitably, in thepromotion of such personality (positive measures). The introduction and development of positive measures is, therefore, to be encouraged, especially in view of the rapid evolutions of genetics and robotics, so to prevent any possible securitarian misuse or abuse of the future developments of robot and genetic research and technologies. This is also a very good way to start improving our law in view of acknowledging not only its function of mere protection, but also (and especially) a more positive promotional function (as Norberto Bobbio would define it)54 for the human person.

54 N. Bobbio, Sulla funzione promozionale del diritto, in “Riv. trim. dir. proc. civ.”, 23, 1969, p. 1312, now as Id., La funzione promozionale del diritto, in Id., Dalla struttura alla funzione. Nuovi studi di teoria del diritto, Milano, Edizioni di Comunità, 1977, p. 13. N. Bobbio, The Promotion of Action in the Modern State, in G. Hughes (ed.), Law, Reason and Justice. Essays in Legal Philosophy, New York, New York University Press, 1969, p. 189. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Protection of personal data and penal instruments to contrast the new forms of genetic discrimination1

Debora Provolo

Table of contents: 1. Genetic privacy and protection of personal identity. – 2. Treatment of genetic data and risk of discrimination or stigmatization. – 3. The protection of genetic data in the Privacy Code. – 4. Genetic data and biobanks. – 5. Towards a penal protection against genetic discrimination?

1. Genetic privacy and protection of personal identity The capability to “read” the human genetic heritage and to give a meaning to the information derivable from it requires to take into account a peculiar aspect of the protection of genetic identity – different from the one concerning protection against possible manipulations, alterations or hybridizations2 – that is the one connected to the protection of genetic data and, together with them, of interests pertaining to the fundamental human sphere, first and foremost privacy3, regarded as inclusive, in a

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. 2 About genetic identity as a subject of protection under criminal law see the contributions of R. Borsari, Profili Penali della terapia genica, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà and P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, I, edited by S. Canestrari, G. Ferrando, C.M. Mazzoni, S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Milano, Giuffrè, 2011, p. 531 ff. and ofE. Mezzetti, La tutela penale dell’identità genetica, ibid., p. 309 ff. 3 The origin of the juridical concept of privacy, in its primogenial meaning – markedly individualistic and strictly connected to the concept of private property – as the «right to be let alone», generally traces back to the well-known essay of S. Warren and L. Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, in “Harvard Law Review”, 1890, p. 193 ff. For an accurate analysis of the birth of the legal concept of privacy, seeP. Patrono, entry Privacy e vita privata (dir. pen), in Enc. dir., XXXV, Milano, Giuffrè, 1986, p. 557 ff., to which we refer also for a first bibliography on the topic; for an overview on the birth of the right to privacy with reference to the link between technological progress, social needs and the necessary evolution of common law, see U. Pagallo, La tutela della privacy negli Stati Uniti d’America e in Europa. Modelli giuridic a confronto, Milano, Giuffrè, 2008, p. 3 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

206 Protection of personal data broad sense, both of the right to be let alone (intended as “diritto alla riservatezza”) and of the right to the protection of personal data4. The relation between genetics and privacy is highly problematic. This depends on the fundamental characteristics of genetic data, as very personal information connected to the identity and health condition of the individual, having the peculiarity to catch the human subject in his/her own uniqueness and, at the same time, to relate him/her with other individuals who belong to the same genetic lineage5. A similar conformation clearly can influence the concept of privacy, both in its meaning as a right to defend the individual’s own private sphere from outer invasions, since the peculiar character of genetic data consists precisely in their being “shared” with other individuals, and in its meaning as a power to control and organise personal information, due to the difficulty to unconditionally forbid the access to an individual’s “own” genetic information, in consideration of the fact that this information is not “own” only to that individual6.

4 See R. Borsari, Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili Penali, in S. Riondato (ed.), Diritto penale della famiglia, vol. IV of Trattato di diritto di famiglia, directed by P. Zatti, Milano, Giuffrè, 2011, p. 1041. The terms “privacy”, “privateness”, “private life”, are often used assynonyms , although they are not superimposable concepts: on the topic see, for a first approach and with different hints,F. Bricola, Prospettive e limiti della tutela penale della riservatezza, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1967, p. 1079 ff.; S. Fiore, Riservatezza (diritto alla), in Enc. giur. Treccani, Roma, Ed. enc. it., 1999; S. Furfaro, Riservatezza, in Dig. disc. pen., Agg., vol. IV, Torino, UTET, 2008, p. 1062; A. Manna, Beni della personalità e limiti della protezione penale. Le alternative di tutela, Padova, CEDAM, 1989, p. 260 ff.; F.C. Palazzo, entry Persona (delitti contro la) in Enc. dir., vol. XXXIII, Milano, Giuffrè, 1983, p. 309 ff.;P. Zagnoni, Sulla tutela penale del diritto alla riservatezza, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1982, p. 977 ff. The core of the concept of «privacy» (in its dual essential content of a right to the exclusive knowing of events concerning an individual’s own private life and as a right to control private personal data) can be better defined with the expression «interest to the respect of private life», a wide concept that can include a multiplicity of interests of the individual, such as the interest to discretion and secret, to a domicile, to a formal honour, to a private tranquillity, to a correct utilization and collection of personal data: P. Patrono, entry Privacy e vita privata (dir. pen.), cit., p. 561 ff. 5 As it already has been observed (C. M. Romeo Casabona, La tutela del genoma humano, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà and P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, I, cit., p. 249) the genome is information «sobre cada individuo, sobre su familia biológica e sobre la especie a la que pertenece». About the debate regarding the exact meaning of the notion of “genetic data”, depending on whether the word “genetic” is referred to the source of the information (that is the genetic test) or to the content and to the character of the information (therefore including in the meaning also information on the genetic characteristics of the individual derivable from his/her family medical history, from the observation of his/her behaviour or even from other information on his/her personal health), see E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali. Profili di diritto comparato ed europeo, Padova, CEDAM, 2008, p. 3; J.H. Gerards, General issues concerning genetic information, in J.H. Gerards, A.W. Heringa, H.L. Janssen, Genetic discrimination and genetic privacy in a comparative perspective, Antwerp, Intersentia, 2005, p. 11 ff. 6 On this topic see C. Romano, Il trattamento dei dati genetici nel diritto italiano, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (eds.), I dati genetici nel biodiritto. Forum BioDiritto 2009, Padova, CEDAM, 2011, p. 182. About the need to supplement the traditional protection of the private life of the family unit from external interferences with the needs of protection of the single member also in respect to the other family members, in a more individualistic and wide perspective of family, see R. Borsari, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 207

The protection of genetic privacy7 is strictly connected to the protection of genetic identity, given that genetic information represents an essential instrument of personal identification and for the recognition of risk factors regarding the individual, and whose awareness can considerably influence the individual’s choices (first and foremost procreative choices and those concerning his/her own health) and, consequently, the free development of his/her personality8. Genetic features are one of the many elements forming the identity of a person. The right to a personal identity – with a certain simplification and with the due awareness that in the legal language the term “personal identity” can have different meanings9 – can be defined as the right to be oneself, both with reference to the respect of the choices concerning one’s own life plan, and with reference to the need of an adequate exterior representation of one’s own personality10. Genetic information depicts, due to its nature and its own characters, an aspect of personal identity (the genetic profile) that is not only a mark of a person’s identifiability, but concerns also, in a substantial dimension, the way the individual depicts himself or herself and develops his/her own personality11, within the general or particular social reality in which his/her personal identity evolved, expressed itself and strengthened12. However, precisely because personal identity goes beyond genetic identity, as it is not limited to it13, there is a clear need for the

Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili penali, cit., p. 1042 f., and also, more broadly about the concept of family in criminal law, S. Riondato, Introduzione a «famiglia» nel diritto penale italiano, in Id. (ed.), Diritto penale della famiglia, vol. IV of Trattato di diritto di famiglia, directed by P. Zatti, cit., p. 4 ff. 7 About the concept of genetic privacy see G. Laurie, Genetic privacy. A challenge to medico-legal norms, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002. 8 See S. Rodotà, Tecnologie e diritti, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1995, p. 209 ff. 9 For a very first approach to the complex theme of the right to a personal identity, basically a creation of scholars and courts, see G. Alpa, M. Bessone, L. Boneschi (eds.), Il diritto all’identità personale, Padova, CEDAM, 1981; G. Pino, L’identità personale, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. I, Ambito e fonti del biodiritto, edited by S. Rodotà, M. Tallacchini, Milano, Giuffrè, 2010, p. 297 ff.;Id ., Il diritto all’identità personale. Interpretazione costituzionale e creatività giurisprudenziale, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2003, passim; G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, in “Il diritto dell’informazione e dell’informatica”, 2007, p. 511 ff.; P. Zatti, Dimensioni ed aspetti dell’identità nel diritto privato attuale, in “La Nuova Giurisprudenza Civile Commentata”, 2007, II, p. 2 ff.;V. Zeno- Zencovich, Identità personale, in Dig. disc. priv., sez. civ., vol. IX, Torino, UTET, 1993, p. 294 ff. Under a penal perspective seeA. Manna, Beni della personalità e limiti della protezione penale. Le alternative di tutela, Padova, CEDAM, 1989, p. 233 ff. 10 For this definition seeG. Pino, L’identità personale, cit., p. 316. 11 In regard to the effects of genetic information on personal identity seeS. Álvarez González, Derechos fundamentales y protección de datos genéticos, Madrid, Dykinson, 2007, p. 63 ff. 12 E.C. Raffiotta, Appunti in materia di diritto all’identità personale, in “Forum di Quaderni Costituzionali”, 2010, p. 8, in www.forumcostituzionale.it. 13 With regard to this topic see A. Manna, La tutela penale della vita in fieri, tra funzione promozionale e protezione di beni giuridici, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 352, who, while affirming the impossibility to equate in an absolute way the violation of the uniqueness of the genetic heritage of the embryo with a harm to the personal identity of the individual, observes that «the inherently relational nature of the dignitary statute of the person implies in fact that the genetic heritage represents only one (between File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

208 Protection of personal data exact external representation of “what someone is” to take place through the use of the whole information regarding the person instead of being limited to the only evalutation of genetic data. Therefore, the right to an identity presupposes an integral representation of the person14, which implies the right of the individual to not have the representation of his personal identity reduced to his genetic profile only. Then, the importance of the control over the definition of identity comes to light, regarding which the «informational privacy»15 is instrumental, as precondition for a free development of individual autonomy, immune to possible stigmatizations and improper influences16. In this sense stands the law on protection of personal data (legisl. decree 30 June 2003, n. 196, Codice in materia di protezione dei dati personali), which ensures a particular protection to genetic data17. Besides, this very regulation contains (like the previous law n. 675/1996) an explicit reference to the necessary protection of personal identity (art. 218), which leads back to the field of fundamental rights, together with privacy and the right to the protection of personal data19. Overall, privacy and protection of personal data are functional to the capability of the individual to determine his/her «individual compasses» («compasso individuale»)20, as far as they allow him/her, on the one hand, to choose whether to keep given characteristics of his/her own identity private and, on the other hand, to control that personal information available to others is correct and complete and represents a truthful depiction of his/her identity. Therefore, the regulation of (genetic) privacy has to be considered not under the limitative perspective of controlling outbound information, but under the wider perspective of monitoring the modalities of many others) of the constitutive elements of the personal identity of the human being (as shown by the natural phenomenon of identical twins, who develop different, sometimes even antithetical, personalities although they have the same genetic heritage)» (our transl.). 14 G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, cit., p. 522 ff. 15 See G. Laurie, Genetic Privacy, cit., p. 6, who combines the concept of «informational privacy» («state in which personal information about an individual is in a state of non-access from others») and the one of «spatial privacy» («state of non-access to the individual’s physical or psychological self») into the broader notion of privacy as a «state of separateness from others». 16 About the relation between personal identity and privacy in a strict sense (interpreted as «riservatezza», as the right that specific information do not circulate unlawfully), see v. G. Pino, L’identità personale, cit., p. 316 ff. 17 About this see below. 18 Art. 2 legisl. decree n. 196/2003: «1. The present Consolidated Act, hereinafter called “code”, guarantees that the treatment of personal data is carried out respecting fundamental rights and freedoms, as well as the dignity of the person concerned, with particular attention to privacy, personal identity and to the right to protection of personal data» (our transl.). 19 On this topic see G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, cit., p. 521 f. 20 This incisive expression, which describes the idea that the line encompassing one’s own individuality is drawn by the individual himself, who understands it and has any authority on it, has been coined by A. Santosuosso, Diritto, scienza, nuove tecnologie, Padova, CEDAM, 2011, p. 68, footnote 2. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 209 definition of the identity21. Moreover, within this context, there is the topical and urgent problem connected to the modern configuration of the link between the body and the information that can be extracted from it. The human body has undergone (and keeps undergoing) deep transformations, it has lost its unity, being fragmented in parts or products that form it (organs, blood, tissues, cells, gametes, DNA), that can circulate and can be used autonomously for varied purposes; lastly, it has been the subject of a process of dematerialisation which led to a contrast between «electronic body» and «physical body»22. Moreover, this complex framework has to face the massive use of increasingly modern technologies (first and foremost, the computer ones) aimed at implementing techniques of collection of information and elaboration of individual profiles23, which entail the risk of a «fragmentation of the ego» in a multiplicity of databases, which give a merely partial and uncontextualised, and therefore potentially detrimental, vision of the individual and of his/her identity24. The individual may even be completely unaware of such fragmentation and this draws the attention on a very significant topic that we can but briefly mention here: the raised vulnerability of the individual to possible identity thefts that, in consideration of the peculiarity of the reproduced or falsified data, can be particularly serious and definitive. While one can actually replace a credit card or a password that has been stolen, one cannot replace genetic material (the same can be said also for the different types of biometric data, such as fingerprints, the analysis of fingers’ images, iris recognition, retinal scan, hand geometry, ear shape recognition, vocal recognition and so on)25, as it is impossible to cut the bond between the individual and genetic information26.

21 Along these lines G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, cit., p. 525. 22 S. Rodotà, Trasformazioni del corpo, in “Politica del diritto”, 2006, p. 3 ff. About the complex theme of the relation between body and person, with regard to the concepts of identity and belonging, see P. Zatti, Principi e forme del “governo del corpo”, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà and P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, I, cit., p. 99 ff. 23 F. Mucciarelli, in Informatica e tutela penale della riservatezza, in L. Picotti (ed.), Il diritto penale dell’informatica nell’epoca di internet, Padova, CEDAM, 2004, p. 179, observes that, in the absence of an ability to elaborate informational data, most information collected would be «empty, silent data, lacking of an actual harmful power endangering the protected interest: computers and software transform white pebbles disseminated at every step in a continuous path, in a safe and often indelible track, which guides the observer inside the fence of our private sphere, drawing its features in an alarmingly accurate way» (our transl.). 24 See G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, cit., p. 522; S. Rodotà, Tecnopolitica. La democrazia e le nuove tecnologie della comunicazione, Roma, Laterza, 2004, p. 148. 25 For an introduction to the topic see S. Girotto, Il trattamento dei dati biometrici, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà and P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, I, cit., p. 1237 ff. 26 See E.E. Joh, DNA Theft: recognizing the crime of nonconsensual genetic collection and testing, in “Boston University Law Review”, Vol. 91, 2011, p. 665 ff. About this topic see alsoS. Rodotà, Trasformazioni del corpo, cit., p. 15 ff., who points out that, in the event of a theft of biometric data (for the Author, comprehensive also of the DNA), we are facing a «complete falsification of the identity», therefore the only way to avoid unlawful utilizations by others is stopping using the identification tool, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

210 Protection of personal data

Moreover, the gravity of this situation is accentuated by the fact that genetic material supplies an amount of information that goes beyond the mere identification of the person and involves the biological group to which the subject belongs. Therefore, the difficulty to control this «new» body, created outside its physical unity, «decomposable, dispersible, manipulable, falsifiable»27, imposes to test the suitability of the traditional penal instruments protecting the intimacy of the existence, and to question ourselves about the need for new and more incisive guarantees concerning the collection, the circulation and the use of genetic data.

2. Treatment of genetic data and risk of discrimination or stigmatization The sharing of genetic data with other subjects, their stability over time and their predictive predisposition distinguish them from the generality of personal information28. The capability of genetic information to show not only the current health condition of the individual, but also his/her predisposition to certain diseases, entails undeniable advantages, for example in the field of predictive and personalized medicine29, since the person concerned will be able to opt for specific therapies or to change his or her lifestyle, behaving differently in order to avoid or reduce the risk of occurrence of an illness to which he or she turned out to be predisposed. However, at the same time, for a sort of paradox30, an improper circulation of these data can put the individual in a condition of “frailty” that can negatively reverberate over his/her public and private relations and hinder his/her social relationships, and can give life to new forms of discrimination, based on genetics31. This can happen, for with consequent total exclusion from all the systems that are based on it. 27 S. Rodotà, op. ult. cit., p. 22. 28 About this topic see, among others, L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, in “Il diritto dell’informazione e dell’informatica”, 2003, p. 689 ff.;P. Nicolás, Genetic Data and the Law. The Principles at stake, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (eds.), I dati genetici nel biodiritto. Forum BioDiritto 2009, cit., p. 48 ff.; C.M. Romeo Casabona, Los genes y sus leyes. El derecho ante el genoma humano, Bilbao-Granada, Ed. Comares, 2002, p. 63 ff.;S. Rodotà, Tecnologie e diritti, cit., p. 207 ff. 29 For an overview on different angles (therapeutic, bioethical and juridical) of predictive medicine see the contributions to the collective work edited by C. Bresciano, Genetica e medicina predittiva: verso un nuovo modello di medicina?, Milano, Giuffrè, 2000. 30 The so-called “genetic paradox” is mentioned by M.T. Annecca, Test genetici e diritti della persona, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà and P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, I, cit., p. 406: the potential benefits deriving to the individual from being aware of a predisposition to specific diseases go together with the risk, for the same individual, of exploitations or illicit utilization of that genetic information, with special regard to the dangers for his/her dignity and fundamental rights, first of all the right to privacy, with discriminatory effects on his/her social life. 31 About this topic see for now, also in a comparative perspective, C.M. Romeo Casabona, Genetic Privacy and non-discrimination, in “Revista de derecho y genoma humano”, 2011, p. 141 ff.; P. Torretta, Privacy e nuove forme di discriminazione rispetto alla circolazione delle informazioni genetiche: sistemi giuridici di tutela a confronto, in “Rivista AIC”, 2010, p. 1 ff.; .H.J Gerards, A.W. Heringa, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 211 example, within the work, insurance and banking fields, where employers, insurance companies or banks (for example, in granting loans) may discriminate employees and clients on the basis of genetic data considered “anomalous”32 or, more broadly, within the social fabric in which the subject is integrated, whenever the community is informed that the subject has a genetic predisposition to a certain illness or to a specific kind of behaviour, or that he or she has been registered into a biobank for forensic purposes. Attention has been widely drawn to the risk of a success of the dangerous tendency to reduce the many identity profiles of an individual mainly (if not exclusively) to his/her genetic makeup, taking into consideration as factual conditions what are instead only hypothetical conditions33: in other terms, there may be the risk of a tendency to treat the subject who has been diagnosed with a predisposition to a certain behaviour or a specific illness as if the behaviour or the illness were already ongoing, and this could happen even if in many cases the behaviour or the illness might never arise, since the relation between the genotype and the phenotype – that is between the genetic maturation and the actual display in the subject’s behaviour or illness – is conditional, uncertain and anyway poorly understood34. Thus, this brings to the establishment of what has been defined as a new, more sophisticated and technologic, form of «Lombrosian predetermination», according to which specific genetic features cannot but correspond to specific aspects of the life, the behaviour and the fate of the man35. This “genetic fatalism”, prone to obtain from the (only) reading of the individual’s DNA incontrovertible revelations on an inescapably

H.L. Janssen, Genetic discrimination and genetic privacy in a comparative perspective, cit., passim. 32 Genetic information could be used to damage the person concerned, who could, for example, not be hired or could be paid less than another individual inasmuch as he/she is considered “subject at risk”, or a life insurance could be denied to him or her, or he or she could even be someway penalized for having adopted, being aware of his/her susceptibility to develop a certain disease, a lifestyle which has facilitated its outbreak. About the use of genetic information in a working or insurance field and the risks of discrimination connected see, also for the appropriate bibliographic references, M.T. Annecca, Test genetici e diritti della persona, cit., p. 389 ff.; E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali, cit., p. 29 ff.; A Trojsi, Genetic Data and Labour Law, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (eds.), I dati genetici nel biodiritto. Forum BioDiritto 2009, cit., p. 71 ff. 33 C. Casonato, La discriminazione genetica: una nuova frontiera dei diritti dell’uomo?, in Aa.Vv., I diritti fondamentali in Europa. XV. Colloquio biennale, Messina-Taormina, 31 May-2 June 2001, Milano, Giuffrè, 2002, p. 643 f. 34 V. D. Nelkin, Bioetica e diritto, in C.M. Mazzoni (ed.), Una norma giuridica per la bioetica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1998, p. 154. About the predisposition of genetic data to have different meanings because of their «cryptic nature», projected in time and beyond the person, see also A. Santosuosso, Genetica, diritto e giustizia: un futuro già in atto, in A. Santosuosso, C. A. Redi, S. Garagna, M. Zuccotti (eds.), I giudici davanti alla genetica, Pavia-Como, Ibis, 2002, p. 26. 35 In these terms C. Casonato, La discriminazione genetica: una nuova frontiera dei diritti dell’uomo?, cit., p. 644. From a penal perspective this recalls the threat of new forms of biological “determinism” or “reductionism”, connected to the disruptive impact of genetics (and neurosciences) on penal regulations, with particular regard to those concerning imputability and culpability. On this complex theme we refer to the interesting contributions of this volume that deal with it from different perspectives. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

212 Protection of personal data predetermined future, without any space for interaction with other factors o with the individual’s will,36 not only has detrimental consequences in the «outside world», in social relationships, but it also results into a strong influence on the existential freedom of the person37. In addition to the specific risks of discrimination that can arise in some sectors of human action, such as insurances or employment, the danger connected to what has been effectively defined as «the DNA mystique»38 is, more broadly, that of developing a social organisation strongly characterized by genetic criteria of classification and control39. This seems to be confirmed by the continuous increase of genetic data banks40 and by the widespread policy of genetic screenings, enforced in several countries, aimed at creating genetic filings not justified by therapeutic needs41, but functional to forms of social control and exclusion policies42. Within such a context, there is also the delicate issue concerning the possible discriminatory consequences of employing the most recent achievements of behavioural genetics in the criminal trial, and particularly, those concerning the effects of a certain genetic profile on the human behaviour and on the individual’s

36 C. Casonato, Diritto, diritti ed eugenetica: prime considerazioni su un discorso giuridico altamente problematico, in “Humanitas”, n. 4, 2004, p. 841 ff. 37 About this topic see S. Rodotà, Tecnologie e diritti, cit., p. 218, who raises the problem also with regard to the “right to know” of the individual, meaning that in the case where there is not an absolute and strict genetic predisposition to deal with, a full knowledge of one’s own genetic information can distort the ways of interaction with the environment, and therefore the free development of personality. About the topic of the right to informational self-determination connected to genetic data see L. Chieffi, Analisi genetica e tutela del diritto alla riservatezza. Il bilanciamento tra il diritto di conoscere e quello di ignorare le proprie informazioni biologiche, in Studi in onore di V. Atripaldi, Napoli, Jovene, 2010, p. 853 ff. 38 D. Nelkin, M.S. Lindee, The DNA Mystique. The gene as a cultural icon, New York, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1995. 39 M. Croce, Genetica umana e diritto: problemi e prospettive, in U. Breccia, A. Pizzorusso (eds.), Atti di disposizione del proprio corpo, Pisa, PLUS, 2007, p. 89. 40 One of the first (and most popular) large archives of genetic data created on a national basis is the one established in Iceland in 1998, with the controversial foundation of the Health Sector Database, a database aimed at collecting non only genetic but also health and genealogical information on the Icelander population; its realization was entrusted to a private biopharmaceutical company (the deCode Genetics), which afterwards went bankrupt. About the Icelander biobank and, in general, about the juridical issues related to the creation and management of biobanks see A. Santosuosso, I.A. Colussi, Diritto e genetica delle popolazioni, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà and P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, I, cit., p. 351 ff. 41 M. Croce, Genetica umana e diritto: problemi e prospettive, cit., p. 89. 42 For an illustrative purpose it is possible to mention the ideation, during the Bush Senior administration, of the Violence Prevention Initiative programme, which provided for the realization of a screening procedure on about one hundred thousand kids coming from areas with a high crime rate, with the aim to identify «potential criminals» to put through programs of rehabilitative modification of behaviour: «those who appeared likely to cause problems would then be sent to special day camps where they would participate in remedial, behavioral modification programs to help them avoid their fate» (D. Nelkin, M.S. Lindee, The DNA Mystique,cit., p. 159). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 213 personality. This complex topic is subject to deep reflections in other sections of this volume, to which we refer; for the limited purposes of this paper, it is essential to call attention to the risk that an excessive emphasis on genetic features, compared with other factors, like environmental or family factors, which can equally encourage a deviant or anti-social behaviour, can pave the way not only to the application of negative preventive measures aimed at reducing or eliminating the risk of deviance of subjects considered genetically predetermined to commit crimes43, but also, more broadly, to insidious selective or socially-stigmatizing procedures based (not any more on race or on morphological characteristics reminiscent of the Lombrosian theories) but on specific genetic characters44. Moreover, the peculiar characteristics of genetic data entail the risk of discrimination becoming intergenerational, through an automatic “chain”-extension of the prejudicial effects against a single individual also to his/her descendants45. Furthermore, in consideration of the fact that some recent medical researches have identified, within racial or ethnic groups, a higher probability of genetic predisposition to certain illnesses (for example Africans and Afro-Americans show a predisposition to a specific kind of anaemia, while it has been noticed that mutations of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes connected to breast cancer prove to be more common in women belonging to the group of Ashkenazi Jews), it is possible that members of these communities – at times already disadvantaged and subjected to discrimination – are discriminated without exception46, in a newborn form of ethnic-genetic discrimination47. A similar result may occur, for instance, in the case of behavioural genetics researches performed exclusively on groups of people belonging to ethnic- geographical or racial minorities. Borrowing an incisive image contained in an American paper on this issue, like the «scarlet letter» of Hawthorne’s novel, the DNA associated with anti-social or criminal behaviour or with the predisposition to a specific illness may become a «scarlet gene» that marks the individual, his/her family and also the racial or ethnic community to which he/she belongs48.

43 About the issues concerning the use of genetics in crime prevention see the contribution in this volume by L. Pasculli, Genetics, robotics and crime prevention. 44 See extensively L. Chieffi, Le informazioni sul patrimonio genetico tra diritti del singolo e interessi pubblici, in “Rivista AIC”, 2011, p. 5 ff. 45 On the point see C. Casonato, Diritto, diritti ed eugenetica, cit., p. 843 ff., who observes that, in macro terms, there could be the risk to come to a society based upon a sort of “virtual disgenetics”, where components are pre-selected on the basis of their supposed genetic pedigree. 46 D. Hellman, What Makes Genetic Discrimination Exceptional?, in “American Journal of Law & Medicine”, vol. 29, 2003, p. 88 f.; J.L. Dolgin, Personhood, Discrimination and the New Genetics, in “Brooklyn Law Review”, vol. 66, 2001, p. 755. 47 C. Casonato, La discriminazione genetica, cit., p. 647. 48 K. Rothenberg, A. Wang, The Scarlet Gene: Behavioral Genetics, Criminal Law, and Racial and Ethnic Stigma, in “Law and Contemporary Problems”, Vol. 69, 2006, p. 344. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

214 Protection of personal data

Furthermore, the need for a reflection on the adequacy of domestic (also) penal regulations aimed at contrasting effectively any possible discrimination and stigmatization on genetic bases is justified also by the solicitations coming from the European and international normative framework49. In this context, we can observe a gradual process of extension of the non-discrimination principle, which embraces also discrimination based on genetic features of the individual50. One of the main interventions is, thus, the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine of the Council of Europe (the so-called Oviedo Convention) of 199751, which, amongst other things, sets the prohibition of any form of discrimination against a person based on his or her genetic heritage (art. 11)52. Also the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, other than confirming the right to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data (arts. 7 and 8), forbids «any discrimination based… on genetic features» (art. 21). In 1997 UNESCO adopted the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights: on the premise that humanity’s genetic diversity is a value to protect, the Declaration recognises in the human genome the factor that marks the fundamental unity among human beings, defining it as the« heritage of humanity» (art.1), affirms that everyone has a right to respect for their dignity and for their rights regardless of their genetic characteristics and clarifies that dignity makes it imperative not to reduce individuals to their genetic characteristics and to respect their uniqueness and diversity (art. 2); in conclusion, it states that the human genome cannot give rise to financial gains (art. 4) and states that«no one shall be subjected to discrimination based on genetic characteristics that is intended to infringe or has the effect of infringing human rights, fundamental freedoms and human dignity» (art. 6)53. At a later stage the UNESCO General Conference has also adopted

49 See C. Campiglio, Il principio di non discriminazione genetica nella recente prassi internazionale, in “Diritti umani e diritto internazionale”, 2008, p. 513 ff. The author clarifies that the concept of «stigmatization» differs from that of «discrimination», since the first one does not necessarily affect the exercise of an individual right, being rather «a psychological attitude of hostility or discomfort towards who is perceived as ‘different’ » (p. 529 f.). 50 For an overview on the sources of international biolaw (not only referring to genetics) see C. Campiglio, L’internazionalizzazione delle fonti, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. I, Ambito e fonti del biodiritto, edited by S. Rodotà and M. Tallacchini, cit., p. 609 ff. 51 E. Furlan (ed.), Bioetica e dignità umana. Interpretazioni a confronto a partire dalla Convenzione di Oviedo, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2009. 52 With a specific regard to genetic tests, art. 12 of the Oviedo Convention states that tests« which are predictive of genetic diseases or which serve either to identify the subject as a carrier of a gene responsible for a disease or to detect a genetic predisposition or susceptibility to a disease may be performed only for health purposes or for scientific research linked to health purposes, and subject to appropriate genetic counselling». 53 See, among others, C. Borgoño, La protezione dei dati genetici nel biodiritto internazionale. Principi biogiuridici fondamentali, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (eds.), I dati genetici nel biodiritto, cit., p. 355 ff.;J.M. Siqueiros, G. Saruwatari, P.F. Oliva-Sánchez, Individualidad genética y la Declaración Universal sobre el Genoma Humano y los Derechos Humanos, in “Revista de Derecho y Genoma Humano”, 2012, p. 123 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 215 the International Declaration on Human Genetic Data (2003) and the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005)54. In the light of the complex framework synthetically depicted, we may raise the more general question whether the peculiarities of genetic information (which distinguishes them from other sensitive information, including those concerning health), taking also into consideration the discriminatory potentialities connected to an illicit use of them, demand the arrangement of specific legislative instruments of protection, on the basis of the so-called theory of genetic exceptionalism55, or, on the contrary, the legal instruments already existing are adequate (even if possibly requiring some “arrangements”).

3. The protection of genetic data in the Privacy Code The Italian legal system lacks a specific penal regulation of the protection of the individual against genetic discrimination, while the only criminal provisions regarding the repression of discriminatory conducts concern discrimination for racial, ethnic, national or religious reasons56. Genetic discrimination is clearly a

54 See C. Campiglio, Il principio di non discriminazione genetica nella recente prassi internazionale, cit., p. 526 ff. 55 About the controversial theory of «genetic exceptionalism», elaborated especially by American legal scholars, see, with different opinions,J.H. Gerards, General issues concerning genetic information, cit., p. 5 ff.; L.O. Gostin, J.G. Hodge, Jr., Genetic privacy and the law: an end to genetics exceptionalism, in “Jurimetrics”, vol. 40, 1999, p. 21 ff.; D. Hellman, What Makes Genetic Discrimination Exceptional?, cit.; J.L. Hustead, J. Goldman, The Genetics Revolution: Conflicts, Challenges and Conundra: Genetics and Privacy, in “American Journal of Law and Medicine”, vol. 28, 2002, p. 285 ff.;S.M. Suter, The Allure and Peril of Genetics Exceptionalism: Do We Need Special Genetics Legislation?, in “Washington University Law Quarterly”, vol. 79, 2001, p. 669 ff. On this topic see also E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali, cit., p. 25 ff., p. 197 ff.;Id ., La circolazione dei dati genetici tra vecchi diritti e nuove sfide, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (eds.), I dati genetici nel biodiritto, cit., p. 103 ff.; V. Marzocco, S. Zullo, La genetica tra esigenze di giustizia e logica precauzionale. Ipotesi sul genetic exceptionalism, ibid., p. 123 ff. 56 We refer to the crimes provided for by Art. 3 of L. n. 654/1975 which, in the text consequent to the 1993 and 2006 reforms, punishes, amongst other things, those who promotes ideas based on racial or ethnic superiority or hate, or commits or incites to commit discriminatory acts for racial, ethnic, national or religious reasons, as well as those who, in any way, commits or incites to commit violence or acts of provocation to violence for racial, ethnic or religious reasons. We cannot linger here on the hermeneutic issues raised by this disposition: for a first approach see E.M. Ambrosetti, Beni giuridici tutelati e struttura della fattispecie: aspetti problematici nella normativa penale contro la dicriminazione razziale, in S. Riondato (ed.), proceedings of the symposium “Discriminazione razziale, xenofobia, odio religioso. Diritti fondamentali e tutela penale” (Università degli Studi di Padova, 24 March 2006), Padova, CEDAM, 2006, p. 93 ff.;A. Caputo, Discriminazioni razziali e repressione penale, in “Questione Giustizia”, 1997, p. 476 ff.; G.A. De Francesco, Commento all’art. 1 d.l. 26/4/1993 n. 122 conv. in l. 2/6/1993 n. 205, in “Leg. pen.”, 1994, p. 173 ff.; L. Fornari, Discriminazione razziale, in F.C. Palazzo, C.E. Paliero (eds.), Commentario breve alle leggi penali complementari, Padova, CEDAM, 2007, p. 1034 ff.; C.D. Leotta, Razzismo (dir. pen.), in Dig. disc. pen., Agg., vol. IV, Torino, UTET, 2008, p. 859 ff.; L. Picotti, Istigazione e propaganda della discriminazione razziale tra File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

216 Protection of personal data different concept than racial or ethnic discrimination: the scientific debate on this point is extremely complex (and it would require a much different research, beyond the «energies» and the intent of this paper), however, although, as we saw, there is a chance of individuating interactions between certain genetic factors and the belonging to some racial or ethnic groups, the fact that race and ethnicity could be considered as genetically determined is generally denied57. It is worth considering, then, whether the regulations on the treatment58 of genetic data, contained in the already mentioned Code of protection of personal data (the so-called Privacy Code), can represent an appropriate instrument to prevent and sanction a discriminatory use of genetic information. The problem of privacy and the control over the flow of private information arises not only with regard to the treatment of data in genetic testing (ever more diffused, also online), but also, more broadly, with regard to genetics, genomics and pharmacogenomics research59, where the scientific evolution and the new research methodologies employed give rise to the need for use and exchange more and more personal information and biological samples to be elaborated and analysed, often through computer technologies. Genetic data have to be included, according to art. 4, par. 1, lett. b) and d) of the Privacy Code, into the category of the so-called sensitive (or better, ultrasensitive)60 data, since they are personal data61 suitable to disclose, in particular, the state of health of the individual62; however for such data, the Privacy Code in force, consistent offesa dei diritti fondamentali della persona e libertà di manifestazione del pensiero, in S. Riondato (ed.), proceedings of the symposium “Discriminazione razziale, xenofobia, odio religioso. Diritti fondamentali e tutela penale”, cit., p. 117 ff.;S. Riondato, Diritto penale e reato culturale, tra globalizzazione e multiculturalismo. Recenti novità legislative in tema di opinione, religione, discriminazione razziale, mutilazione genitale femminile, personalità dello Stato, ibid., p. 81 ff.;L. Stortoni, Le nuove norme contro l’intolleranza: legge o proclama?, in “Critica del diritto”, 1994, p. 14 ff. On this topic see also, for a wider overview, D. Strazzari, Discriminazione razziale e diritto. Un’indagine comparata per un modello “europeo” dell’antidiscriminazione, Padova, CEDAM, 2008; D. Tega (ed.), Le discriminazioni razziali ed etniche. Profili giuridici di tutela, Roma, UNAR, 2011. 57 About this topic see V. Colonna, G. Barbujani, Quattro domande a cui la genetica può cercare di rispondere, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (eds.), I dati genetici nel biodiritto, cit., p. 13 ff.; K. Rothenberg, A. Wang, The Scarlet Gene, cit., p. 347 ff. 58 According to art. 4, par. 1, lett. a), legisl. decree 196/2003, «treatment» means «any operation or series of operation, also made without the aid of electronic devices, concerning the collection, registration, organization, conservation, consultation, elaboration, modification, selection, extraction, comparison, utilization, interconnection, block, communication, diffusion, cancellation and destruction of data, also if not registered in a database» (our transl.). 59 See R. Lattanzi , Ricerca genetica e protezione dei dati personali, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà and P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, I, cit., p. 319 ff. 60 R. Borsari, Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili penali, cit., p. 1054 ff. 61 Art. 4, par. 1, lett. b) of the Privacy Code defines «personal data» as any« information regarding a physical person, identified or identifiable, also indirectly, through reference to any other information, including an identification personal number» (our transl.). 62 L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, cit., p. 694. Due to the suitability of genetic data to be included in different categories File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 217 with the previous legislation (l. 675/96), provides for a differentiated regulation63 compared with that concerning the more general category of sensitive data stated by art. 26. Thisad hoc regulation is contained in art. 90 of the Code, which states that the treatment of genetic data, by anyone, is authorized only in the cases considered by a specific authorization issued by the Data Protection Authority («Garante per la protezione dei dati personali») having heard the opinion of the Minister of Health, who, to this very end, seeks the advice of the Higher Council for Health Care64. The measure taken by the Authority under art. 90 of the Code is therefore an authorization which allows the treatment of genetic data within the limits and the conditions provided in it and it can be both special (issued case-by-case) and general. Thus, the solution chosen by the Italian legislator, eccentric within the whole international scene, is to relinquish its own duties and prerogatives by deferring to the Data Protection Authority the power-duty of regulating this matter65. Doubts can arise from the extremely wide ‘mandate’ the legislator granted to the independent administrative Authority with regards to the delicate matter of the protection of sensitive data and, particularly, of genetic data66; however, transferring the power to integrate legal provisions to more qualified authorities (such as, for example, the Data Protection Authority) may seem appropriate, considering how difficult it is to insert in a legislative text norms that demand an highly-specialised expertise and that demand a particular flexibility in order to adjust themselves to constantly evolving subjects, like that concerning genetic data. The most recent general authorization of the Authority to the treatment of genetic data has been issued on December 12th, 201367. Such an authorization defines genetic data (regarded as «the result of genetic tests and/or any other information of data (“personal”, “sensitive”, “regarding health” etc.) contemplated in the Code, the construction of the legal status of genetic data requires a (not easy) recognition of the regulations concerning specifically the several categories of data. 63 See, among others, G. Finocchiaro, Privacy e protezione dei dati personali. Disciplina e strumenti operativi, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2012, p. 68, p. 224 ff.;M. Petrone, Trattamento dei dati genetici e tutela della persona, in “Famiglia e diritto”, 2007, p. 853 ff.;C. Romano, Il trattamento dei dati genetici nel diritto italiano, cit., p. 181 ff. 64 According to paragraph 2 of art. 90, the authorization of the Data Protection Authority «identifies also the additional elements to include in the information note according to article 13, with particular regard to the specification of the purposes pursued and to the results obtainable also in relation to the unexpected news that can be known as a result of the data treatment and to the right to oppose the same treatment for legitimate reasons» (our transl.). 65 R. Lattanzi, Ricerca genetica e protezione dei dati personali, cit., p. 338, who observes that, however, this is an «emergency» solution, since the authorization cannot be extended to the regulation of further and different profiles in respect to the protection of personal data. 66 On this topic see U. De Siervo, Tutela dei dati personali e riservatezza, in Aa.Vv., Diritti, nuove tecnologie e trasformazioni sociali. Scritti in memoria di Paolo Barile, Padova, CEDAM, 2003, p. 304 ff.; P. Torretta, op. cit., p. 27. 67 General authorization for the processing of genetic data n. 8/2013, published on G.U. n. 302 of 27.12.2013 and available on the website www.garanteprivacy.it. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

218 Protection of personal data that, regardless of its type, identifies an individual’s genotypic characteristics that can be inherited within a related group of individuals») and, as a safeguard, limits the access to them and their use. To be more precise, this authorization provides indications on the subjects empowered to treat genetic data and about the purposes and modalities of their treatment, the requirements of the information notice and of the interested person’s consent, on the modalities of the preservation, communication and dissemination of genetic data. In short, the general authorization to the access to this category of personal data is released (in a generalised way) to certain expressly specified subjects (such as medical workers, public or private health-care bodies, medical genetics laboratories, research institutes or centres, psychologists, lawyers, technical consultants and authorized private investigators, private or public arbitration bodies): the authorization specifies the particular purposes for which access is authorized to each of these categories of subjects. The treatment of genetic data is permitted, upon consent, for health care purposes (with particular regard to genetic diseases and to the protection of genetic identity of the interested subject or of a third party belonging to his/her genetic heritage), and for scientific or statistical research purposes aimed at the protection of the health of the interested subject or third parties’ or community’s health in the medical, biomedical and epidemiological sectors, to be performed with the subject’s consent. Moreover, the access to genetic data is permitted when the treatment is indispensable to defense investigations or, anyway, to claim or defend a right also of a third party before the judiciary68 (even without the interested party’s consent, except when the treatment requires genetic testing), and also to fulfil or to claim the fulfilment of specific obligations or to perform specific tasks expressly established by the European legislation, by laws or regulations concerning social security or work and public health and safety69. Lastly, the use of genetic data is authorized to establish blood relationships for family re- union of non-EU citizens, stateless and refugees (see legisl. decree 25 July 1998, n. 286). The regulation of collection and use of genetic data require therefore the informed consent of the interested subject, except for the expressly determined cases. The above-mentioned authorization regulates also in a similar way the use of biological samples (defined as «any sample of biological material from which an individual’s genetic data can be extracted»)70.

68 In those cases the treatment is allowed on the condition that the right to be claimed or defended is equal to that of the person concerned, or consists in a right of personality or in another fundamental and inviolable right or freedom and that data are treated exclusively for those purposes and for the amount of time strictly necessary to pursue them. However, the treatment must comply with the general authorizations of the Data Protection Authority to the treatment of sensitive data by professionals and private investigators. 69 In this case the treatment can take place also without the consent of the person concerned, within the boundaries set by the general authorization of the Data Protection Authority to the treatment of sensitive data in the employment context and with due regard to the provisions of the code of ethics and behaviour referred to in article 111 of the Code. 70 (Our transl.). See G. Novelli, I. Pietrangeli, I campioni biologici, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 219

Just like expressly stated in the authorization, treatments of genetic data out of the cases determined by the authorization, «including employers’ activities aimed at establishing employees’ and/or job candidates’ professional eligibility, irrespective of whether such activities are based on the subjects’ consent, and the activities carried out by insurance companies»71, shall be considered illegal. To ensure a correct treatment of personal, also genetic, data, the Privacy Code provides for a complex sanctioning system72, consisting of both penal and administrative sanctions73. The legislator, similarly to the previous law n. 675 of 1996, chose to graduate, also from a qualitative point of view with respect to the kind of sanction, the sanctioning reaction, with regard to the specific disvalue of the wrong and according to the principle of subsidiarity of criminal law (last resort) and to the principle of harm74. The few penal provisions (art. 167-171 of the Code) criminalize the unlawful treatment of personal data, the false declarations and notifications to the Authority, the failure to adopt security measures, the breach of the Authority’s prescriptions and the violation of the prohibition to investigate on the employees’ opinions and of the prohibition to use audiovisual machineries or other equipments aimed at remotely controlling employees’ activities. Moreover, art. 170 punishes in particular the breach of the Authority’s prescriptions concerning the authorization to the treatment of genetic data (provided for by the mentioned art. 90)75. Such a disposition poses delicate issues, both with reference to by S. Rodotà and P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, I, cit., p. 1027 ff. 71 (Our transl.). On this topic see C. Romano, op. cit., p. 186 f. 72 See, among others, A. Manna, Il quadro sanzionatorio penale ed amministrativo del codice sul trattamento dei dati personali, in “Il diritto dell’informazione e dell’informatica”, 2003, p. 727 ff.;Id ., Privacy on line: quali spazi per la tutela penale?, in “Dir. dell’internet”, 2005, p. 257; L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, cit., p. 698 ff.; M.C. Bisacci, Tutela penale dei dati personali, in Dig. disc. pen., Agg., vol. III, Torino, UTET, 2008, p . 1741 ff.;A. Contaldo, L. Marotta, Depenalizzazione e nuove tutele dei dati personali anche alla luce del codice della privacy (d.lg. 30 giugno 2003 n. 196), in “Giur. Merito”, 2004, p. 2640; V. Torre, Modelli di tutela penale della privacy in internet, in “Dir. pen. e proc.”, 2004, p. 233 ff. 73 In the Code, the resort to administrative sanctions turns out to be quite limited, on the one hand, because the violations that the legislator deems to be more harmful are backed by penal sanctions and, on the other hand, because the reaction towards violations deemed to be less serious is entrusted to restorative measures falling within the coercive powers of the Authority. With regard to the extent of the sanction, R. Borsari (Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili penali, cit., p. 1052 f.) notes how the administrative sanction is so strict that it hides its penal nature in a strict sense, like a «labeling fraud» that allows to take away from penal guarantees the application of particularly afflictive sanctions. 74 So A. Manna, Il quadro sanzionatorio penale ed amministrativo del codice sul trattamento dei dati personali, cit., p. 733. 75 Art. 170: «Anyone who, being required to do so, does not abide to the measure adopted by the Authority according to articles 26, paragraph 2, 90, 150, paragraphs 1 and 2, and 143, paragraph 1, letter c), shall be punished with imprisonment of three months to two years» (our transl.). Therefore, such norm criminalizes the mere breach of the measures of the Authority concerning authorizations to the treatment of sensitive, or genetic, data and of data temporarily acquired following to a claim or a complaint of the person concerned. Art. 170 follows the content of the corresponding offence stated in art. 37 File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

220 Protection of personal data the identification of a factual behaviour concretely punishable and of those who are addressed by the criminal provision – as for this purpose it is necessary to refer to the secondary legal source (the Authority’s decision) recalled by the disposition76 −, and with reference to the connection with the more serious offence of unlawful treatment of personal data77. In general, the penal provisions of the Privacy Code are characterised by a mere sanctionatory structure of the violations of some of the rules stated by non-penal prescriptions set by the Code, in the sense that the criminal offences result from the combination of the proper penal norms with the non-penal rules recalled by them78. The description of the criminalized facts through the reference to other regulations (often through normative elements which refer to other normative elements), together with the complexity and the high technicality of the matter, undermines the full intelligibility of the penal precept, required by the constitutional principle of clarity and precision of criminal law79. Furthermore, there is the risk of a conflict between these provisions and the principle of harm. Indeed, if through art. 170 the legislator meant to strengthen, for evident general preventive purposes, the importance of the Authority’s decisions, it may be observed that the entire system of penal protection established by the Privacy Code is characterised by a similar tendency to back with penal sanctions the correct functionality of the Authority, rather than protecting the more meaningful legal interests of the individual (such as, the right to privacy and to protection of personal data)80.

4. Genetic data and biobanks of the previously in force law n. 675 of 1996, with the addition of a further offence concerning the violation of the authorization adopted by the Authority according to art. 90 of the Code in reference to the treatment of genetic data: as acknowledged in the Report to legisl. decree 196/2003 (p. 63), the legislator decided to provide a penal sanction also for this circumstance because of the «particular sensitivity of the matter disciplined». 76 A. Manna in Il quadro sanzionatorio penale ed amministrativo del codice sul trattamento dei dati personali, cit., p. 767, critically notes that the formulation of the norm clearly seems to be modeled on the paradigm of art. 650 of the Italian penal code, with consequent doubts of constitutional legitimacy with regard to the principle of legal clarity and precision of criminal law. 77 On this point see extensively L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, cit., p. 700 f. 78 L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, cit., p. 698. 79 On this point see R. Borsari, Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili penali, cit., p. 1052. 80 A. Manna, Il quadro sanzionatorio penale ed amministrativo del codice sul trattamento dei dati personali, cit., p. 767. On this topic see also, in reference to the types of offences stated in law 675/1996, P. Veneziani, I beni giuridici tutelati dalle norme penali in materia di riservatezza informatica e disciplina dei dati personali, in L. Picotti (ed.), Il diritto penale dell’informatica nell’epoca di internet, cit., p. 183 ff., who notices that the framework of penal protection is only partially ascribable to the protection of privacy, also preventive, and seems to be abundantly skewed in favor of the protection of mere functions, in particular of control and intervention functions of the Authority. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 221

Within such a framework, there are also the legal issues related to the creation of the so-called biobanks81. The collection, storage and systematization of human biological materials and of the genetic information obtainable from them, are growing and there are so many different types of biobanks that their cataloguing results utopian82: for example, in relation to the material contained, it is possible to distinguish between genomic or DNA banks (intended to collect mainly genetic data) and tissues and cells banks, while, according to the purpose pursued, it is possible to distinguish biobanks for research purposes or for medical purposes; biobanks for diagnostic purposes or therapeutic purposes; biobanks employed with security purposes in crime prevention and repression; biobanks aimed at organ transplantation; biobanks that contain the products of neonatal screenings or stem cells, embryos, egg-cells and spermatozoa for medically assisted procreation; biobanks of populations. All these types of biobanks give rise to a number of juridical problems, like the issues concerning the consent of the participants, their right to self-determination and to an adequate information about the purposes of the bank and also, in parallel, the protection of privacy and of the right to not know; the consequences over the family members; the risk of discrimination and stigmatization of the participant groups; the data sharing in the scientific community; the governance and control of the biobank; the possible uses of data for forensic purposes; the patenting of the results achieved, and so on. It becomes particularly evident the necessity to balance the different interests involved, for example between the right to scientific research and the rights of individuals (first and foremost, the right to privacy), or between the right to privacy and the right to the community safety (with reference to the use of genetic databases by the judiciary)83. The regulations framework, entrusted to international, European and domestic legal sources, is complex and not quite uniform. The Italian legal system, particularly, is full of gaps84. The Italian legislator turned out to be practically dormant as to

81 On this topic see, among others, L. Caenazzo (ed.), Biobanche. Importanza, implicazioni e opportunità per la società. Risvolti scientifici, etico-giuridici e sociologici, Padova, libreriauniversitaria.it edizioni, 2012; C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (eds.), La disciplina delle biobanche a fini terapeutici e di ricerca, Trento, Università degli Studi di Trento, 2012; C. Faralli, M. Galletti (eds.), Biobanche e informazioni genetiche. Problemi etici e giuridici, Roma, ARACNE editrice, 2011; M. Macilotti, Le biobanche: disciplina e diritti della persona, in Trattato di Biodiritto, directed by S. Rodotà and P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, I, cit., p. 1195 ff.;G. Pascuzzi, U. Izzo, M. Macilotti (eds.), Comparative Issues in the Governance of Research Biobanks. Property, Privacy, Intellectual Property and the Role of Technology, Berlin - Heidelberg, Springer, 2013; A. Santosuosso, Diritto, scienza, nuove tecnologie, cit., p. 147 ff. 82 See A. Santosuosso, I.A. Colussi, Diritto e genetica delle popolazioni, cit., 356 ff. 83 On this point see A. Santosuosso, I.A. Colussi, Diritto e genetica delle popolazioni, cit., p. 367. 84 For an overview on regulatory instruments on this matter see M. Tomasi, Il modello italiano di regolamentazione giuridica delle biobanche: alla ricerca di una sintesi per una materia poliedrica, in L. Caenazzo (ed.), Biobanche. Importanza, implicazioni e opportunità per la società. Risvolti scientifici, etico-giuridici e sociologici, cit., p. 21 ff.;A. Santosuosso, I.A. Colussi, op. cit., p. 359 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

222 Protection of personal data the specific regulation of biobanks; however, those who work in this field can find important recommendations in some non-binding regulations (such as, for example, the 2008 guidelines of the National Committee for biosafety, biotechnologies and life sciences concerning the accreditation of biobanks and centres for biological resources of human samples, established for research purposes)85. With regard to biobanks with medical purpose and medical research purposes we can recall the already mentioned authorization of the Data Protection Authority concerning the treatment of genetic data that allows, under certain conditions, the use of biological materials and of genetic information for research and statistical purposes aimed at the protection of the health. The only intervention of the Italian legislator in the matter of biobanks concerns the forensic field. With law n. 85 of 30 June 200986, Italy adhered to the Prüm Convention (signed in 2005 by seven countries members of the European Union), which opened the doors to a EU system of collection, access and exchange of data (such as noncoding DNA and fingerprints), with the aim to fight terrorism, cross- border criminality and illegal immigration. The use of genetic databases at judicial level represents an efficient aid in order to identify perpetrators of crimes, offering remarkable advantages in terms of efficiency and promptness of investigations and repression; their use, at the same time, gives rise to serious questions regarding the balance between collective interest to safety and individual rights, first and foremost the right to privacy87, and also, as of interest here, concerning the possible risk of discrimination connected to the inclusion of a subject in a DNA database.

85 Document available on the website www.governo.it/biotecnologie/documenti.html. 86 For a first approach, seeV. Marchese, L. Caenazzo, D. Rodriguez, Banca dati nazionale del DNA: bilanciamento tra diritti individuali e sicurezza pubblica nella legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2013, p. 1863 ff.; E. Galli, L’istituzione della banca dati nazionale del DNA e del laboratorio centrale per la banca dati nazionale del DNA. La delega al Governo per l’istituzione dei ruoli tecnici del Corpo di polizia penitenziaria (l. 30 giugno 2009, n. 85), in D. Fondaroli (ed.), Nuove strategie di polizia per una “società aperta”, Padova, CEDAM, 2011, p. 51 ff.;G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, in “Resp. civ. e prev.”, 2009, p. 2630 ff.;G. Leo, Il prelievo coattivo di materiale biologico nel processo penale e l’istituzione della Banca dati nazionale del DNA, in “Riv. it. med. leg.”, 2011, p. 931 ff.; L. Marafioti, L. Luparia, Banca dati del DNA e accertamento penale: commento alla legge di ratifica del Trattato di Prüm, istitutiva del database genetico nazionale e recante modifiche al codice di procedura penale (l. 30 giugno 2009, n. 85), Milano, Giuffrè, 2010;A. Scarcella (ed.), Prelievo del DNA e banca dati nazionale. Il processo penale tra accertamento del fatto e cooperazione internazionale (legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85), Padova, CEDAM, 2009; P. Tonini, P. Felicioni, A. Scarcella, Banca dati nazionale del DNA e prelievo di materiale biologico, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, suppl., 2009. Moreover, for a comparative perspective see C. Fanuele, Dati genetici e procedimento penale, Padova, CEDAM, 2009. 87 On this point see A.M. Capitta, Conservazione dei DNA profiles e tutela europea dei diritti dell’uomo, in “Archivio penale”, 2013, p. 4 ff.; L. Scaffardi, Le banche dati genetiche per fini giudiziari e i diritti della persona alla ricerca di una legislazione europea armonizzata, in “Anuario da Facultade de Dereito da Universidade da Coruña”, vol. 12, 2008, p. 845 ff.; E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali, cit., p. 161 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 223

The most innovative aspect of law n. 85 of 2009 is certainly the creation of the national bank of DNA, aimed at identifying offenders (art. 5, par. 1). In the first place, the database is dedicated to the collection of DNA profiles of those subjected to biological sampling, according to art. 9 of the law: in practice, those subjected to restrictions of personal freedom as a result of a final conviction or as precautionary measure for serious crimes88. The database collects also DNA profiles related to biological findings acquired throughout the course of criminal proceedings, DNA profiles of missing persons and of those blood-related with them, of unidentified corpses and remains of corpses. The database is also entrusted with the comparison of DNA profiles for identification purposes (art. 7). It is, thus, clear that the database does not manipulate biological material, nor it carries out analysis, nor it accesses to the entire genetic heritage of the individuals who could be included in it89. Law n. 85/2009 also established the central laboratory for the national DNA database, which is entrusted with the «typification of the DNA profiles of the subjects mentioned in article 9, paragraphs 1 and 2» and for the «conservation of biological samples from which are typified the DNA profiles» (art. 8). The DNA database is subject to the control of the Data Protection Authority, while the National Committee for biosafety, biotechnologies and life sciences is required to guarantee the observance of technical standards and rules for the functioning of the central laboratory (art. 15). As of interest here, it is convenient to emphasize that, in order to protect privacy, the law sets the principle according to which the use of genetic data is allowed only for purposes of identification of offenders: as a result, the use genetic data for different purposes, such as, for instance, to ascertain the personality of an individual, his/ her genetic predisposition to anti-social behaviours or to investigate his/her family relationships, is implicitly forbidden90. In line with this principle, the last paragraph of art. 11 states that «analysis systems apply only to DNA sequences that do not allow the identification of pathologies that could affect the interested subject»91. The anonymity

88 Particularly, art. 9 par. 1 states that «for the purposes of the addition of DNA profiles in the national DNA database, the following persons are subjected to biological sampling: a) those subjected to pretrial custody in prison or home confinement; b) those arrested in flagrante delicto or subjected to provisional arrest as persons under investigation; c) those imprisoned or confined upon final conviction for intentional crimes; d) those subjected to alternative sentences upon final conviction, for intentional crimes; e) those subjected to temporary or definitive custodial security measure » (our transl.). Art. 9, par. 2, states that «the taking referred to in paragraph 1 can be done exclusively to the individuals listed in paragraph 1 for intentional crimes for which discretionary arrest in flagrante delictois allowed» (our transl.) and moreover lists a series of crimes for which sample taking cannot be done. 89 See G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, cit., p. 2631. 90 A.M. Capitta, Conservazione dei DNA profiles e tutela europea dei diritti dell’uomo, cit., p. 3; see also C. Fanuele, op. cit., p. 317 ff. 91 (Our transl.). See V. Marchese, L. Caenazzo, D. Rodriguez, Banca dati nazionale del DNA: bilanciamento tra diritti individuali e sicurezza pubblica nella legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85, cit., p. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

224 Protection of personal data safeguard at art. 12, par. 1 of law n. 85/2009, which establishes that «DNA profiles and the related samples shall not contain information that allow the direct identification of the subject thereof» (our transl.), responds to the same needs for privacy protection. Moreover, the legislator has precisely individuated those who can access to genetic information (art. 12): as regards the database, the access is allowed to judicial police and judicial authorities for personal identification purposes and for international police cooperation only; the access to data recorded in the central laboratory is allowed to the same subjects and for the same purposes, upon authorization of the judicial authority. A duty of confidentiality falls on these subjects and art. 14 of law n. 85/2009 punishes, unless the act constitutes a more serious offence, with 1 to 3 years of imprisonment the public functionary who communicates or uses data and information in violation of the provisions of the same law or for purposes different from those provided for by it92. Within the protection of genetic data, a main problem concerns the modalities and the terms of deletion of the DNA profiles from the database and of destruction of the biological samples and, therefore, ultimately, the so-called «right to oblivion», intended as the right to not be recorded or classified and to obtain the removal of data and samples whenever the purposes for which they were collected cease to exist93. Art. 13 of the law states that the deletion of data and the destruction of samples can happen only «upon final acquittal because no offence has been committed, because the accused did not commit the offence, because the committed fact does not constitute a criminal offence or because the law does not establishes such a fact as a criminal offence»94. On the contrary, if the case is dismissed because the Prosecutor drops the charges or because there is no case to answer, genetic profiles and biological samples are respectively stored for a maximum time of forty and twenty years from the last event that caused the filing or the sample taking. Therefore, with regard to the preservation of data and samples, there is no difference in the treatment of the convicted and of those who have not been convicted with a final sentence, or those discharged for other reasons than those specified in the first paragraph of art. 13; retaining the data of those who were not convicted for such a long time assumes a preventive and repressive significance based on a probabilistic assessment of

1882: «the analysis can concern only the non-codified human genome segments, from which general information about the individual cannot be collected, like the ones regarding ethnic groups, diseases and sex» (our transl.). 92 Art. 14, comma 2, establishes a corresponding negligent offence punished with imprisonment up to six months. 93 See V. Marchese, L. Caenazzo, D. Rodriguez, Banca dati nazionale del DNA: bilanciamento tra diritti individuali e sicurezza pubblica nella legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85, cit., p. 1890 f. 94 (Our transl.). Cancellation is also arranged following the identification of a cadaver as well as after the finding of a missing person (art. 13, par. 2). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 225 individual dangerousness95. This situation gives rise to the problem of the compliance of such regulations both with the presumption of innocence – which may apply to non-convicted subjects (acquitted or discharged ) – and with the principle of non- discrimination96. Other than the discriminatory risks connected to an use of archived DNA for purposes different from those stated by the law97 – risks that, as we saw, the provisions contained in the law tend to prevent – the inclusion within the DNA database itself may entail stigmatizing and detrimental effects, since it might contribute to spread in the community a negative picture, capable to discredit and offer a potentially false representation (whenever the reason of the insertion is groundless or later proves to be mistaken) of the person to the eyes of the community98. So far, the national DNA database has not been enforced yet. This poses also another problem, related to the proliferation of unofficial forensic databases. Art. 17 of law n. 85 of 2009 establishes that DNA profiles extracted from evidences obtained in criminal proceedings before the law came into force, shall be transferred by Police forces to the national DNA database within a year from the date when the database started working. Therefore, until implementing regulations will be enacted, there is the risk of a spontaneous and uncontrolled creation of genetic databases for forensic purposes, operating outside any safeguard and control99. Finally, a last notation concerns the issue of the limits of the analysis of biological samples aimed at the extraction of the identification profile. In this regard, law n. 85 of 2009 establishes that, as we saw, the analysis systems can apply exclusively to the DNA sequences that do not allow the identification of pathologies that could affect the interested subject (art. 11). However, as the European Data Protection Authority observed in the opinion n. 2006/C116/2004 of 17 May 2006, this does not exclude, also considering the constant evolution of biomedical sciences, that what is at a certain time considered an innocuous DNA profile can at a later stage disclose way much more information concerning the genetic features of the person, given the dynamic nature of genetic information100. Moreover, the use of specific DNA markers or of certain analysis techniques can amplify the risks of discrimination. For example, a focused analysis of markers allows to identify, even if with a variable margin of

95 So, A.M. Capitta, op. cit., p. 28, footnote 107. 96 On this point see again A.M. Capitta, op. cit., p. 27 ff. 97 See C. Fanuele, Dati genetici e procedimento penale, cit., p. 325 ff. 98 So, G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, cit., p. 2634. 99 The most well-known case is maybe the one concerning the database established at the RIS of Parma (about which see also the prescriptions adopted by the Data Protection Authority on July, 19th 2007). It concerned a computerized database, whose genetic profiles and samples were indiscriminately collected without following any of the minimal safety measures stated by the Privacy Code: see G. Gennari, Genetica forense e Codice della privacy: riflessioni su vecchie e nuove banche dati, in “Resp. civ. e prev.”, 2011, p. 1184 ff. 100 See G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, cit., p. 2638. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

226 Protection of personal data reliability, the ethnic origin of the subject to whom the biological sample belongs, with a consequent risk of increasing racial prejudices against offenders, while the so-called sex test can lead to a fortuitous identification of chromosomal anomalies, which can be used for discriminatory purposes. Or let’s think to the so-called familial searching101, that makes virtually present, inside the database, subjects that are not even legitimately included (the so-called «virtual suspects») and that cannot exercise any guarantees or protection procedures that are reserved only to the subjects that are officially recorded in the genetic database, with serious consequences also on the privacy of the whole family102.

5. Towards a penal protection against genetic discrimination? All the above considerations show that, apart from the acceptability of a genetic- centred approach inspired by «genetic exceptionalism»103, one cannot but acknowledge that if, due to their peculiarities (relation with health but not only with it, predictive character, structural sharing with other subjects, stability over the time) and of their potential, even discriminatory, employment, genetic information does not cause completely new troubles, still it amplifies those connected to the utilization and circulation of the generality of sensitive data (including health data)104. This fact prompts to envisage a detachment of the concept of genetic privacy from the general notion of privacy or a remodelling towards the centrality of everyone’s right to self- determination on one’s own body, including both corporality and the information derivable from it, backed, if necessary, with penal sanctions105. Clearly, the extant penal regulation set in protection of genetic data (especially art. 170 of the Privacy Code) turns out to be scarcely compliant with the principle of legality (in particular, the principle of clarity and precision) and the principle of harm. This leads us to question ourselves, first of all, about the need to rethink the penal provisions aimed at protecting the fair treatment of genetic data, also in perspective of making them more effective in contrasting possible discriminations connected to the use of such data.

101 The familial searching is a technique of DNA analysis aimed at discovering partial correspondences, instead of a full match, through the identification of a possible parental relationship between the person investigated and individuals whose profile is stored in the database or that have offered a biological sample during a mass screening: see V. Marchese, L. Caenazzo, D. Rodriguez, Banca dati nazionale del DNA: bilanciamento tra diritti individuali e sicurezza pubblica nella legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85, cit., p. 1868 ff. 102 G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, cit., p. 2639 f. 103 On this topic see, lastly, G. Gennari, US Supreme Court, Jeremy Bentham e il panopticon genetico, in “Diritto penale contemporaneo”, n. 3, 2013, p. 152 ff. 104 See E. Stefanini, La circolazione dei dati genetici tra vecchi diritti e nuove sfide, cit., p. 117 ff. 105 So R. Borsari, Profili penali della terapia genica, cit., p. 558 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 227

However, on a more general level, we need to ask ourselves whether a strengthening of genetic privacy is the most suitable instrument to protect an individual against genetic-based discrimination, or whether it would not rather be better to set an ad hoc penal regulation capable to restrain conducts of genetic discrimination. In this sense, a cue for further reflection can be deduced, for example, from the French experience. France enforced penal provisions (art. 225-1 225-4 and art. 432-7 of the Code pénal)106 that expressly criminalize acts of discrimination based, amongst other things, on the «caractéristiques génétiques» of the person107 consisting in refusing to supply goods or services, in obstructing the regular management of an economic activity, in refusing to hire or in sanctioning or firing a person or, even, in subjecting the supply of goods or services, a job offer, an internship application or a training period in a firm to discriminatory conditions108. The choice to protect with criminal law the individual against acts of discrimination based on genetic features entails the punctual identification of a legal interest deserving protection109. It is therefore, necessary, in our opinion, to question ourselves on the role that, in this context and in a strictly penal perspective, the concept of «human dignity» can (or shall) acquire, as it is widely invoked precisely with regard to the protection of genetic privacy110 and to the protection against

106 For a comment to the dispositions concerning discrimination contained in Section I (entitled “Des discriminations”) of Chapitre V (coded as “Des atteintes à la dignité de la personne”) of Title II of Book II of the penal code, see, amongst others, E. Dreyer, Droit pénal spécial, Paris, Ellipses, 2012, p. 323 ff.; J. Pradel, M. Danti-Juan, Droit pénal spécial, Paris, Cujas, 2010, p. 255 ff.; M.L. Rassat, Droit pénal spécial. Infractions du Code pénal, Paris, Dalloz, 2011, p. 616 ff. 107 Art. 225-1 states, in the first paragraph, that «constitue une discrimination toute distinction opérée entre les personnes physiques à raison de leur origine, de leur sexe, de leur situation de famille, de leur grossesse, de leur apparence physique, de leur patronyme, de leur lieu de résidence, de leur état de santé, de leur handicap, de leurs caractéristiques génétiques, de leurs moeurs, de leur orientation ou identité sexuelle, de leur âge, de leurs opinions politiques, de leurs activités syndicales, de leur appartenance ou de leur non-appartenance, vraie ou supposée, à une ethnie, une nation, une race ou une religion déterminée». Art. 432-7 punishes discrimination as defined by art. 225-1 committed by an individual dépositaire« de l’autorité publique ou chargée d’une mission de service public», during the execution of his duties, by denying a benefit stated by the law or by obstructing the regular exercise of an economic activity. 108 It is interesting to notice that art. 225-3 establishes that the regulations setting discrimination offences do not apply to a number of hypothesis, amongst which, as of interest here, the case of «discriminations fondées sur l’état de santé, lorsqu’elles consistent en des opérations ayant pour objet la prévention et la couverture du risque décès, des risques portant atteinte à l’intégrité physique de la personne ou des risques d’incapacité de travail ou d’invalidité», provided that the discrimination is not based «sur la prise en compte de tests génétiques prédictifs ayant pour objet une maladie qui n’est pas encore déclarée ou une prédisposition génétique à une maladie». 109 About the set of problems concerning the identification of the legal interest deserving protection with regard to the variety of rights ascribable to the notion of «human person» see G. De Francesco, Una sfida da raccogliere: la codificazione delle fattispecie a tutela della persona, in L. Picotti. (supervised by), Tutela penale della persona e nuove tecnologie, Padova, CEDAM, 2013, p. 3 ff. 110 About the capability of the notion (characterised by uncertain boundaries) of «human dignity», recalled by art. 3 of the Constitution, to expand the field of application of rights affirmed by other constitutional norms (as the right to information or privacy) against the most aggressive applications File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

228 Protection of personal data discriminations based on genetic features111. It is, moreover, a concept that is affected by a sort of semantic ambiguity: the most accurate penal theorists highlighted its vagueness and the risks of exploitation to which it is exposed, as it is a strongly ethically-emotionally-connoted value, which might be invoked to justify any kind of criminalization that is not based on the need for protection of any more specific legal interest112. Nevertheless, one of the fields where human dignity shows a «direct contact» with the criminal offence, instead of acting as a «categorical synthesis» still undefined in its own contents, is precisely that of harm to the equal human dignity of the persons subjected to discriminatory practices, provided that these behaviours go as far as denying the human being as a «value in itself», denying his/her identity and his/her intrinsic qualities, typical of every human being, which do not bear any kind of hierarchy or differentiation due to the different origin, belonging or personal conditions113. Granting penal protection to human dignity, also in the hypothesis of genetic discrimination, would comply with the constitutional content of “equality” (art. 3 Cost.), according to which (also genetic) diversity cannot be interpreted as an aspect to be corrected, but as a value that needs to be protected and cultivated, capable to «produce identity» and, therefore, dignity in a dynamic sense114.

of biomedicine, see L. Chieffi, Le informazioni sul patrimonio genetico tra diritti del singolo e interessi pubblici, cit, p. 4, who also observes that «in a similar direction, by imposing the “respect of human person” nearby the protection of health (paragraphs 1 and 2 of art. 32), the Constitution agreed to safeguard the individual also from behaviours that, even though they are not compromising his physical integrity, however are capable to downgrade him to an object, a mere instrument or a source of information useful only to others» (our transl.). 111 About the same topic see the recent A. Aparisi Miralles, El principio della dignidad humana como fundamento de un bioderecho global, in “Cuadernos de bioética”, XXIV, 2013, p. 201 ff. 112 G. Fiandaca, Considerazioni intorno a bioetica e diritto penale, tra laicità e ‘post-secolarismo’, in “Riv. it. dir. e proc. pen.”, 2007, p. 558 ff. 113 G. De Francesco, Una sfida da raccogliere: la codificazione delle fattispecie a tutela della persona, cit., p. 12 ff. 114 P. Torretta, Privacy e nuove forme di discriminazione rispetto alla circolazione delle informazioni genetiche: sistemi giuridici di tutela a confronto, cit., p. 6. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Protezione dei dati personali e strumenti penalistici di contrasto alle nuove forme di discriminazione su base genetica

Debora Provolo

Sommario: 1. Privacy genetica e tutela dell’identità personale. – 2. Trattamento dei dati genetici e rischio di discriminazione o stigmatizzazione. – 3. La protezione dei dati genetici nel Codice della privacy. – 4. Dati genetici e biobanche. – 5. Verso una tutela penale della persona contro la discriminazione genetica?

1. Privacy genetica e tutela dell’identità personale La capacità di “leggere” il patrimonio genetico umano e di dare un significato alle informazioni da esso ricavabili impone di prendere in considerazione un peculiare aspetto di tutela dell’identità genetica - diverso da quello della protezione contro possibili manipolazioni, alterazioni o ibridazioni1 - ossia quello connesso alla protezione dei dati genetici e, con essi, di interessi attinenti alla sfera fondamentale dell’individuo, in primis la privacy2, intesa, in senso ampio, come comprensiva tanto del diritto alla riservatezza quanto del diritto alla protezione dei propri dati personali3.

1 Sull’identità genetica come oggetto di tutela penale v. intanto i contributi di R. Borsari, Profili penali della terapia genica, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, Tomo I, a cura di S. Canestrari, G. Ferrando, C.M. Mazzoni, S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Milano, Giuffrè, 2011, p. 531 ss. e diE. Mezzetti, La tutela penale dell’identità genetica, ivi, p. 309 ss. 2 L’origine del concetto giuridico di privacy, nella primigenia accezione - più marcatamente individualistica e strettamente connessa al concetto di proprietà privata - di «right to be let alone», viene comunemente fatto risalire al noto saggio di S. Warren, L. Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, in “Harvard Law Review”, 1890, p. 193 ss. Per un’attenta analisi sulla nascita della nozione giuridica di privacy, v. P. Patrono, voce Privacy e vita privata (dir. pen.), in Enc. dir., XXXV, Milano, Giuffrè, 1986, p. 557 ss., cui si rinvia anche per una prima bibliografia sul tema; per un inquadramento della nascita delright to privacy con riferimento al nesso tra progresso tecnologico, istanze sociali e necessaria evoluzione della common law, v. U. Pagallo, La tutela della privacy negli Stati Uniti d’America e in Europa. Modelli giuridici a confronto, Milano, Giuffrè, 2008, p. 3 ss. 3 V. R. Borsari, Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili penali, in S. Riondato (a cura di), Diritto penale della famiglia, vol. IV del Trattato di diritto di famiglia, diretto da P. Zatti, Milano, Giuffrè, 2011, p. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

230 Protezione dei dati personali

Il rapporto tra genetica e privacy si esprime in termini altamente problematici. Ciò dipende dalle caratteristiche strutturali dei dati genetici, in quanto informazioni personalissime legate all’identità e allo stato di salute dell’individuo aventi la peculiarità di cogliere il soggetto nella sua unicità ponendolo al contempo in relazione con altri individui appartenenti alla medesima linea genetica4. Una simile conformazione non può, con tutta evidenza, non incidere sul concetto stesso di privacy, tanto nella sua accezione di diritto di difendere la propria sfera privata contro le invasioni dall’esterno, dal momento che carattere peculiare dei dati genetici è quello di essere “condivisi” con altri soggetti, quanto nella sua accezione di potere di controllare e gestire le informazioni personali, stante la difficoltà di porre divieti assoluti all’accesso alle “proprie” informazioni genetiche in considerazione del fatto che esse non si atteggiano soltanto come “proprie”5.

1041. I termini “riservatezza”, “privacy”, “privatezza”, “vita privata”, vengono di frequente impiegati come sinonimi, benché non si tratti di concetti esattamente sovrapponibili: sul tema si vedano, per un primo approccio e con diverse sfumature, F. Bricola, Prospettive e limiti della tutela penale della riservatezza, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1967, p. 1079 ss.; S. Fiore, Riservatezza (diritto alla), in Enc. giur. Treccani, Roma, Ed. enc. it., 1999; S. Furfaro, Riservatezza, in Dig. disc. pen., Agg., vol. IV, Torino, UTET, 2008, p. 1062; A. Manna, Beni della personalità e limiti della protezione penale. Le alternative di tutela, Padova, CEDAM, 1989, p. 260 ss.; F.C. Palazzo, voce Persona (delitti contro la) in Enc. dir., vol. XXXIII, Milano, Giuffrè, 1983, p. 309 ss.;P. Zagnoni, Sulla tutela penale del diritto alla riservatezza, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1982, p. 977 ss. Il nucleo centrale del concetto di “privacy” (nel suo duplice essenziale contenuto di diritto alla conoscenza esclusiva delle vicende concernenti la propria vita privata e di diritto al controllo dei propri dati personali) deve comunque ritenersi più propriamente espresso con la locuzione “interesse al rispetto della vita privata”, concetto ampio e suscettibile di ricomprendere una pluralità di interessi facenti capo alla persona, quali l’interesse alla riservatezza e al segreto privati, al domicilio, all’onore formale, alla privata tranquillità, alla corretta utilizzazione e raccolta dei dati personali: così P. Patrono, voce Privacy e vita privata (dir. pen.), cit., p. 561 s. 4 Come autorevolmente osservato (C. M. Romeo Casabona, La tutela del genoma humano, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, Tomo I, cit., p. 249) il genoma è informazione «sobre cada individuo, sobre su familia biológica e sobre la especie a la que pertenece». Sul dibattito in ordine all’esatto significato da attribuire alla nozione di “dato genetico”, a seconda che si ritenga che il termine “genetico” si riferisca alla fonte da cui si ricava l’informazione (ossia il test genetico) ovvero si riferisca al contenuto e al carattere dell’informazione (includendo così nella nozione anche le informazioni sulle caratteristiche genetiche del soggetto ricavabili dalla sua storia medica familiare, dall’osservazione del suo comportamento o, ancora, da altre informazioni sulla sua salute personale), v. E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali. Profili di diritto comparato ed europeo, Padova, CEDAM, 2008, p. 3; J.H. Gerards, General issues concerning genetic information, in J.H. Gerards, A.W. Heringa, H.L. Janssen, Genetic discrimination and genetic privacy in a comparative perspective, Antwerp, Intersentia, 2005, p. 11 ss. 5 Sul punto v. C. Romano, Il trattamento dei dati genetici nel diritto italiano, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (a cura di), I dati genetici nel biodiritto. Forum BioDiritto 2009, Padova, CEDAM, 2011, p. 182. Sulla necessità di integrare la tradizionale tutela della vita privata del nucleo familiare da ingerenze esterne con le esigenze di tutela del singolo componente anche rispetto ad altri familiari, in una prospettiva più marcatamente individualistica e ampia della famiglia, v. R. Borsari, Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili penali, cit., p. 1042 s., nonché, più ampiamente sulla nozione di famiglia in diritto penale, S. Riondato, Introduzione a «famiglia» nel diritto penale italiano, in Id. (a cura di), Diritto penale della famiglia, vol. IV del Trattato di diritto di famiglia, diretto da P. Zatti, cit., p. 4 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 231

La tutela della privacy genetica6 è strettamente connessa alla tutela dell’identità genetica, posto che l’informazione genetica è strumento essenziale per l’identificazione personale e per l’individuazione dei fattori di rischio che riguardano la persona e la cui conoscenza può incidere in maniera determinante sulle scelte del singolo (in primis quelle procreative e quelle relative alla propria salute) e, conseguentemente, sul libero sviluppo della sua personalità7. Le caratteristiche genetiche sono uno dei molteplici elementi che vanno a comporre l’identità della persona. Il diritto all’identità personale può - con una certa semplificazione e nella consapevolezza che nel linguaggio giuridico il termine “identità personale” è suscettibile di assumere diversi significati8 - essere definito come il diritto ad essere se stessi, sia con riferimento al rispetto delle scelte inerenti il proprio progetto di vita, sia con riguardo all’esigenza che vi sia una corretta rappresentazione esteriore della propria personalità9. L’informazione genetica, per la sua natura e per le caratteristiche che le sono proprie, offre un aspetto dell’identità della persona (il profilo genetico, appunto) che non solo è con- trassegno della sua identificabilità, ma riguarda altresì, in una dimensione più sostanziale, il modo in cui l’individuo concepisce se stesso e costruisce la propria personalità10, nell’ambito della realtà sociale, generale e particolare, in cui tale personalità è venuta svolgendosi, estrinse- candosi e solidifìcandosi11. E tuttavia, proprio perché l’identità personale trascende l’identità genetica, non si esaurisce in essa12, emerge la necessità che la corretta rappresentazione esteriore di “ciò che si è” avvenga attraverso il complesso delle informazioni che riguardano la persona e non sia viceversa limitata alla sola valorizzazione dei dati genetici. Il diritto all’identità pre-

6 Sul concetto di privacy genetica v. G. Laurie, Genetic privacy. A challenge to medico-legal norms, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002. 7 V. S. Rodotà, Tecnologie e diritti, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1995, p. 209 ss. 8 Per un primissimo approccio al complesso tema del diritto all’identità personale, di creazione essenzialmente dottrinale e giurisprudenziale, v. G. Alpa, M. Bessone, L. Boneschi (a cura di), Il diritto all’identità personale, Padova, CEDAM, 1981; G. Pino, L’identità personale, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. I, Ambito e fonti del biodiritto, a cura di S. Rodotà e M. Tallacchini, Milano, Giuffrè, 2010, p. 297 ss.;Id. , Il diritto all’identità personale. Interpretazione costituzionale e creatività giurisprudenziale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2003, passim; G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, in “Il diritto dell’informazione e dell’informatica”, 2007, p. 511 ss.; P. Zatti, Dimensioni ed aspetti dell’identità nel diritto privato attuale, in “La Nuova Giurisprudenza Civile Commentata”, 2007, II, p. 2 ss.; V. Zeno- Zencovich, Identità personale, in Dig. disc. priv., sez. civ., vol. IX, Torino, UTET, 1993, p. 294 ss. In prospettiva penalistica v. A. Manna, Beni della personalità e limiti della protezione penale. Le alternative di tutela, Padova, CEDAM, 1989, p. 233 ss. 9 Per questa definizione v.G. Pino, L’identità personale, cit., p. 316. 10 In merito all’incidenza dell’informazione genetica sull’identità della persona v. S. Álvarez González, Derechos fundamentales y protección de datos genéticos, Madrid, Dykinson, 2007, p. 63 ss. 11 E.C. Raffiotta, Appunti in materia di diritto all’identità personale, in “Forum di Quaderni Costituzionali”, 2010, p. 8, in www.forumcostituzionale.it. 12 V. in proposito A. Manna, La tutela penale della vita in fieri, tra funzione promozionale e protezione di beni giuridici, in “Leg. pen.”, 2005, p. 352, il quale, nell’affermare l’impossibilità di equiparare in maniera assoluta la violazione dell’unicità del patrimonio genetico dell’embrione alla lesione dell’identità personale del soggetto, rileva che «la natura intrinsecamente relazionale dello statuto dignitario della persona implica invero che il patrimonio genetico rappresenti soltanto uno (tra molti altri) degli elementi costitutivi dell’identità personale dell’uomo (come dimostra il fenomeno, esso sì naturale, dei gemelli monozigoti, che benché dotati del medesimo patrimonio genetico, sviluppano personalità distinte, e sovente persino antitetiche)». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

232 Protezione dei dati personali suppone, dunque, una rappresentazione integrale della persona13, il che implica il diritto del singolo a che la propria identità personale non venga ridotta al solo profilo genetico. Emerge allora, correlativamente, l’importanza del controllo sulla definizione della propria identità, rispetto al quale la «informational privacy»14 è strumentale, in quanto precondi- zione per il libero sviluppo dell’autonomia individuale, al riparo da possibili stigmatizzazioni e indebiti condizionamenti15. In tal senso si colloca anche la normativa in materia di protezione dei dati personali (d.lgs. 30 giugno 2003, n. 196, Codice in materia di protezione dei dati personali), la quale assicura una peculiare tutela ai dati genetici16. Del resto, proprio tale normativa contiene (come già la previgente l. n. 675/1996) un espresso richiamo alla necessaria protezione dell’identità personale (art. 217), che riconduce nell’alveo dei diritti fondamentali, unitamente alla riservatezza e al diritto alla protezione dei dati personali18. Riservatezza e protezione dei dati personali sono, in definitiva, funzionali alla capacità del soggetto di definire il proprio «compasso individuale»19, nella misura in cui gli consentono, da un lato, di scegliere se mantenere private determinate caratteristiche della propria identità e, dall’altro, di controllare che le informazioni personali di cui gli altri possono disporre siano corrette e complete e costituiscano veritiera raffigurazione della sua identità. La disciplina della (genetic) privacy va dunque considerata «non già nella prospettiva limitativa del controllo sulle informazioni in uscita, bensì nella prospettiva più ampia della supervisione sulle modalità di definizione della propria identità»20. Emerge, peraltro, in questo contesto, il problema, attuale ed urgente, connesso al moderno atteggiarsi del legame tra corpo e informazioni che da esso possono essere ricavate. Il corpo umano ha subito (e continua a subire) profonde trasformazioni, ha perso la propria unità frammentandosi nelle parti o nei prodotti che lo compongono (siano esse organi, sangue, tessuti, cellule, gameti, DNA), suscettibili di circolare ed essere impiegati autonomamente per le finalità più disparate; esso è stato oggetto, in ultimo, di un processo di dematerializzazione che ha condotto alla contrapposizione tra «corpo «elettronico» e «corpo fisico»21. Questo

13 G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, cit., p. 522 ss. 14 V. G. Laurie, Genetic Privacy, cit., p. 6, che accomuna il concetto di «informational privacy» («state in which personal information about an individual is in a state of non-access from others») e quello di «spatial privacy» («state of non-access to the individual’s physical or psychological self») nella più ampia nozione di privacy come «state of separateness from others». 15 Sul rapporto tra identità personale e privacy in senso stretto (intesa, cioè, come riservatezza, come diritto a che certe informazioni non circolino indebitamente) v. G. Pino, L’identità personale, cit., p. 316 ss. 16 Su cui v. infra nel testo. 17 Art. 2 d.lgs. n. 196/2003: «1. Il presente testo unico, di seguito denominato “codice”, garantisce che il trattamento dei dati personali si svolga nel rispetto dei diritti e delle libertà fondamentali, nonché della dignità dell’interessato, con particolare riferimento alla riservatezza, all’identità personale e al diritto alla protezione dei dati personali». 18 Sul punto v. G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, cit., p. 521 ss. 19 L’efficace espressione, che descrive «l’idea che la linea che comprende l’individualità è tracciata dall’individuo stesso che ne ha la comprensione e l’autorità», è di A. Santosuosso, Diritto, scienza, nuove tecnologie, Padova, CEDAM, 2011, p. 68, nota 2. 20 Così G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, cit., p. 525. 21 S. Rodotà, Trasformazioni del corpo, in “Politica del diritto”, 2006, p. 3 ss. Sul complesso tema del rapporto tra corpo e persona, in relazione ai concetti di identità e appartenenza, v. P. Zatti, Principi File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 233 complesso quadro deve confrontarsi, inoltre, con il massiccio impiego di sempre più moderne tecnologie (in primis quelle informatiche), volte ad implementare le tecniche di raccolta delle informazioni e di elaborazione di profili individuali22, le quali comportano il rischio di una «frammentazione dell’io» in una pluralità di banche dati, che restituiscono una visione solo parziale e de-contestualizzata, e perciò potenzialmente pregiudizievole, dell’individuo e della sua identità23. Di tale frammentazione il singolo può peraltro persino essere del tutto ignaro e ciò attrae l’attenzione su un tema di estrema rilevanza che in questa sede non può che essere soltanto accennato: quello della accresciuta vulnerabilità dell’individuo a fronte di possibili furti di identità che, in considerazione delle peculiarità dei dati riprodotti o falsificati, assu- mono caratteri di particolare gravità e definitività. Se, invero, è possibile sostituire la carta di credito o la password che siano state rubate, così non è per il materiale genetico (ma lo stesso può dirsi anche per i diversi tipi di dati biometrici, quali le impronte digitali, l’analisi dell’immagine delle dita, il riconoscimento dell’iride, la scansione retinica, la geometria della mano, il riconoscimento della forma dell’orecchio, il riconoscimento vocale, e così via)24 data l’impossibilità di recidere il legame tra l’individuo e l’informazione genetica25. La gravità è accentuata, inoltre, dal fatto che il materiale genetico fornisce un complesso di informazioni che vanno ben al di là della mera identificazione della persona e che coinvolgono il gruppo biologico cui appartiene il soggetto. La difficoltà di preservare il controllo su questo «nuovo» corpo, creato al di fuori della sua unità fisica, «scomponibile, disseminabile, manipolabile, falsificabile»26, impone allora di saggiare l’adeguatezza dei tradizionali strumenti penalistici posti a tutela della intimità dell’esistenza e di interrogarsi circa la necessità di predisporre nuove e più incisive garanzie in materia di raccolta, circolazione e uso dei dati genetici.

2. Trattamento dei dati genetici e rischio di discriminazione o stigmatizzazione e forme del “governo del corpo”, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, Tomo I, cit., p. 99 ss. 22 Rileva F. Mucciarelli, Informatica e tutela penale della riservatezza, in L. Picotti (a cura di), Il diritto penale dell’informatica nell’epoca di internet, Padova, CEDAM, 2004, p. 179, che in assenza della capacità di elaborazione dei dati informativi la maggior parte delle informazioni raccolte sarebbe «un dato vuoto, muto, privo di una reale idoneità lesiva del bene protetto: sono il computer e i suoi programmi a trasformare i sassolini bianchi disseminati ad ogni passo in un sentiero ininterrotto, in una traccia sicura e spesso indelebile, che guida l’osservatore fin dentro il recinto della sfera privata di ciascuno di noi, disegnandone i tratti in maniera allarmantemente precisa». 23 Cfr. G. Resta, Identità personale e identità digitale, cit., p. 522; S. Rodotà, Tecnopolitica. La democrazia e le nuove tecnologie della comunicazione, Roma, Laterza, 2004, p. 148. 24 Per un’introduzione al tema v. S. Girotto, Il trattamento dei dati biometrici, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, Tomo I, cit., p. 1237 ss. 25 V. E.E. Joh, DNA Theft: recognizing the crime of nonconsensual genetic collection and testing, in “Boston University Law Review”, Vol. 91, 2011, p. 665 ss. Sul tema v. pure S. Rodotà, Trasformazioni del corpo, cit., p. 15 ss., il quale osserva che, nel caso di furto di dati biometrici (tra cui l’A. include anche il DNA), si è di fronte ad una «falsificazione totale dell’identità», sicché l’unico modo per evitare gli usi illegittimi da parte di altri è non ricorrere più allo strumento identificativo, con conseguente esclusione totale da tutti i sistemi che su di esso si basano. 26 S. Rodotà, op. ult. cit., p. 22. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

234 Protezione dei dati personali

La condivisione con altri soggetti, la stabilità nel tempo e l’attitudine predittiva dei dati genetici valgono a differenziarli rispetto alla generalità delle informazioni personali27. La ca- pacità delle informazioni relative al patrimonio genetico di disvelare non solo la condizione di salute attuale dell’individuo, ma altresì la sua predisposizione verso talune malattie, comporta evidenti vantaggi, per esempio a livello di medicina predittiva e individualizzata28, giacché il soggetto interessato potrà decidere di sottoporsi a determinate cure o di modificare il proprio stile di vita, adottando comportamenti volti ad evitare o limitare il rischio di insorgenza di una malattia per la quale risulta essere predisposto. Al contempo, tuttavia, per una sorta di paradosso29, la circolazione impropria di questi dati è suscettibile di porre il singolo in una condizione di “fragilità”, che può riverberarsi ne- gativamente sui suoi rapporti pubblici e privati ed ostacolarne le relazioni sociali, e può dare vita a nuove forme di discriminazione, fondate appunto su base genetica30. Ciò può accadere, ad es., in ambito lavorativo, assicurativo o bancario, laddove i datori di lavoro, le compagnie assicurative o le banche (ad es. nella concessione di mutui) potrebbero discriminare lavoratori e clienti sulla base di dati genetici ritenuti “anomali”31, o, più in generale, nel tessuto sociale in cui il soggetto è inserito, ove sia reso noto alla comunità che tale soggetto risulta avere una predisposizione genetica verso una certa malattia o un determinato tipo di comportamento,

27 Sul punto v., tra gli altri, L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, in “Diritto dell’informazione e dell’informatica”, 2003, p. 689 ss.; P. Nicolás, Genetic Data and the Law. The Principles at Stake, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (a cura di), I dati genetici nel biodiritto. Forum BioDiritto 2009, cit., p. 48 ss.; C. M. Romeo Casabona, Los genes y sus leyes. El derecho ante el genoma humano, Bilbao-Granada, Ed. Comares, 2002, p. 63 ss.; S. Rodotà, Tecnologie e diritti, cit., p. 207 ss. 28 Per una panoramica sui diversi profili (terapeutici, bioetici e giuridici) della medicina predittiva v. i contributi all’opera collettanea C. Bresciano (a cura di), Genetica e medicina predittiva: verso un nuovo modello di medicina?, Milano, Giuffrè, 2000. 29 Al c.d. “paradosso genetico” fa riferimento M.T. Annecca, Test genetici e diritti della persona, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà e P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, Tomo I, cit., p. 406: ai potenziali effetti benefici derivanti per il soggetto dalla conoscenza di predisposizioni verso determinate malattie si accompagna il rischio, per il medesimo soggetto, di strumentalizzazioni o illecite utilizzazioni di tali informazioni genetiche, in particolare per i pericoli connessi alla lesione della dignità e di altri diritti fondamentali, in primis il diritto alla privacy, con conseguenze discriminatorie per la vita di relazione. 30 Sul tema v. intanto, anche in prospettiva comparatistica, C.M. Romeo Casabona, Genetic Privacy and non-discrimination, in “Revista de derecho y genoma humano”, 2011, p. 141 ss.; P. Torretta, Privacy e nuove forme di discriminazione rispetto alla circolazione delle informazioni genetiche: sistemi giuridici di tutela a confronto, in “Rivista AIC”, 2010, p. 1 ss.; J.H. Gerards, A.W. Heringa, H.L. Janssen, Genetic discrimination and genetic privacy in a comparative perspective, cit., passim. 31 Le informazioni genetiche potrebbero essere utilizzate in danno del soggetto interessato, il quale potrebbe, ad es., non essere assunto o essere pagato meno di un altro in quanto ritenuto “soggetto a rischio”, o potrebbe vedersi rifiutata la polizza assicurativa o, ancora, potrebbe essere in qualche misura penalizzato per aver adottato, nella consapevolezza della propria suscettibilità a sviluppare una certa malattia, uno stile di vita che ne ha favorito l’insorgenza. Sull’impiego delle informazioni genetiche in ambito lavorativo ed assicurativo e sui connessi rischi discriminatori si rinvia, anche per gli opportuni riferimenti bibliografici, a M.T. Annecca, Test genetici e diritti della persona, cit., p. 389 ss.; E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali, cit., p. 29 ss.; A Trojsi, Genetic Data and Labour Law, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (a cura di), I dati genetici nel biodiritto. Forum BioDiritto 2009, cit., p. 71 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 235 oppure che risulta essere schedato in una biobanca a fini forensi. Da più parti si è richiamata l’attenzione sul rischio che possa affermarsi la pericolosa tendenza a ridurre i molteplici profili dell’identità dell’individuo prevalentemente (se non esclusivamente) al suo corredo genetico, considerando come condizioni effettive quelle che sono invece soltanto condizioni ipotetiche32: in altri termini, può esservi il pericolo che si verifichi la tendenza a trattare il soggetto cui è stata diagnosticata una predisposizione verso un certo tipo di comportamento o ad una certa malattia come se il comportamento o la malattia fossero già in atto, e ciò anche se in molti casi il comportamento o la malattia potrebbero non manifestarsi mai, posto che la relazione tra il genotipo e il fenotipo – cioè tra la matura- zione genetica e la effettiva manifestazione nel comportamento del soggetto o nella malattia – è condizionale, incerta e comunque ancora scarsamente compresa33. Si afferma così quella che è stata definita come «una nuova forma, più sofisticata e tecnologica, di “predetermina- zione lombrosiana”, secondo cui a determinate caratteristiche genetiche non possono che corrispondere determinati aspetti della vita, del comportamento e del destino dell’uomo»34. Questo “fatalismo genetico”, tendente a trarre dalla (sola) lettura del DNA dell’individuo incontrovertibili rivelazioni su un futuro ineluttabilmente predeterminato, senza che vi sia spazio alcuno per l’interazione di altri fattori e per la volontà del singolo35, non solo ha conseguenze pregiudizievoli “all’esterno”, nei rapporti sociali, ma si risolve altresì in un forte condizionamento della libertà esistenziale della persona36. Peraltro, oltre agli specifici rischi discriminatori che possono determinarsi in taluni settori dell’agire umano, quale quello assicurativo o lavoristico, il pericolo connesso a quella che è stata efficacemente definita come la «mistica del DNA»37 è, più in generale, quello di dare

32 C. Casonato, La discriminazione genetica: una nuova frontiera dei diritti dell’uomo?, in Aa.Vv., I diritti fondamentali in Europa. XV Colloquio biennale, Messina-Taormina, 31 maggio-2 giugno 2001, Milano, Giuffrè, 2002, p. 643 s. 33 V. D. Nelkin, Bioetica e diritto, in C.M. Mazzoni (a cura di), Una norma giuridica per la bioetica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1998, p. 154. Sull’attitudine dei dati genetici ad acquisire plurimi significati a causa del loro «carattere criptico», proiettato nel tempo e oltre la persona, v. pure A. Santosuosso, Genetica, diritto e giustizia: un futuro già in atto, in A. Santosuosso, C.A. Redi, S. Garagna, M. Zuccotti (a cura di), I giudici davanti alla genetica, Pavia-Como, Ibis, 2002, p. 26. 34 In questi termini C. Casonato, La discriminazione genetica: una nuova frontiera dei diritti dell’uomo?, cit., p. 644. Nell’ottica del diritto penale ciò evoca lo spettro dell’affermarsi di nuove forme di “determinismo” o “riduzionismo” biologico, legate al dirompente impatto della genetica (e delle neuroscienze) sugli istituti penalistici, in particolare imputabilità e colpevolezza. Il tema è complesso e su di esso si rinvia agli interessanti contributi che, da diverse prospettive, lo affrontano in questa collettanea. 35 C. Casonato, Diritto, diritti ed eugenetica: prime considerazioni su un discorso giuridico altamente problematico, in “Humanitas”, n. 4, 2004, p. 841 ss. 36 Sul punto v. S. Rodotà, Tecnologie e diritti, cit., p. 218, che pone il problema anche in relazione al “diritto di sapere” del singolo, nel senso che laddove non vi sia una assoluta e rigida predisposizione genetica con la quale misurarsi, una integrale conoscenza delle proprie informazioni genetiche può distorcere le modalità di interazione con l’ambiente e, dunque, il libero sviluppo della personalità. Sul tema del diritto all’autodeterminazione informativa in relazione ai dati genetici v. L. Chieffi, Analisi genetica e tutela del diritto alla riservatezza. Il bilanciamento tra il diritto di conoscere e quello di ignorare le proprie informazioni biologiche, in Studi in onore di V. Atripaldi, Napoli, Jovene, 2010, p. 853 ss. 37 D. Nelkin, M.S. Lindee, The DNA Mystique. The gene as a cultural icon, New York, W.H. Freeman and Company, 1995. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

236 Protezione dei dati personali vita ad un’organizzazione sociale fortemente connotata da criteri genetici di classificazione e controllo38. Di ciò pare potersi trarre testimonianza dal continuo incremento delle banche dati genetiche39 e dalla diffusa politica discreening genetici, attuata in numerosi Paesi, volta alla realizzazione di schedature genetiche non giustificate da necessità terapeutiche40, bensì strumentali a forme di controllo sociale e a politiche di esclusione41. In questo contesto si inserisce altresì la delicata questione relativa ai possibili risvolti discriminatori connessi all’impiego delle più recenti acquisizioni della genetica comportamentale nel processo penale, e segnatamente, quelle relative all’incidenza di un certo profilo genetico sul comportamento umano e sulla personalità dell’individuo. Il complesso argomento è oggetto di approfondite riflessioni in altri contributi in questo volume, ai quali si rinvia; ai limitati fini di questo scritto, preme soltanto richiamare l’attenzione sul rischio che l’eccessiva enfatizzazione delle caratteristiche genetiche, rispetto ad altri fattori, quali quelli di tipo ambientale o familiare, che possono parimenti aver contribuito al comportamento deviante o antisociale dell’individuo, possa aprire la strada non solo all’applicazione di misure di prevenzione negative volte a ridurre o elidere il pericolo di devianza di soggetti ritenuti geneticamente predestinati alla commissione di reati42, ma altresì, più ampiamente, ad insidiose pratiche selettive e di stigmatizzazione sociale fondate (non più sulla razza o su caratteristiche morfologiche di lombrosiana memoria, bensì) sul possesso di determinati caratteri genetici43. Le peculiari caratteristiche dei dati genetici comportano peraltro l’ulteriore rischio che la discriminazione assuma carattere intergenerazionale, con l’automatica estensione “a catena” degli effetti pregiudizievoli realizzatisi nei confronti del singolo individuo anche agli altri componenti della sua discendenza44. Inoltre, in considerazione del fatto che talune ricerche

38 M. Croce, Genetica umana e diritto: problemi e prospettive, in U. Breccia, A. Pizzorusso (a cura di), Atti di disposizione del proprio corpo, Pisa, PLUS, 2007, p. 89. 39 Uno dei primi (e più noti) grandi archivi di dati genetici realizzati su base nazionale è stato quello creato in Islanda nel 1998, con la controversa istituzione dell’Health Sector Database, banca dati destinata alla raccolta non solo di informazioni genetiche ma anche sanitarie e genealogiche dell’intera popolazione islandese, la cui realizzazione è stata affidata ad una società biofarmaceutica privata (la deCODE Genetics), peraltro successivamente fallita. Sulla biobanca islandese e, più in generale, sui problemi giuridici connessi alla creazione e alla gestione delle biobanche v. A. Santosuosso, I. A. Colussi, Diritto e genetica delle popolazioni, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, Tomo I, cit., p. 351 ss. 40 M. Croce, Genetica umana e diritto: problemi e prospettive, cit., p. 89. 41 A titolo esemplificativo, può essere menzionata l’ideazione, avvenuta nel corso dell’amministrazione Bush Senior, del programma Violence Prevention Initiative, che prevedeva l’attuazione di una procedura di screening su circa centomila bambini provenienti da zone ad alto tasso di delinquenza, al fine di identificare «criminali potenziali» da sottoporre a programmi di modificazione riabilitativa del comportamento: «those who appeared likely to cause problems would then be sent to special day camps where they would participate in remedial, behavioral modification programs to help them avoid their fate» (D. Nelkin, M.S. Lindee, The DNA Mystique,cit., p. 159). 42 Sulle problematiche connesse all’impiego della genetica nella prevenzione del crimine v. il contributo di L. Pasculli, Genetics, robotics and crime prevention, in questo volume. 43 V. ampiamente L. Chieffi, Le informazioni sul patrimonio genetico tra diritti del singolo e interessi pubblici, in “Rivista AIC”, 2011, p. 5 ss. 44 Sul punto v. C. Casonato, Diritto, diritti ed eugenetica, cit., p. 843 ss., il quale rileva che, in termini macro, potrebbe esservi il rischio di addivenire ad una società basata su una sorta di «disgenetica virtuale», i cui componenti verrebbero pre-selezionati sulla base di un loro supposto pedigree genetico. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 237 mediche recenti hanno individuato, all’interno di gruppi razziali o etnici, una più elevata pro- babilità di predisposizione genetica verso certe malattie (ad es. gli africani e gli afro-americani mostrano una predisposizione ad un particolare tipo di anemia, mentre si è rilevato che muta- zioni dei geni BRCA1 e BRCA2 associate al cancro al seno risultano essere più comuni presso le donne appartenenti al gruppo degli ebrei ashkenaziti), emerge la possibilità che i membri di tali comunità – talora già svantaggiati e oggetto di discriminazione – vengano indistintamen- te discriminati45, configurandosi così una nuova forma di discriminazione etnico-genetica46. Ad analogo risultato potrebbe addivenirsi, laddove si conducessero, ad esempio, ricerche di genetica comportamentale ristrette a gruppi di persone appartenenti a minoranze etnico-ge- ografiche o razziali. Per riprendere allora un’efficace immagine contenuta in uno scritto statunitense sul tema, come la «lettera scarlatta» del romanzo di Hawthorne, il DNA associato con il comportamento antisociale o criminale o con la predisposizione verso una certa malattia può divenire un «gene scarlatto» che marchia l’individuo, la sua famiglia ed anche la comunità razziale o etnica cui egli appartiene47. Peraltro la necessità di una riflessione sull’adeguatezza della disciplina (anche) penale interna a contrastare efficacemente possibili discriminazioni o stigmatizzazioni su base -ge netica si giustifica pure alla luce delle sollecitazioni che in tal senso provengono dal quadro normativo internazionale ed europeo48. In tale contesto si è assistito invero ad un progressivo processo di estensione del principio di non discriminazione, che abbraccia anche la discriminazione fondata sulle caratteristiche genetiche dell’individuo49. Tra gli interventi principali in tal senso va senz’altro annoverata la Convenzione del Consiglio d’Europa sui diritti dell’uomo e la biomedicina (c.d. Convenzione di Oviedo) del 199750, che sancisce, tra l’altro, il divieto di ogni forma di discriminazione nei confronti di una persona sulla base del patrimonio genetico della stessa (art. 11)51. Anche la Carta dei diritti fondamentali dell’Unione europea, oltre

45 D. Hellman, What Makes Genetic Discrimination Exceptional?, in “American Journal of Law & Medicine”, vol. 29, 2003, p. 88 s.; J.L. Dolgin, Personhood, Discrimination and the New Genetics, in “Brooklyn Law Review”, vol. 66, 2001, p. 755. 46 C. Casonato, La discriminazione genetica, cit., p. 647. 47 K. Rothenberg, A. Wang, The Scarlet Gene: Behavioral Genetics, Criminal Law, and Racial and Ethnic Stigma, in “Law and Contemporary Problems”, Vol. 69, 2006, p. 344. 48 V. C. Campiglio, Il principio di non discriminazione genetica nella recente prassi internazionale, in “Diritti umani e diritto internazionale”, 2008, p. 513 s. L’A. chiarisce che il concetto di «stigmatizzazione» si differenza da quello di «discriminazione», giacché non necessariamente incide sull’esercizio di un diritto individuale, sostanziandosi più che altro in «un atteggiamento psicologico di ostilità o disagio nei confronti di chi viene percepito come ‘diverso’» (p. 529 s.). 49 Per un quadro delle fonti del biodiritto internazionale (non solo con riferimento alla genetica) si rinvia a C. Campiglio, L’internazionalizzazione delle fonti, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. I, Ambito e fonti del biodiritto, a cura di S. Rodotà e M. Tallacchini, cit., p. 609 ss. 50 E. Furlan (a cura di), Bioetica e dignità umana. Interpretazioni a confronto a partire dalla Convenzione di Oviedo, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2009. 51 Con specifico riguardo ai tests genetici, l’art. 12 della Convenzione di Oviedo stabilisce che i «tests which are predictive of genetic diseases or which serve either to identify the subject as a carrier of a gene responsible for a disease or to detect a genetic predisposition or susceptibility to a disease may be performed only for health purposes or for scientific research linked to health purposes, and subject to appropriate genetic counselling». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

238 Protezione dei dati personali a confermare il diritto al rispetto della vita privata e alla protezione dei dati personali (artt. 7 e 8), vieta «qualsiasi discriminazione fondata, in particolare,…sulle caratteristiche genetiche» (art. 21). Nel 1997 l’UNESCO ha adottato la Dichiarazione universale sul genoma umano e i diritti dell’uomo: sul presupposto che la diversità genetica dell’umanità sia un valore da tutelare, la Dichiarazione riconosce nel genoma umano il fattore che traccia la fondamentale unità tra gli esseri umani, definendolo «the heritage of humanity» (art. 1), sancisce il diritto di ciascuno al rispetto della propria dignità e dei propri diritti a prescindere dalle caratteristiche genetiche e precisa che la dignità impone di non ridurre l’individuo ai suoi dati genetici e di rispettarne l’unicità e la diversità (art. 2); infine, vieta di fare del genoma un oggetto di profitto (art. 4) e stabilisce che «no one shall be subjected to discrimination based on genetic characteristics that is intended to infringe or has the effect of infringing human rights, fundamental freedoms and human dignity» (art. 6)52. La Conferenza generale dell’UNESCO ha successivamente approvato anche la Dichiarazione internazionale sui dati genetici umani (2003) e la Dichiarazione universale sulla bioetica e i diritti umani (2005)53. Alla luce del complesso quadro che si è sinteticamente delineato, si pone la più generale questione se le peculiarità delle informazioni genetiche (atte a differenziarle dalle altre informazioni sensibili, incluse quelle sulla salute), anche in considerazione delle potenzialità discriminatorie connesse ad una loro illecita utilizzazione, siano tali da richiedere la predisposizione di strumenti normativi specifici di tutela, in ossequio alla teoria del c.d. eccezionalismo genetico54, o se, al contrario, siano sufficienti (seppur eventualmente bisognosi di qualche “aggiustamento”) gli strumenti giuridici già esistenti.

3. La protezione dei dati genetici nel Codice della privacy Nell’ordinamento italiano manca una disciplina penale specifica in materia di protezione del singolo contro la discriminazione genetica, mentre le uniche disposizioni penali in

52 V., tra gli altri, C. Borgoño, La protezione dei dati genetici nel biodiritto internazionale. Principi biogiuridici fondamentali, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (a cura di), I dati genetici nel biodiritto, cit., p. 355 ss.; J.M. Siqueiros, G. Saruwatari, P.F. Oliva-Sánchez, Individualidad genética y la Declaración Universal sobre el Genoma Humano y los Derechos Humanos, in “Revista de Derecho y Genoma Humano”, 2012, p. 123 ss. 53 V. C. Campiglio, Il principio di non discriminazione genetica nella recente prassi internazionale, cit., p. 526 ss. 54 Sulla controversa teoria del «genetic exceptionalism», la cui elaborazione si deve soprattutto alla dottrina statunitense, v., con diversità di opinioni, di J.H. Gerards, General issues concerning genetic information, cit., p. 5 ss.; L.O. Gostin, J. G. Hodge, Jr., Genetic privacy and the law: an end to genetics exceptionalism, in “Jurimetrics”, vol. 40, 1999, p. 21 ss.; D. Hellman, What Makes Genetic Discrimination Exceptional?, cit.; J.L. Hustead, J. Goldman, The Genetics Revolution: Conflicts, Challenges and Conundra: Genetics and Privacy, in “American Journal of Law and Medicine”, vol. 28, 2002, p. 285 ss.; S.M. Suter, The Allure and Peril of Genetics Exceptionalism: Do We Need Special Genetics Legislation?, in “Washington University Law Quarterly”, vol. 79, 2001, p. 669 ss. In argomento v. pure E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali, cit., p. 25 ss, p. 197 ss.; Id., La circolazione dei dati genetici tra vecchi diritti e nuove sfide, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (a cura di), I dati genetici nel biodiritto, cit., p. 103 ss.; V. Marzocco, S. Zullo, La genetica tra esigenze di giustizia e logica precauzionale. Ipotesi sul genetic exceptionalism, ivi, p. 123 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 239 materia di repressione di condotte discriminatorie riguardano la discriminazione per motivi razziali, etnici, nazionali o religiosi55. La discriminazione su base genetica è, all’evidenza, concetto diverso da quello di discriminazione razziale o etnica: il discorso scientifico sul punto è estremamente complesso (e richiederebbe ben altra indagine rispetto alle “forze” e all’inten- dimento del presente scritto), tuttavia, seppur è emersa, come si è visto, la possibilità di individuare interazioni tra fattori genetici e appartenenza a certi gruppi razziali o etnici, si nega generalmente che razza ed etnia possano ritenersi categorie geneticamente determinate56. Occorre allora interrogarsi se la disciplina concernente il trattamento57 dei dati genetici, contenuta nel menzionato Codice in materia di protezione dei dati personali (c.d. Codice della privacy) possa comunque costituire un adeguato strumento per prevenire e sanzionare un uso discriminatorio delle informazioni genetiche. Il problema della riservatezza e del controllo sul flusso delle proprie informazioni emerge non solo con riferimento al trattamento dei dati nei tests genetici (sempre più diffusi, ancheonline ), ma altresì con riguardo, più ampiamente, alla ricerca genetica, genomica e farmacogenomica58, laddove l’evoluzione scientifica

55 Si tratta delle fattispecie criminose previste dall’art. 3 della l. n. 654/1975, che, nel testo risultante a seguito delle riforme del 1993 e del 2006, tra l’altro punisce chi propaganda idee fondate sulla superiorità o sull’odio razziale o etnico, ovvero incita a commettere o commette atti di discriminazione per motivi razziali, etnici, nazionali o religiosi, nonché chi, in qualsiasi modo, incita a commettere o commette violenza o atti di provocazione alla violenza per motivi razziali, etnici, nazionali o religiosi. Non è possibile in questa sede soffermarsi sulle questioni ermeneutiche sollevate da questa disposizione: si rinvia pertanto, per un primo approccio, a E.M. Ambrosetti, Beni giuridici tutelati e struttura della fattispecie: aspetti problematici nella normativa penale contro la discriminazione razziale, in S. Riondato (a cura di), Atti del Seminario di studio “Discriminazione razziale, xenofobia, odio religioso. Diritti fondamentali e tutela penale” (Università degli Studi di Padova, 24 marzo 2006), Padova, CEDAM, 2006, p. 93 ss.; A. Caputo, Discriminazioni razziali e repressione penale, in “Questione Giustizia”, 1997, p. 476 ss.; G.A. De Francesco, Commento all’art. 1 d.l. 26/4/1993 n. 122 conv. in l. 2/6/1993 n. 205, in “Leg. pen.”, 1994, p. 173 ss.; L. Fornari, Discriminazione razziale, in F.C. Palazzo, C.E. Paliero (a cura di), Commentario breve alle leggi penali complementari, Padova, CEDAM, 2007, p. 1034 ss.; C.D. Leotta, Razzismo (dir. pen.), in Dig. disc. pen., Agg., vol. IV, Torino, UTET, 2008, p. 859 ss.; L. Picotti, Istigazione e propaganda della discriminazione razziale tra offesa dei diritti fondamentali della persona e libertà di manifestazione del pensiero, in S. Riondato (a cura di), Atti del Seminario di studio “Discriminazione razziale, xenofobia, odio religioso. Diritti fondamentali e tutela penale”, cit., p. 117 ss.; S. Riondato, Diritto penale e reato culturale, tra globalizzazione e multiculturalismo. Recenti novità legislative in tema di opinione, religione, discriminazione razziale, mutilazione genitale femminile, personalità dello Stato, ivi, p. 81 ss.; L. Stortoni, Le nuove norme contro l’intolleranza: legge o proclama?, in “Critica del diritto”, 1994, p. 14 ss. Sul tema v. pure, in prospettiva più ampia, D. Strazzari, Discriminazione razziale e diritto. Un’indagine comparata per un modello “europeo” dell’antidiscriminazione, Padova, CEDAM, 2008; D. Tega (a cura di), Le discriminazioni razziali ed etniche. Profili giuridici di tutela, Roma, UNAR, 2011. 56 Sul punto v. V. Colonna, G. Barbujani, Quattro domande a cui la genetica può cercare di rispondere, in C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (a cura di), I dati genetici nel biodiritto, cit., p. 13 ss.; K. Rothenberg, A. Wang, The Scarlet Gene, cit., p. 347 ss. 57 Ai sensi dell’art. 4, co. 1°, lett. a), d.lgs. 196/2003, per «trattamento», deve intendersi «qualunque operazione o complesso di operazioni, effettuati anche senza l’ausilio di strumenti elettronici, concernenti la raccolta, la registrazione, l’organizzazione, la conservazione, la consultazione, l’elaborazione, la modificazione, la selezione, l’estrazione, il raffronto, l’utilizzo, l’interconnessione, il blocco, la comunicazione, la diffusione, la cancellazione e la distruzione di dati, anche se non registrati in una banca di dati». 58 V. R. Lattanzi , Ricerca genetica e protezione dei dati personali, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà e P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, Tomo I, cit., p. 319 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

240 Protezione dei dati personali e le sempre nuove metodologie di ricerca impiegate fanno sorgere la necessità di disporre e di scambiare sempre maggiori quantità di informazioni personali e di campioni biologici da elaborare ed analizzare, spesso avvalendosi di tecnologie informatiche. I dati genetici vanno inclusi, ai sensi dell’art. 4, co. 1, lett. b) e d) del Codice della privacy, tra i dati c.d. sensibili (o meglio ultrasensibili)59, in quanto dati personali60 idonei a rivelare, in particolare, lo stato di salute dell’interessato61; per essi, tuttavia, il vigente Codice della privacy, in linea con la precedente normativa (l. 675/96), prevede una disciplina dif- ferenziata62 rispetto a quella dettata per la più generale categoria dei dati sensibili e prevista dall’art. 26. La disciplina ad hoc è contenuta nell’art. 90 del Codice, il quale dispone che il trattamento dei dati genetici, da parte di chiunque, è consentito nei soli casi previsti da apposita autorizzazione rilasciata dal Garante per la protezione dei dati personali sentito il Ministro della salute, che acquisisce, a tal fine, il parere del Consiglio superiore di sanità63. Il provvedimento adottato dal Garante ai sensi dell’art. 90 del Codice è dunque un’autorizzazione che consente il trattamento dei dati genetici nei limiti e alle condizioni in essa previsti e può essere sia speciale (rilasciata cioè caso per caso) che generale. La soluzione del legislatore italiano, eccentrica rispetto all’intero panorama internazionale, è stata dunque quella di spogliarsi dei compiti e delle prerogative che gli competono, rimettendo all’autorità di protezione dei dati personali il potere – dovere di regolare la materia64. Qualche perplessità può peraltro destare l’amplissima ‘delega’ che il legislatore ha conferito all’Autorità amministrativa indipendente in merito alla delicata materia della protezione dei dati sensibili e, in particolare, dei dati genetici65; tuttavia demandare il potere di integrazione delle disposizioni legislative ad organi maggiormente qualificati (quale, appunto, il Garante) può rivelarsi opportuno in considerazione della difficoltà di inserire in un testo legislativo norme che richiedono una competenza di carattere altamente specialistico e,

59 R. Borsari, Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili penali, cit., p. 1054 ss. 60 L’art. 4, co. 1, lett. b) Cod. privacy definisce «dato personale» qualunque« informazione relativa a persona fisica, identificata o identificabile, anche indirettamente, mediante riferimento a qualsiasi altra informazione, ivi compreso un numero di identificazione personale». 61 L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, cit., p. 694. Stante l’idoneità dei dati genetici a rientrare in diverse categorie di dati (“personali”, “sensibili”, “inerenti alla salute” etc.) considerate dal Codice, la ricostruzione dello statuto giuridico dei dati genetici richiede una (non facile) ricognizione delle regole di disciplina che riguardano specificatamente le varie categorie di dati. 62 V., tra gli altri, G. Finocchiaro, Privacy e protezione dei dati personali. Disciplina e strumenti operativi, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2012, p. 68, p. 224 ss.; M. Petrone, Trattamento dei dati genetici e tutela della persona, in “Famiglia e diritto”, 2007, p. 853 ss.; C. Romano, Il trattamento dei dati genetici nel diritto italiano, cit., p. 181 ss. 63 Ai sensi del 2° co. dell’art. 90, l’autorizzazione del Garante «individua anche gli ulteriori elementi da includere nell’informativa ai sensi dell’articolo 13, con particolare riguardo alla specificazione delle finalità perseguite e dei risultati conseguibili anche in relazione alle notizie inattese che possono essere conosciute per effetto del trattamento dei dati e al diritto di opporsi al medesimo trattamento per motivi legittimi». 64 R. Lattanzi, Ricerca genetica e protezione dei dati personali, cit., p. 338, il quale rileva che si tratta comunque di una soluzione «emergenziale», in quanto l’autorizzazione non può comunque estendersi alla regolamentazione di profili ulteriori e diversi rispetto alla protezione dei dati personali. 65 Sul punto v. U. De Siervo, Tutela dei dati personali e riservatezza, in Aa.Vv., Diritti, nuove tecnologie e trasformazioni sociali. Scritti in memoria di Paolo Barile, Padova, CEDAM, 2003, p. 304 ss.; P. Torretta, op. cit., p. 27. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 241 che, con riferimento a materie in costante evoluzione, come quella relativa ai dati genetici, richiedono una certa flessibilità. La più recente autorizzazione generale al trattamento dei dati genetici del Garante è stata emanata il 12 dicembre 201366. Essa fornisce una definizione di dato genetico (inteso come «risultato di test genetici o ogni altra informazione che, indipendentemente dalla tipologia, identifica le caratteristiche genotipiche di un individuo trasmissibili nell’ambito di un gruppo di persone legate da vincoli di parentela») e ne limita l’accesso e l’impiego in funzione garantistica. Più precisamente, l’autorizzazione fornisce indicazioni sui soggetti legittimati a trattare i dati genetici, sulle finalità per cui è autorizzato il trattamento, sulle modalità di trattamento, sui requisiti dell’informativa e del consenso dell’interessato, sulle modalità di conservazione, comunicazione e diffusione dei dati. In estrema sintesi, l’autorizzazione generale all’accesso alla citata categoria di dati personali è rilasciata (in via generale, appunto), ad una serie di soggetti espressamente indicati (tra cui, ad es., gli esercenti le professioni sanitarie, gli organismi sanitari pubblici e privati, i laboratori di genetica medica, gli enti o agli istituti di ricerca, gli psicologi, i difensori, i consulenti tecnici e investigatori privati autorizzati, gli organismi di mediazione pubblici e privati): per ognuna di queste categorie sono precisate le specifiche finalità limitatamente alle quali è possibile accedere ai dati. Il trattamento dei dati genetici è ammesso, previo consenso, per finalità di tutela della salute (con particolare riferimento alle patologie di natura genetica e alla tutela dell’identità genetica del soggetto interessato o di un terzo appartenente alla sua stessa linea genetica) e a scopo di ricerca scientifica o statistica finalizzata alla tutela della salute dell’interessato, di terzi o della collettività in campo medico, biomedico ed epidemiologico, da svolgersi con il consenso dell’interessato. L’accesso ai dati genetici è altresì ammesso quando il trattamento è indispensabile per lo svolgimento di investigazioni difensive o, comunque, per far valere o difendere un diritto anche da parte di un terzo in sede giudiziaria67 (anche senza il consenso dell’interessato eccetto il caso in cui il trattamento presupponga lo svolgimento di tests genetici), nonché per adempiere o per esige- re l’adempimento di specifici obblighi o per eseguire specifici compiti previsti espressamente dalla normativa comunitaria, da leggi o da regolamenti in materia di previdenza e assistenza o in materia di igiene e sicurezza del lavoro o della popolazione68. Infine, il ricorso ai dati genetici è autorizzato per l’accertamento dei vincoli di consanguineità per il ricongiungimento familiare di cittadini di Stati non appartenenti all’Unione europea, apolidi e rifugiati (v. d.lgs. 25 luglio 1998, n. 286). Le regole che presiedono alla raccolta e all’impiego di dati genetici prescrivono dunque l’acquisizione del consenso informato del soggetto interessato, salvo i casi espressamente indicati.

66 Autorizzazione generale al trattamento dei dati genetici n. 8/2013, pubblicata nella G.U. n. 302 del 27.12.2013 e reperibile sul sito www.garanteprivacy.it. 67 In tali casi il trattamento è ammesso a condizione il diritto da far valere o difendere sia di rango pari a quello dell’interessato, ovvero consistente in un diritto della personalità o in un altro diritto o libertà fondamentale e inviolabile e i dati siano trattati esclusivamente per tali finalità e per il periodo strettamente necessario al loro perseguimento. Il trattamento deve essere comunque effettuato nel rispetto delle autorizzazioni generali del Garante al trattamento dei dati sensibili da parte dei liberi professionisti e da parte degli investigatori privati. 68 In questa ipotesi il trattamento può avvenire anche senza il consenso dell’interessato, nei limiti previsti dall’autorizzazione generale del Garante al trattamento dei dati sensibili nei rapporti di lavoro e ferme restando le disposizioni del codice di deontologia e di buona condotta di cui all’articolo 111 del Codice. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

242 Protezione dei dati personali

La citata autorizzazione regola altresì in maniera analoga l’utilizzo dei campioni biologici (che definisce come ogni« campione di materiale biologico da cui possono essere estratti dati genetici caratteristici di un individuo»)69. Come espressamente dichiarato nell’autorizzazione, i trattamenti di dati genetici al di fuori dei casi previsti dall’autorizzazione stessa sono da considerarsi illeciti «anche in riferimento all’attività dei datori di lavoro volta a determinare l’attitudine professionale di lavoratori o di candidati all’instaurazione di un rapporto di lavoro, anche se basata sul consenso dell’interessato, nonché all’attività delle imprese di assicurazione»70. A presidio del corretto trattamento dei dati personali, anche genetici, il Codice della privacy prevede un apparato sanzionatorio complesso71, che si articola in sanzioni penali ed amministrative72. Il legislatore, come già aveva fatto con la previgente l. n. 675 del 1996, ha invero inteso graduare, anche sotto il profilo qualitativo del tipo di sanzione prevista, la reazione sanzionatoria, in relazione al particolare disvalore del fatto illecito e in ossequio al principio di sussidiarietà del precetto penale e di necessaria lesività della condotta incriminata73. Le disposizioni penali (artt. 167-171 Codice), non numerose, individuano le condotte penalmente sanzionate nel trattamento illecito dei dati personali, nella falsità nelle dichiarazioni e notificazioni al Garante, nell’omessa adozione di misure di sicurezza, nella inosservanza dei provvedimenti assunti dal Garante e nella violazione del divieto di effettuare indagini sulle opinioni del lavoratore e del divieto di uso di impianti audiovisivi e di altre apparecchiature per finalità di controllo a distanza dell’attività dei lavoratori. L’art. 170, in particolare, sanziona, tra l’altro, proprio l’inosservanza dei provvedimenti del Garante relativi alle autorizzazioni al trattamento dei dati genetici (di cui al menzionato art. 90)74. Si tratta peraltro di una disposizione che pone delicate questioni sia in ordine all’in-

69 G. Novelli, I. Pietrangeli, I campioni biologici, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, Tomo I, cit., p. 1027 ss. 70 Sul punto v. C. Romano, op. cit., p. 186 s. 71 V., tra gli altri, A. Manna, Il quadro sanzionatorio penale ed amministrativo del codice sul trattamento dei dati personali, in “Diritto dell’informazione e dell’informatica”, 2003, p. 727 ss.; Id., Privacy on line: quali spazi per la tutela penale?, in “Dir. dell’internet”, 2005, p. 257; L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, cit., p. 698 ss.; M.C. Bisacci, Tutela penale dei dati personali, in Dig. disc. pen., Agg., vol. III, Torino, UTET, 2008, p. 1741 ss.; A. Contaldo, L. Marotta, Depenalizzazione e nuove tutele dei dati personali anche alla luce del codice della privacy (d.lg. 30 giugno 2003 n. 196), in “Giur. merito”, 2004, p. 2640; V. Torre, Modelli di tutela penale della privacy in internet, in “Dir. pen. e proc.”, 2004, p. 233 ss. 72 Il ricorso alla sanzione amministrativa nel Codice risulta peraltro piuttosto limitato, perché, da un lato, le violazioni che il legislatore ha ritenuto espressive di una maggior offensività sono presidiate dalla sanzione penale e, dall’altro, la reazione verso le violazioni ritenute di più lieve disvalore è affidata a misure ripristinatorie che rientrano nei poteri coercitivi propri del Garante. Con riguardo all’entità della sanzione R. Borsari (Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili penali, cit., p. 1052 s.) rileva come la severità della misura edittale delle sanzioni amministrative sia tale da celare la loro natura penale in senso stretto, concretante una «truffa delle etichette» che consente di sottrarre alle garanzie giuspenalistiche l’applicazione di sanzioni particolarmente afflittive. 73 Così A. Manna, Il quadro sanzionatorio penale ed amministrativo del codice sul trattamento dei dati personali, cit., p. 733. 74 Art. 170: «Chiunque, essendovi tenuto, non osserva il provvedimento adottato dal Garante ai sensi degli articoli 26, comma 2, 90, 150, commi 1 e 2, e 143, comma 1, lettera c), è punito con la reclusione da tre mesi a due anni». La norma in esame incrimina dunque la mera inosservanza dei provvedimenti del Garante, relativi alle autorizzazioni al trattamento di dati sensibili, o genetici, e di quelli provvisori File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 243 dividuazione della condotta materiale concretamente punibile e dei destinatari del precetto penale - giacché a tal fine occorre riferirsi all’atto normativo secondario (il provvedimento del Garante) cui la disposizione rinvia75 -, sia in ordine ai rapporti con la più grave fattispecie di illecito trattamento dei dati personali76. In generale, le disposizioni penali contenute nel Codice della privacy hanno una struttura meramente sanzionatoria delle violazioni di alcuni dei precetti posti dalla disciplina extrapenale contenuta nel Codice stesso, nel senso che le fattispecie incriminatrici risultano dalla combinazione delle norme propriamente penali con quelle da esse richiamate77. La formulazione delle fattispecie criminose mediante la tecnica del rinvio ad altre disposizioni di legge (spesso descritte mediante elementi normativi che rinviano ad altri elementi normativi), considerata anche la complessità e l’elevato tasso di tecnicismo della materia, va peraltro a detrimento della piena intelligibilità del precetto penale, postulata dai principi costituzionali di tassatività e determinatezza in materia penale78. Si profila, inoltre, un contrasto delle disposizioni in questione con il principio di offensività. Invero, se con l’art. 170 il legislatore ha inteso rafforzare, con evidenti finalità general-preventive, il valore delle decisioni dell’Autorità garante, si può constatare che l’intero sistema di tutela penale approntato dal Codice della privacy si caratterizza per una analoga tendenza a presidiare con la sanzione penale la corretta funzionalità dell’Autorità Garante, più che beni giuridici ben più pregnanti facenti capo all’individuo (quali il diritto alla riservatezza e alla protezione dei propri dati personali)79.

4. Dati genetici e biobanche In questa cornice si inseriscono anche le problematiche giuridiche connesse alla creazione delle c.d. biobanche80. La raccolta, lo stoccaggio e la sistematizzazione di materiali biologici assunti a seguito di reclamo o ricorso dell’interessato. L’art. 170 ricalca integralmente il contenuto della corrispondente fattispecie criminosa di cui all’art. 37 della previgente l. n. 675 del 1996, con l’aggiunta però dell’ulteriore incriminazione dell’inosservanza dell’autorizzazione adottata dal Garante ai sensi dell’art. 90 del Codice con riferimento al trattamento dei dati genetici: come si legge nella Relazione al D.Lgs. 196/2003 (p. 63), il legislatore ha ritenuto di prevedere la sanzione penale anche per questa ipotesi in ragione della «particolare delicatezza della materia disciplinata». 75 Osserva criticamente A. Manna, Il quadro sanzionatorio penale ed amministrativo del codice sul trattamento dei dati personali, cit., p. 767, che la formulazione della norma appare chiaramente modellata sul paradigma di cui all’art. 650 c.p., con conseguenti dubbi di illegittimità costituzionale in considerazione del vulnus al principio di determinatezza in materia penale. 76 Sul punto v. ampiamente L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, cit., p. 700 s. 77 L. Picotti, Trattamento dei dati genetici, violazioni della privacy e tutela dei diritti fondamentali nel processo penale, cit., p. 698. 78 Sul punto v. R. Borsari, Relazioni familiari e privacy. Profili penali, cit., p. 1052. 79 A. Manna, Il quadro sanzionatorio penale ed amministrativo del codice sul trattamento dei dati personali, cit., p. 767. In argomento v. pure, con riferimento alle fattispecie di cui alla previgente l. 675/1996, P. Veneziani, I beni giuridici tutelati dalle norme penali in materia di riservatezza informatica e disciplina dei dati personali, in L. Picotti (a cura di), Il diritto penale dell’informatica nell’epoca di internet, cit., p. 183 ss., il quale rileva come il quadro della tutela penale sia solo in parte riconducibile alla protezione, anche anticipata, della privacy ed appaia ampiamente sbilanciato nel senso della salvaguardia delle mere funzioni, in particolare delle funzioni di controllo e intervento che competono all’Autorità Garante. 80 Sul tema v., tra gli altri, L. Caenazzo (a cura di), Biobanche. Importanza, implicazioni e opportunità File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

244 Protezione dei dati personali umani e delle informazioni genetiche da essi ricavabili si vanno sempre più diffondendo e diverse sono le tipologie di biobanche adottate, tali da rendere utopistica una loro catalo- gazione81: ad es., in relazione al materiale contenuto, si individuano banche genomiche o del DNA (destinate a raccogliere principalmente dati genetici) e banche di tessuti e cellule, mentre, in base alla finalità perseguita, si distinguono biobanche impiegate a fini di ricerca o in ambito sanitario; biobanche a scopo diagnostico o terapeutico; biobanche impiegate con scopi di sicurezza per la prevenzione e repressione di reati; biobanche finalizzate al trapianto di organi; banche contenenti i prodotti degli screening neonatali o cellule staminali, embrioni, ovuli e spermatozoi per la procreazione assistita; biobanche di popolazioni. Tutti questi tipi di biobanche sollevano una serie di problemi giuridici, quali le questioni relative al consenso dei partecipanti, al loro diritto di autodeterminazione e all’adeguata informazione sulla finalità della banca nonché, parallelamente, alla tutela della privacy e del diritto a non sapere; alle ricadute sui membri della stessa famiglia; ai rischi di discriminazione e stigmatizzazione dei gruppi partecipanti; al data sharing nella comunità scientifica; alla governance e al controllo sulla biobanca, ai possibili impieghi dei dati a scopo forense, alla bre- vettabilità dei risultati raggiunti, e così via. Emerge, con tutta evidenza, la necessità di operare un bilanciamento tra i diversi interessi in gioco, ad es. tra il diritto alla ricerca scientifica e i diritti dei singoli (in primis la riservatezza), o tra il diritto alla privacy e quello alla sicurezza della collettività (con riferimento all’utilizzo dei database genetici a livello giudiziario)82. Il quadro di disciplina, affidato a fonti internazionali, europee e nazionali, è complesso e poco organico, oltre che, con precipuo riferimento all’ordinamento italiano, lacunoso83. Il legislatore italiano si è invero dimostrato perlopiù inerte in materia di regolamentazione specifica delle biobanche; importanti indicazioni per chi opera nel settore si rinvengono comunque in taluni atti privi di efficacia vincolante (quali ad es. le Linee Guida del 2008 emanate dal Comitato nazionale per la biosicurezza, le biotecnologie e le scienze della vita e relative all’accreditamento di biobanche e centri per le risorse biologiche di campioni umani, istitu- iti a fini di ricerca)84. Con riguardo alle biobanche con finalità medica o di ricerca medica può peraltro farsi riferimento alla già citata autorizzazione del Garante della privacy in tema di trattamento dei dati genetici, che, come si è detto, permette, a determinate condizioni, per la società. Risvolti scientifici, etico-giuridici e sociologici, Padova, libreriauniversitaria.it edizioni, 2012; C. Casonato, C. Piciocchi, P. Veronesi (a cura di), La disciplina delle biobanche a fini terapeutici e di ricerca, Trento, Università degli Studi di Trento, 2012; C. Faralli, M. Galletti (a cura di), Biobanche e informazioni genetiche. Problemi etici e giuridici, Roma, ARACNE editrice, 2011; M. Macilotti, Le biobanche: disciplina e diritti della persona, in Trattato di Biodiritto, diretto da S. Rodotà e P. Zatti, Vol. II, Il Governo del corpo, Tomo I, cit., p. 1195 ss.; G. Pascuzzi, U. Izzo, M. Macilotti (a cura di), Comparative Issues in the Governance of Research Biobanks. Property, Privacy, Intellectual Property and the Role of Technology, Berlin - Heidelberg, Springer, 2013; A. Santosuosso, Diritto, scienza, nuove tecnologie, cit., p. 147 ss. 81 V. A. Santosuosso, I. A.Colussi, Diritto e genetica delle popolazioni, cit., 356 ss. 82 Sul punto A. Santosuosso, I.A. Colussi, Diritto e genetica delle popolazioni, cit., p. 367. 83 Per una panoramica degli strumenti normativi in materia, v. M. Tomasi, Il modello italiano di regolamentazione giuridica delle biobanche: alla ricerca di una sintesi per una materia poliedrica, in L. Caenazzo (a cura di), Biobanche. Importanza, implicazioni e opportunità per la società. Risvolti scientifici, etico-giuridici e sociologici, cit., p. 21 ss.; A. Santosuosso, I.A. Colussi, op. cit., p. 359 ss. 84 Il documento è reperibile sul sito www.governo.it/biotecnologie/documenti.html. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 245 l’impiego dei materiali biologici e delle informazioni genetiche a fini di ricerca e statistica a tutela della salute. L’unico intervento diretto del legislatore italiano in materia di biobanche riguarda l’ambito forense ed è costituito dalla l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 200985, con cui l’Italia ha aderito al Trattato di Prüm (firmato da sette Stati membri dell’Unione europea nel 2005), con il quale si è aperta la strada ad un sistema comunitario di raccolta, accesso e scambio di dati (quali la parte non codificante del DNA e le impronte digitali), allo scopo di contrastare il terrorismo, la criminalità transfrontaliera e la migrazione illegale. L’utilizzo dei database genetici a livello giudiziario costituisce valido ausilio ai fini dell’i- dentificazione degli autori di reati, con notevoli vantaggi in termini di maggior efficienza e rapidità delle indagini e di tempestività nell’azione repressiva; il loro impiego apre tuttavia, al contempo, seri interrogativi in ordine al bilanciamento tra interesse collettivo alla sicurezza e diritti individuali, tra cui in primis il diritto alla privacy86, nonché, per quanto interessa in questa sede, in ordine ai possibili rischi di discriminazione connessi all’inclusione di un soggetto in un DNA database. L’aspetto più innovativo della legge n. 85 del 2009 è senz’altro costituito dall’istituzione della banca dati nazionale del DNA, finalizzata alla identificazione degli autori dei delitti (art. 5, co. 1°). La banca dati è anzitutto deputata alla raccolta dei profili del DNA dei soggetti sottoposti a prelievo di campione biologico indicati nell’art. 9 della legge: si tratta, in concreto, di persone sottoposte a misure restrittive della libertà personale a seguito di condanna definitiva o ad un provvedimento cautelare per reati di una certa gravità87. La banca

85 V., per un primo approccio, V. Marchese, L. Caenazzo, D. Rodriguez, Banca dati nazionale del DNA: bilanciamento tra diritti individuali e sicurezza pubblica nella legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2013, p. 1863 ss.; E. Galli, L’istituzione della banca dati nazionale del DNA e del laboratorio centrale per la banca dati nazionale del DNA. La delega al Governo per l’istituzione dei ruoli tecnici del Corpo di polizia penitenziaria (l. 30 giugno 2009, n. 85), in D. Fondaroli (a cura di), Nuove strategie di polizia per una “società aperta”, Padova, CEDAM, 2011, p. 51 ss.; G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, in “Resp. civ. e prev.”, 2009, p. 2630 ss.; G. Leo, Il prelievo coattivo di materiale biologico nel processo penale e l’istituzione della Banca dati nazionale del DNA, in “Riv. it. med. leg.”, 2011, p. 931 ss.; L. Marafioti, L. Luparia, Banca dati del DNA e accertamento penale: commento alla legge di ratifica del Trattato di Prüm, istitutiva del database genetico nazionale e recante modifiche al codice di procedura penale (l. 30 giugno 2009, n. 85), Milano, Giuffrè, 2010; A. Scarcella (a cura di), Prelievo del DNA e banca dati nazionale. Il processo penale tra accertamento del fatto e cooperazione internazionale (legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85), Padova, CEDAM, 2009; P. Tonini, P. Felicioni, A. Scarcella, Banca dati nazionale del DNA e prelievo di materiale biologico, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, suppl., 2009. V. inoltre, anche in prospettiva comparatistica, C. Fanuele, Dati genetici e procedimento penale, Padova, CEDAM, 2009. 86 Sul punto v. A.M. Capitta, Conservazione dei DNA profiles e tutela europea dei diritti dell’uomo, in “Archivio penale”, 2013, p. 4 ss.; L. Scaffardi, Le banche dati genetiche per fini giudiziari e i diritti della persona alla ricerca di una legislazione europea armonizzata, in “Anuario da Facultade de Dereito da Universidade da Coruña”, vol. 12, 2008, p. 845 ss.; E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali, cit., p. 161 ss. 87 Più precisamente, l’art. 9, prevede, al comma 1°, che «ai fini dell’inserimento del profilo del DNA nella banca dati nazionale del DNA, sono sottoposti a prelievo di campioni biologici: a) i soggetti ai quali sia applicata la misura della custodia cautelare in carcere o quella degli arresti domiciliari; b) i soggetti arrestati in flagranza di reato o sottoposti a fermo di indiziato di delitto; File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

246 Protezione dei dati personali dati provvede inoltre alla raccolta dei profili del DNA relativi a reperti biologici acquisiti nel corso di procedimenti penali, alla raccolta dei profili del DNA di persone scomparse o loro consanguinei, di cadaveri e resti cadaverici non identificati, nonché al raffronto dei profili del DNA a fini di identificazione (art. 7). Emerge dunque come la banca dati non manipoli materiale biologico, non svolga analisi, né acceda all’intero patrimonio genetico dei soggetti candidati all’inserimento88. La l. n. 85/2009 ha istituito altresì il laboratorio centrale per la banca dati nazionale del DNA, che provvede alla «tipizzazione del profilo del DNA dei soggetti di cui all’ articolo 9, commi 1 e 2» e alla «conservazione dei campioni biologici dai quali sono tipizzati i profili del DNA» (art. 8). La banca dati del DNA è sottoposta al controllo del Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, mentre il Comitato nazionale per la biosicurezza, le biotecnologie e le scienze della vita è tenuto a garantire l’osservanza dei criteri e delle norme tecniche per il funzionamento del laboratorio centrale (art. 15). Per quanto qui soprattutto interessa, è opportuno notare che a tutela della privacy si pone il principio secondo cui l’impiego del dato genetico è consentito unicamente per il perseguimento della finalità di identificazione degli autori dei reati: emerge dunque un implicito divieto di utilizzare il dato genetico a fini diversi, ad esempio per compiere accertamenti in ordine alla personalità del soggetto, alla sua predisposizione genetica ad un comportamento antisociale o per svolgere ricerche sulle relazioni familiari89. In linea con questo principio, l’ultimo comma dell’art. 11 prevede che «i sistemi di analisi sono applicati esclusivamente alle sequenze del DNA che non consentono la identificazione delle patologie da cui può essere affetto l’interessato»90. Alle medesime esigenze di tutela del diritto alla riservatezza risponde la garanzia di anonimato posta dall’art. 12, co. 1, della l. n. 85/2009, secondo cui «i profili del DNA e i relativi campioni non contengono le informazioni che consentono l’identificazione diretta del soggetto cui sono riferiti». Il legislatore ha inoltre precisamente individuato coloro che possono accedere alle informazioni genetiche (art. 12): per quanto riguarda la banca dati, l’accesso è consentito alla polizia giudiziaria e all’autorità giudiziaria esclusivamente per fini di identificazione personale, nonché per le finalità di collaborazione internazionale di polizia; l’accesso ai dati contenuti c) i soggetti detenuti o internati a seguito di sentenza irrevocabile, per un delitto non colposo; d) i soggetti nei confronti dei quali sia applicata una misura alternativa alla detenzione a seguito di sentenza irrevocabile, per un delitto non colposo; e) i soggetti ai quali sia applicata, in via provvisoria o definitiva, una misura di sicurezza detentiva». Il 2° comma dell’art. 9 stabilisce che «il prelievo di cui al comma 1 può essere effettuato esclusivamente se si procede nei confronti dei soggetti di cui al comma 1 per delitti, non colposi, per i quali è consentito l’arresto facoltativo in flagranza», ed elenca altresì una serie di reati per i quali il prelievo non può essere effettuato. 88 V. G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, cit., p. 2631. 89 A.M. Capitta, Conservazione dei DNA profiles e tutela europea dei diritti dell’uomo, cit., p. 3; v. pure C. Fanuele, op. cit., p. 317 ss. 90 V. Marchese, L. Caenazzo, D. Rodriguez, Banca dati nazionale del DNA: bilanciamento tra diritti individuali e sicurezza pubblica nella legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85, cit., p. 1882: «l’analisi può riguardare solo i segmenti non codificanti del genoma umano, dai quali, cioè, non sarebbero desumibili informazioni generali sul soggetto, come quelle su etnia, malattia o sesso». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 247 nel laboratorio centrale è consentito ai medesimi soggetti e per le medesime finalità, previa autorizzazione dell’autorità giudiziaria. Su tali soggetti incombe un obbligo di segretezza e l’art. 14 della l. n. 85/2009 punisce, salvo che il fatto costituisca più grave reato, con la reclusione da uno a tre anni il pubblico ufficiale che comunica o fa uso di dati ed informazioni in violazione delle disposizioni della legge stessa, o al di fuori dei fini da essa previsti91. Un nodo problematico in termini di tutela dei dati genetici riguarda le modalità e i tempi di cancellazione dei profili di DNA dalla banca dati e quelli di distruzione dei campioni biologici e, dunque, in definitiva, il c.d. «diritto all’oblio», inteso quale diritto a non essere schedati o classificati e ad ottenere la rimozione di dati e campioni laddove vengano meno le finalità per le quali gli stessi erano stati raccolti92. L’art. 13 della legge dispone che la cancellazione dei dati e la distruzione dei campioni avvenga soltanto «a seguito di assoluzione con sentenza definitiva perché il fatto non sussiste, perché l’imputato non lo ha commesso, perché il fatto non costituisce reato o perché il fatto non è previsto dalla legge come reato»93. Al contrario, in presenza di un provvedimento di archiviazione, ovvero di una sentenza di non luogo a procedere o di non doversi procedere, i profili genetici e i campioni biologici vengono conservati, rispettivamente, per un termine massimo di quaranta anni e di venti anni, decorrente dall’ultima circostanza che ne ha determinato l’inserimento o il prelievo. Difetta, dunque, la previsione di un trattamento differenziato, quanto alla conservazione di dati e campioni, per le persone condannate e per i soggetti non condannati in via non definitiva, ovvero in via definitiva ma al di fuori delle formule assolutorie indicate nel 1° co. dell’art. 13; nei confronti dei soggetti non condannati, la conservazione dei dati per tempi così lunghi assume una valenza preventiva e repressiva, che si fonda, in definitiva, su un giudizio probabilistico di pe- ricolosità94. Ciò pone un problema di compatibilità della disciplina sia con il principio della presunzione di innocenza - il quale ben si può riferire ai soggetti non condannati (prosciolti o archiviati) nei cui confronti si sia concluso l’accertamento penale -, sia con il principio di non discriminazione95. Al di là dei rischi discriminatori connessi ad un uso del DNA archiviato per fini diversi da quelli previsti dalla legge96 - rischi che, come si è visto, le disposizioni contenute nella legge tendono a prevenire -, l’inserimento nella banca dati del DNA può già di per sé avere effetti pregiudizievoli, stigmatizzanti, giacché può contribuire a diffondere nella collettività un’immagine negativa della persona, in grado di determinare discredito e potenziale falsa rappresentazione (ove la ragione dell’inserimento non sia fondata o si riveli successivamente erronea) agli occhi della collettività97. Ad oggi, la banca dati nazionale del DNA non ha ancora trovato concreta attuazione. Ciò pone, tra l’altro, un ulteriore problema legato al proliferare di banche dati forensi non

91 L’art. 14, 2° co. prevede la corrispondente ipotesi colposa, punita con la reclusione fino a sei mesi. 92 V. Marchese, L. Caenazzo, D. Rodriguez, Banca dati nazionale del DNA: bilanciamento tra diritti individuali e sicurezza pubblica nella legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85, cit., p. 1890 s. 93 La cancellazione è disposta altresì a seguito di identificazione di cadavere o di resti cadaverici, nonché del ritrovamento di persona scomparsa (art. 13, 2° co.). 94 Così A.M. Capitta, op. cit., p. 28, nota 107. 95 Sul punto v. ancora A.M. Capitta, op. cit., p. 27 ss. 96 V. C. Fanuele, Dati genetici e procedimento penale, cit., p. 325 s. 97 Così G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, cit., p. 2634. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

248 Protezione dei dati personali ufficiali. Invero, poiché l’art. 17 della l. n. 85 del 2009 prevede che i profili del DNA ricavati da reperti acquisiti nel corso di procedimenti penali anteriormente alla data di entrata in vi- gore della legge siano trasferiti dalle Forze di polizia alla banca dati nazionale del DNA entro un anno dalla data della sua entrata in funzione, permane, fino a che non verranno emanati i regolamenti di attuazione, il rischio di una creazione spontanea ed incontrollata di banche dati genetiche ad uso forense, operanti anche al di fuori di qualsivoglia garanzia e controllo98. Infine, un’ultima notazione riguarda la questione dei limiti di analisi del campione biologico finalizzata alla estrazione del profilo identificativo. In proposito la legge n. 85 del 2009 prevede, come si è visto, che i sistemi di analisi possano essere applicati esclusivamente alle sequenze del DNA che non consentono la identificazione delle patologie da cui può essere affetto l’interessato (art. 11). Tuttavia, come osservato dal Garante Europeo della Protezio- ne dei Dati nel parere n. 2006/C 116/2004 del 17 maggio 2006, ciò non esclude, anche in considerazione della costante evoluzione delle scienze biomediche, che quel che è in un dato momento è considerato un profilo di DNA innocuo possa successivamente rivelare molte più informazioni riguardanti le caratteristiche genetiche della persona di quanto non sia prevedibile, stante la natura dinamica delle informazioni genetiche99. Inoltre, l’impiego di determinati markers del DNA o di talune tecniche di analisi può amplificare i rischi di discriminazione. A titolo esemplificativo, l’analisi mirata di determinati marcatori consente di identificare, pur con variabile margine di attendibilità, l’origine etnica del soggetto al quale appartiene il campione biologico, con il conseguente pericolo di incrementare i pregiudizi razziali sugli autori di reati, mentre il c.d. sex test può condurre all’identificazione casuale di anomalie cromosomiche, la cui conoscenza può poi essere utilizzata a fini discriminatori. Oppure si pensi all’impiego del c.d. familial searching100, che rende virtualmente presenti, all’interno della banca dati, soggetti che non sono in essa legittimamente inclusi (c.d. «sospetti virtuali») e che non possono esercitare nessuna delle garanzie e procedure di tutela che sono riservate soltanto a coloro che sono ufficialmente inseriti neldatabase genetico, con gravi ricadute anche sulla privacy dell’intero gruppo familiare101.

5. Verso una tutela penale della persona contro la discriminazione genetica? Da quanto sin qui pur sommariamente esposto è emerso che, al di là dell’accettabilità o

98 Il caso più noto è forse quello della banca dati istituita presso il RIS di Parma, sulla quale si è pronunciata anche l’Autorità Garante con il provvedimento adottato il 19 luglio 2007. Si trattava di una banca dati informatizzata, in cui i profili e campioni genetici venivano raccolti indiscriminatamente e senza il rispetto delle misure minime di sicurezza previste dal Codice della privacy: sulla vicenda v. G. Gennari, Genetica forense e Codice della privacy: riflessioni su vecchie e nuove banche dati, in “Resp. civ. e prev.”, 2011, p. 1184 ss. 99 V. G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, cit., p. 2638. 100 Il familial searching è una tecnica di analisi del DNA volta a rinvenire corrispondenze parziali, anziché un full match, mediante l’individuazione di un possibile vincolo parentale tra l’indagato e soggetti il cui profilo è presente in banca dati o che hanno offerto un campione biologico in occasione di unoscreening di massa: v. V. Marchese, L. Caenazzo, D. Rodriguez, Banca dati nazionale del DNA: bilanciamento tra diritti individuali e sicurezza pubblica nella legge 30 giugno 2009, n. 85, cit., p. 1868 s. 101 G. Gennari, Bioinformazione e indagini penali: la l. n. 85 del 30 giugno 2009, cit., p. 2639 s. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 249 meno di un approccio genetico-centrico ispirato al «genetic exceptionalism»102, non si può comunque non riconoscere che le informazioni genetiche, per le loro peculiarità (attinenza alla salute ma non solo, carattere predittivo, strutturale condivisione con altri soggetti, stabilità nel tempo) e per le loro potenzialità di impiego, anche discriminatorio, se non creano problemi del tutto nuovi, quantomeno amplificano quelli che di regola si connettono all’impiego ed alla circolazione della generalità dei dati sensibili (inclusi quelli sulla salute)103. Ciò induce a prospettare uno scostamento del concetto di privacy genetica rispetto alla nozione generale di privacy o una rimodulazione nel senso della centralità del diritto all’autodeterminazione sulla propria persona, inclusivo tanto della corporeità quanto delle informazioni da essa ricavabili, corredato, se del caso, da sanzioni penali104. Non sfugge peraltro come l’attuale disciplina penale posta a tutela dei dati genetici (e, segnatamente, l’art. 170 del Codice della privacy) si riveli carente sotto il profilo del rispetto dei principi di legalità (sub specie tassatività/determinatezza) e di offensività. Ciò induce anzitutto ad interrogarsi circa la necessità di ripensare le disposizioni penali poste a protezione del corretto trattamento dei dati genetici, anche nell’ottica di renderle maggiormente efficaci nel contrastare i possibili risvolti discriminatori connessi all’uso di tali dati. Su un piano più generale, tuttavia, occorre chiedersi se un rafforzamento dellaprivacy genetica sia lo strumento di intervento più idoneo per tutelare il singolo contro discriminazioni fondate sulle sue caratteristiche genetiche, o se non sia invece auspicabile la predisposizione di una disciplina penale ad hoc che reprima le condotte di discriminazione genetica. Uno spunto di riflessione in tal senso può trarsi, ad esempio, da uno sguardo all’esperienza francese, ove sono previste disposizioni penali (artt. 225-1 − 225-4 e art. 432 -7 del Code pénal)105 che espressamente puniscono la discriminazione fondata, tra l’altro, sulle «caractéri- stiques génétiques» della persona106, che consista nel rifiutare la fornitura di un bene o di un servizio, nell’ostacolare il normale esercizio di un’attività economica, nel rifiutare di assumere o nel sanzionare o licenziare una persona, o, ancora, nel subordinare la fornitura di un bene

102 Sul punto v., da ultimo, G. Gennari, US Supreme Court, Jeremy Bentham e il panopticon genetico, in “Diritto penale contemporaneo”, n. 3, 2013, p. 152 ss. 103 V. E. Stefanini, La circolazione dei dati genetici tra vecchi diritti e nuove sfide, cit., p. 117 ss. 104 Così R. Borsari, Profili penali della terapia genica, cit., p. 558 s. 105 Per un commento alle disposizioni in tema di discriminazione, contenute nella Section I (intitolata “Des discriminations”) del Chapitre V (rubricato “Des atteintes à la dignité de la personne”) del Titolo II del Libro II del codice penale, v., tra gli altri, E. Dreyer, Droit pénal spécial, Paris, Ellipses, 2012, p. 323 ss.; J. Pradel, M. Danti-Juan, Droit pénal spécial, Paris, Cujas, 2010, p. 255 ss.; M. L. Rassat, Droit pénal spécial. Infractions du Code pénal, Paris, Dalloz, 2011, p. 616 ss. 106 L’Art. 225-1 stabilisce, al primo comma, che «constitue une discrimination toute distinction opérée entre les personnes physiques à raison de leur origine, de leur sexe, de leur situation de famille, de leur grossesse, de leur apparence physique, de leur patronyme, de leur lieu de résidence, de leur état de santé, de leur handicap, de leurs caractéristiques génétiques, de leurs moeurs, de leur orientation ou identité sexuelle, de leur âge, de leurs opinions politiques, de leurs activités syndicales, de leur appartenance ou de leur non- appartenance, vraie ou supposée, à une ethnie, une nation, une race ou une religion déterminée». L’Art. 432-7 punisce la discriminazione come definita dall’art. 225-1 posta in essere dal soggetto «dépositaire de l’autorité publique ou chargée d’une mission de service public», nell’esercizio delle proprie funzioni, che si sia concretata nel rifiuto del beneficio di diritto accordato dalla legge o in un ostacolo al normale esercizio di una attività economica. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

250 Protezione dei dati personali o di un servizio, un’offerta di impiego, una domanda distage o un periodo di formazione in impresa ad una condizione discriminatoria107. La scelta di tutelare penalmente la persona contro atti di discriminazione fondata sulle caratteristiche genetiche postula la precisa individuazione di un bene giuridico meritevole di tutela108. Occorre allora interrogarsi, a mio avviso, sul ruolo che, in questo contesto, e sotto un profilo strettamente penalistico, può (o deve) assumere il concetto di «dignità umana», la cui valorizzazione viene da più parti invocata proprio con riguardo alla protezione della privacy genetica109 e alla tutela contro discriminazioni fondate sulle caratteristiche genetiche110. Si tratta peraltro di concetto che risente di una certa ambiguità semantica: la dottrina penalistica più attenta ne ha invero messo in luce la genericità ed anche i rischi di strumentaliz- zazione ai quali esso è esposto, trattandosi di un valore a forte connotazione etico-emozionale, potenzialmente suscettibile di essere invocato per la giustificazione di ogni incriminazione rispetto alla quale non si sia in grado di identificare quale oggetto di tutela un bene giuridico più specifico111. Tuttavia, uno degli ambiti in cui la dignità umana mostra un «contatto diretto» con la fattispecie penale, anziché porsi come «sintesi categoriale» bisognosa di determinarsi nel contenuto, è proprio nell’offesa alla pari dignità umana delle persone fatte oggetto di pratiche discriminatorie, posto che tali condotte giungono a negare la persona umana come «valore in sé», a negarne l’identità e le qualità intrinseche proprie di ogni essere umano, le quali non tollerano alcuna forma di gerarchia o differenziazione in ragione della diversa origine od appartenenza o condizioni personali112. Accordare tutela penale alla dignità umana così intesa anche nelle ipotesi di discrimina-

107 E’ interessante notare che l’art. 225-3 sancisce l’inapplicabilità delle disposizioni che prevedono le condotte discriminatorie in una serie di ipotesi, tra cui, per quanto qui interessa, il caso in cui si tratti di «discriminations fondées sur l’état de santé, lorsqu’elles consistent en des opérations ayant pour objet la prévention et la couverture du risque décès, des risques portant atteinte à l’intégrité physique de la personne ou des risques d’incapacité de travail ou d’invalidité», a meno che, però, le discriminazioni non si fondino «sur la prise en compte de tests génétiques prédictifs ayant pour objet une maladie qui n’est pas encore déclarée ou une prédisposition génétique à une maladie». 108 Sulle problematiche relative all’individuazione del bene giuridico meritevole di tutela con riguardo alla molteplicità di diritti riconducibili alla nozione di «persona umana» v. G. De Francesco, Una sfida da raccogliere: la codificazione delle fattispecie a tutela della persona, in L. Picotti (a cura di), Tutela penale della persona e nuove tecnologie, Padova, CEDAM, 2013, p. 3 ss. 109 Sulla capacità della nozione (pur di incerti contorni) di «dignità umana», richiamata dall’art. 3 Cost., di espandere il campo di applicazione dei diritti garantiti da altre norme costituzionali (come il diritto all’informazione o alla riservatezza) contro le più aggressive applicazioni della biomedicina v. L. Chieffi, Le informazioni sul patrimonio genetico tra diritti del singolo e interessi pubblici, cit., p. 4, il quale rileva altresì che «in analoga direzione, nell’imporre il “rispetto della persona umana” accanto alla tutela della sua salute (1° e 2° co. dell’art. 32), la Costituzione ha inteso preservare l’individuo anche da quei comportamenti che, pur non pregiudicandone l’integrità fisica, siano tuttavia suscettibili di degradarlo ad oggetto, a mero strumento ovvero a serbatoio di informazioni utili soltanto ad altri». 110 In argomento v., di recente, A. Aparisi Miralles, El principio della dignidad humana como fundamento de un bioderecho global, in “Cuadernos de bioética”, XXIV, 2013, p. 201 ss. 111 G. Fiandaca, Considerazioni intorno a bioetica e diritto penale, tra laicità e ‘post-secolarismo’, in “Riv. it. dir. e proc. pen.”, 2007, p. 558 ss. 112 G. De Francesco, Una sfida da raccogliere: la codificazione delle fattispecie a tutela della persona, cit., p. 12 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. Provolo 251 zione genetica sarebbe allora conforme al contenuto costituzionale di “eguaglianza” (art. 3 Cost.), in cui la diversità (anche genetica) si pone non come aspetto da correggere bensì come valore da tutelare e coltivare, in quanto capace di «produrre identità» e, dunque, dignità, in senso dinamico113.

113 P. Torretta, Privacy e nuove forme di discriminazione rispetto alla circolazione delle informazioni genetiche: sistemi giuridici di tutela a confronto, cit., p. 6. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Genetics related regulations in Turkish criminal law and criminal procedure

Feridun Yenisey

Table of contents: I. Legal framework. − II. Genetics related regulations in Turkish criminal code. − 1) Scientific experiment on human being. − 2) Experimentation on children. − 3) Conducting a test on a patient for purposes of medical treatment. – III. Research involving human biological material. − IV. Research involving human embryos. − V. Genetics related regulations in Turkish criminal procedure: DNA evidence. − VI. Genetic information. − VII. Protection of personal data.

I. Legal framework Genetic research resulted many changes in many different fields of the law. However, legal institutions react slowly to the scientific developments and change in the law takes place later. New discoveries and implementations of earlier discoveries related to the use of the genetic code, affected Turkish criminal law and criminal procedure as well, but in a limited extend. There are some sets of issues, arising from developments in genetics, such as experiments on human beings for medical purposes, or the utilization of DNA evidence or DNA identification in criminal procedure and storing genetic samples which is related to the right on personal data and raises privacy concerns. These points will be the focus of our short talk. Article 17 of the Constitution states that everyone has the right to life and the right to protect and develop his or her material and spiritual entity. The physical integrity of the individual shall not be violated except in the case of medical necessity and in cases prescribed by laws and shall not be subjected to scientific or medical experiments without his or her consent. Turkey has signed the Convention for the Protection of the Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

254 Genetics related regulations in Turkish criminal law and criminal procedure

Human Rights and Biomedicine (1997) and ratified it by Law dated 3.12.2003 - No. 5013. Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of the Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine, on the Prohibition of Cloning Human Beings (1998) has also been ratified. According Article 90 of the Constitution, international treaties have the legal status of statutes and those concerning basic rights and freedoms, have priority in relation national law. Therefore,The Convention for Human Rights and Biomedicine is now an integral part of the Turkish legal system. Other ratified international instruments related to our topic are the European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals Used for Experimental and Other Scientific Purposes (1986) and the Protocol of Amendment to the European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals Used for Experimental and Other Scientific Purposes (2004).

II. Genetics related regulations in Turkish criminal code In the Turkish legal system, unauthorized experimentation and test on human beings is forbidden under the threat of punishment (Art. 90 Turkish Penal Code: TCK), but is permitted under two conditions. These conditions include the authorization of the Ministry of Health and informed consent from the relevant individual. Furthermore, the Regulation on Medical Research necessitates approval from ethics committees.

1) Scientific experiment on human being The sanction of illegal scientific experiment on human being is imprisonment one to three years (Art. 90/1 TCK). The provisions pertaining to intentional injury or intentional killing are additionally applicable if the victim is injured or dies due to the scientific experiment (Art 90/5 TCK). The Code defines the conditions of a permitted experiment on human beings in detail (Art. 90/2 TCK). The first requirement is consent. Additional to consent, the following conditions must be satisfied to avoid criminal responsibility: a) authorization from the relevant council or body shall be received, b) the experiment shall first be conducted in an experimental environment other than the human body or on a sufficient number of animals, c) the scientific data obtained through an experiment conducted in an experimental environment other than human body, or on animals, should necessitate the experiment then being performed on human beings in order to attain its objectives, d) the experiment should not foreseeably damage, or have a permanent effect File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Yenisey 255

upon, human health, e) no method should be employed that might result in the test subject suffering to a degree unacceptable to human dignity, f) the objective of the experiment should outweigh any danger to the person’s health or burden placed upon him, g) the consent of the test subject should be in writing and based on sufficient information about the content and consequences of the experiment, and should not be dependent upon securing any gain.

2) Experimentation on children Experimentation on children had been strictly forbidden by Turkish Criminal Code when it had been enacted in 2004 (Art. 90/3 TCK). But before the Code entered in force, it has been amended and experimentation on children is an exception now, which may only be conducted under the following conditions in addition to the conditions specified above: a) the scientific data obtained through an experiment that has been conducted in an experimental environment should necessitate the experiment then being performed on a child, in order to attain its objectives, b) written consent of the mother or father, or legal guardian, and the consent of the child, where he has the capacity to give consent; and, c) the presence of a child an illness expert from an authorized body which has the capacity to give permission for the experiment. Medical research involving minors can be conducted for the direct interest of the minor. However, for research to be conducted on minors, the condition of the benefit of the minor is not sufficient. Furthermore, permission of the parents is a prerequisite for conducting medical research. In cases where the legal representative does not consent, the urgency of the medical intervention shall be considered. If medical research on minors arises from a medical emergency the intervention can be performed with the decision of the court.

3) Conducting a test on a patient for purposes of medical treatment Turkish Criminal Code makes a distinction between experimentation on human beings and tests conducted upon a patient for purposes of treatment (Art. 90/4). Treatment oriented non-consensual test on a patient is always punishable by imprisonment up to one year (Art. 90/4, sentence 1). However, where it is understood that existing methods of known treatment shall not yield any positive result, conducting an experiment, while using known scientific methods, upon a person who has consented to such, with the aim of treating such person, shall not incur criminal responsibility. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

256 Genetics related regulations in Turkish criminal law and criminal procedure

The consent should be in writing and be based on sufficient information about the content and consequences of the experiment, and the medical treatment should be conducted by an expert physician in a hospital.

III. Research involving human biological material Removing and using biological material from living persons, is regulated in Turkish under certain conditions. The Law on Procurement, Preservation, Grafting and Transplantation of Organs and Tissues governs the conditions of consent for the removal of organs and tissue. According to the Civil Code human biological material shall be removed, inoculated and transplanted based on written consent. Therefore, the initial provision for the removal of biological material from living persons is written consent. Accordingly, the consent has to be obtained in the presence of two witnesses and without any outside pressure. Secondly, the consent has to be informed consent. The donor must be informed in detail on the potential threats that might arise, and the medical, psychological, familial and social consequences and benefits for the recipient. Scientific research can be conducted on bodies of the deceased that have previously expressed consent for donating their body to be used for research purposes and the bodies of individuals with no surviving family members. Turkish Criminal Code sanctions the removal of organs and tissues from a living another person using illegal methods by imprisonment of five to nine years (Art. 91/1 TCK); unlawful removal of organs or tissue from a deceased person with imprisonment up to one year (Art. 91/2 TCK) and trading in organs and tissues by imprisonment of five to nine years (Art. 91/3 TCK). If the removal of organs and tissues results in the death of the victim, the offender will also be punished according the provisions relating to intentional killing (Art. 91/8 TCK).

IV. Research involving human embryos The Regulation on Centers for Medically Assisted Procreation published in 2001 includes provisions concerning research on human embryos. Moreover, as mentioned above, the Convention on the Protection of the Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine, which is part of Turkish law, covers statements directly related to the issue. The definition of embryo is not clearly made in Turkish law. However, the Regulation on Centers for Medically Assisted Procreation defines an embryo as the “fecund state of an egg”. This Regulation is related to the medical therapeutic File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Yenisey 257 methods used for assisting procreation. The creation of embryos is allowed only for procreation purposes. The use of embryos for other purposes is prohibited. The Turkish law does not involve legislative instruments regarding cloning. The relevant regulation can be found in the amendment to the Convention for the Protection of the Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine on the Prohibition of Cloning Human Beings, which has been signed, but not ratified by Turkey as by September 2013.

V. Genetics related regulations in Turkish criminal procedure: DNA evidence Obtaining DNA evidence is regulated in Turkish Criminal Procedure Code (CMK). Material obtained through physical bodily examination and taking samples of the suspect, accused or a third party, as described in Articles 75 and 76 CMK may be subject to molecular-genetic tests. Molecular-genetic tests shall only be conducted if it is necessary to determine if those body samples are related to the suspect or to the victim, or to determine the family connections. Molecular-genetic tests that are outside of the scope of these aims are forbidden (Art. 78/1 CMK). Permitted tests may also be conducted on other body parts, that had been found and seized at the crime scene, and their owner’s identity is not known. Molecular-genetic tests shall only be conducted upon a judge’s order. The ruling shall also contain the name of the expert appointed to conduct the test (Art. 79/1 CMK). Expert may be selected from the officially appointed experts or from the individuals who are required to act as an expert or from officials who are not attached to the investigating or prosecuting authorities, or from officials belonging to an objectively separate structural branch of the investigating or prosecuting authority. These individuals are obliged to take all suitable organizational and technical precautions in order to prevent illegal conduct of molecular-genetic tests and so that unauthorized third parties may not obtain knowledge about the outcomes. The items subject to test shall be delivered to the experts without labeling them with the name, family name, address and date of birth of the person from whom the items originate. The outcome of the analysis on samples are considered as personal data and shall not be used for another purpose; the individuals, who have access to the files, shall not disclose the information to unauthorized persons (Art. 80 CMK). Violation of this regulation will be punished under Art. 135 TCK. As soon as the time limit for opposing the decision to drop the prosecution is exhausted, the opposition has been overturned, the court gives a final judgment on acquittal or a judgment is rendered on not punishing the accused and those judgments File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

258 Genetics related regulations in Turkish criminal law and criminal procedure are made final, the samples and information shall be destroyed immediately in the presence of the public prosecutor, and this fact shall be documented and its document shall be kept in the file. Violation of this regulation will be punished under Art. 138 TCK.

VI. Genetic information Turkey has ratified the Convention for the Protection of the Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine. Articles 12, 13 and 14 of the Convention are concerned with genetics. This Convention is part of Turkish law and its provisions cover tests of genetic diagnosis, intervention seeking to modify the human genome, and choosing a future child’s sex. The Regulation on the Centers for Diagnosis of Genetic Diseases was published in 1998 and governs the establishment of centers for diagnosis and medical treatment of genetic diseases before the child is born. Article 17 of the Regulation states that the sex of the child cannot be determined except where serious hereditary sex-related disease is to be avoided. In Article 19 it is stated that the centers for genetic diagnosis cannot execute a procedure unless informed consent of the applicant is obtained. Concerning the protection of genetic information, it is stated that the results cannot be declared to any third party without consent from the particular individual. Genetic information is part of information covered in medical records and is a personal data. Any person who illegally records personal data shall be punished under Art. 135 TCK.

VII. Protection of personal data Concerning the protection of personal data in Turkish law, Article 17 of the Constitution governs the personal inviolability, material and spiritual entity of the individual and Article 20 covers the privacy and protection of private life. The 2010 amendment to Article 20 by the law No. 5982 has created a new fundamental right related to protection of personal data. Governing provisions concerning the protection of personal rights are included in the Turkish Civil Code. The Regulation on the Medical Deontology binds physicians and dentists to secrecy concerning occupational execution. The Guideline for Good Clinical Practice also states that the secrecy of private life shall be protected in research on human beings. Accordingly, personal data concerning the state of individuals and relevant medical information has to be kept confidential. TheRegulation on the Patients’ Rights also governs personal data. The Law on the Right to Information also includes provisions on the issue. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Yenisey 259

Personal data includes any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. The information may involve all of the properties of reference for identification such as genetic information, name, address and civil status of the individual. There are two types of personal data: personal data and sensitive personal data. Sensitive personal data consist of data revealing political opinions, ethnic or racial origin, religious or other beliefs, and data relating to state of health, private and sexual life. Turkish Criminal Code introduced rules concerning the protection of personal data unlawfully. According to these rules, it is a crime to record, to disseminate or to transfer personal data (Art. 135 TCK). It is also considered a crime to record sensitive personal data such as the philosophical, political and religious opinions, sexual lives and health status of the persons. Moreover, it is also stated as a crime in the Code not to erase the personal data within the time limit envisaged by the law. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Genetics: general overview of Russian criminal law

Natalya Krylova, Gleb Bogush

Genetics has a long history in Russia, dating back to the beginning of 20th century. In spite of termination for years under Stalin’s regime, the Russian genetics has become today quite developed and internationally recognized science. The development of medical genetics and gene therapy, the participation of Russia in the biggest international biomedical project on the human genome gave rise to a number of problems of moral, ethical and legal nature. The Russian state research program “Human Genome” has declared five basic principles of medical genetics and the introduction of the knowledge derived from the fundamental principle of respect to human dignity: privacy, autonomy, justice, equal access and quality. In 1999 the members of the project made a statement of commitment to strictly abide themselves by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, Russian legislation, to implement international legal norms and standards regulating the gene therapy. The declaration provided for the general guidelines for biomedical research involving human beings. In particular, it stated that the interests and benefit of the individual should prevail over the interests of society, science and any other interests. The intervention to the human genome, according to the document, shall be allowed only for medical purposes and only provided that such intervention is not aimed at changing the genes in the offspring. Further, the genetic research may not serve as a basis for any form of discrimination or biological evidence for superiority of any racial or ethnic group. Finally, the document refers to the need to guarantee the confidentiality of genetic information relating to the patients, the donors of biological materials and their families in order to prevent unauthorized access to it1. Despite the apparent success in developing the basic principles of bio - medical research and application of gene therapy in Russia, the legal regulation in the area of biomedicine is very far from perfection. The current domestic law in this area is rather chaotic, not well systematized and has significant gaps and weaknesses.The obvious shortage of legal regulation and criminal law protection in that field has its

1 V.S. Ovchinskiy, Kriminologia i biotekhnologii (Criminology and Biotechnologies), Moscow, 2005, pp. 175-176. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

262 Genetics: general overview of Russian criminal law natural consequences in the absence of any available practice. The scant Russian legal research in this area is consequently not based on reliable empirical data, but, at best, on sociological surveys, and even more often on speculative assumptions. Much of this topic is still terra incognita. The interaction between criminal law and genetics should however be a new and very promising in the development of Russian criminal law2. The most international legal instruments on biomedical research, including in the field of genetics, are non-binding for Russia. In particular, the Council of Europe Convention on the protection of human rights and human dignity in relation to the Application of Biology and Medicine (Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine) of 1996 has not been ratified by the Russian Federation. Therefore, it is impossible or Russia to accede either to the additional protocols to this Convention. There have never been any official explanation of the reasons behind not ratifying the convention. Quite the contrary, on a very high level, including the governmental meetings and parliamentary hearings, some governmental officials stated their willingness to accede the convention, adding rather vague remarks that Russian legal system is just “not yet ready” to implement it. At the national law level, the regulation is very general and lacks efficient enforcement mechanisms. The Federal Law “On the fundamentals of health protection of citizens of the Russian Federation” (“Fundamentals”), adopted in 2011, regulates the issues of genetic research and therapy only at the level of general principles. It bans a number of actions relating to the application of biomedical technologies. However, the prohibition is not accompanied by appropriate responsibility for specific violations. For example, the law prenatal sex selection for the exception when there is a risk of sex-linked hereditable diseases (paragraph 4 of Art. 55). However the law is silent on the sanctions of the violation of that prohibition, be it criminal, administrative or civil. The same law provides for an absolute ban on the industrial use of germ cells, reproductive organs and tissues of human embryos (paragraph 6 of Art. 55). This prohibition is well justified and in compliance with international legal standards of biomedicine, but, again, no liability is attached to the prohibition. Another federal law in this field – the law on the state regulation of genetic engineering (1996). Its article 12 contains the reference to «the responsibility according to the law of the Russian Federation» for the harm caused by illegal genetic engineering. Such responsibility, unfortunately, is not provided in any of Russian laws. In May 2002 the State Duma passed a federal law “On the temporary ban of human cloning”. The ban has been several times extended, the last time in 2010

2 See N.E. Krylova, Ugolovnoe pravo i bioetika: problemy, diskussii, poisk resheniy (Criminal Law and Bioethics: Problems, Dicussions, Solutions), Moscow, 2005. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

N. Krylova, G. Bogush 263 for indefinite period of time. The law proclaimed on «the responsibility for human cloning according to the legislation of the Russian Federation». It is still, in 2013 not clear, which liability may be applied in case of violation of the ban on the cloning of human beings, there is no law regulating such responsibility and the issue is not still resolved. In general, Russian legislation in this area is very fragmentary and full of lacunas that is absolutely inadequate to the latest achievements in the field of biomedicine in general and medical genetics in particular. They are striking and require the legislator to respond promptly and adequately. The “legal vacuum” in the question of responsibility for the most dangerous violations in the sphere of medical genetics in Russia is caused, among other factors, by the fact that the legal standards themselves are still in the process of formation. Many issues are a matter of controversy, cause an ambiguous attitude towards them, and practical solutions often depend on the moral position of the doctor or the researcher, as well as their personal views about what is good for the patient and what are the means to achieve this good. A good illustration of these problem may be perhaps the most developed area of legal regulation of the field - assisted procreation technologies3. Assisted procreation is widely applied in Russia, mostly as infertility treatment, including the use of cryopreservation of germ cells and surrogacy. The use of assisted procreation technologies are regulated by the recently adopted “Fundamentals” and the regulations of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation , in particular, the order of 30 August 2012 “On the procedure for the use of assisted reproductive technologies and limitations thereof”. Russian law provides for heterologous fertilization only. According article 55 of the “Fundamentals”, a hetero couple, married or not married, has a right to the use of assisted procreation technologies in the presence of mutual informed consent to medical intervention. A single woman also has the right to use the auxiliary reproductive technologies in the presence of her informed consent to medical intervention. The Russian legislation limits the number of the implanted embryos. According to the Order of 2012, it is allowed to implant no more than two embryos, that corresponds to the current practice of many states. In Russia, in certain cases, three implanted embryos are allowed. This decision is made by the patient by means of giving informed consent after providing full information by the attending physician of the high risk of miscarriage, low survival rate and a high risk of disability of the baby. Thus, the maximum number of embryos transplanted to woman is three. Russian legislation does not provide for general right to refuse the implantation of the

3 See N.A. Sokolova, A.V. Mulenko, Novelly rossiyskogo zakonodatelstva o primenenii vspomogatelnykh reproductivnykh tekhnologiy (The New Russian Law on the Application of Assisted Procreation Technologies), in “Medicine Law”, (1) 2013. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

264 Genetics: general overview of Russian criminal law embryos. However, such a waiver is possible in view of the fact that the implantation of the embryo, as well as the use of assisted reproductive technologies in general, require the patient’s written informed consent. The cryopreservation of human embryos is also permitted in Russia. According to the Order of the Ministry of Health (2012), it may be an option for “unused” embryos, together with donation to another couple and destruction. The decision is taken by the person to whom the embryos belong upon, written agreement indicating the time of their storage (paragraph 25). Thus, the remaining embryo after implantation procedure may be “utilized”, i.e. destroyed, can be transferred to another couple. The possibility of destruction of embryos makes the process of artificial insemination ethically dubious. Furthermore, Russian law allows reduction of embryos for the prevention of complications during pregnancy, the birth and neonatal perinatal period upon an informed written consent of the woman. The number of embryos to be the reduction is determined by the woman with the advice of the doctor. At risk of hereditary diseases linked to gender, such as hemophilia, genetic diagnosis must be conducted prior to implantation. Even in this area, however, there is no link between legal regulation and criminal (or administrative) liability. The Russian criminal law does not provide for any responsibility for eugenic selection of embryos, genetic manipulation aimed at changing the genotype of embryos and carrying out experiments on human embryos. As already noted, the use of gametes, tissues and organs of human embryos for industrial purposes is prohibited. However, obtaining embryos solely for the purpose of scientific research and experiments is not directly prohibited (for the exception of human cloning) and therefore is not a criminal offence. The research and the use of embryonic stem cells are not prohibited as such in Russia. There are many Russian hospitals and medical centers using stem cells, not only for cosmetic purposes, but also for treating serious cardio diseases, Down’s syndrome etc. The Russian source for such studies is often abortive material, which makes the experiments in this area ethically controversial, to say the least. Research on embryonic stem cells and their use should not pose an ethical conflict in which researchers have interest in getting a large number of embryonic tissues harvested by increasing the number of abortions. In 2003, Russia has created national stem cell bank and the hospitals, under special licence, organize special cryobanks for the storage of embryos and germ cells. At the same time, the transplantation of human embryonic stem cells is outside the reach of any legal regulation: no federal law or other legal documents regulate this issue. The federal law on the transplantation of organs and tissues (1992) contains a special clause of its non-applicability to human bodies, their parts and tissues that are relevant to the process of human reproduction, e.g. sperm, embryos or ovaries. Administrative acts of the Ministry of Health regulate only in vitro fertilization File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

N. Krylova, G. Bogush 265 and embryo implantation in the treatment of human infertility. Again, no criminal responsibility. Probably the most developed area of legal regulation of procreative technologies is that of surrogacy. “The fundamentals” (2011) define surrogacy is a bearing and birth the child under a contract concluded between a surrogate mother (the woman who carries the fetus after the transfer of the donor of the embryo) and potential parents whose germ cells were used for fertilization, or a single woman who is unable to bear and birth the child for medical reasons. According to the Russian legislation a surrogate mother may be a woman, between 20 and 35 years old, having at least one own healthy child and a medical certificate of good health and who gave voluntary informed consent in writing. A married woman may be a surrogate mother only with the written consent of her husband. The Russian criminal law however provides for no responsibility for the violations of the rules on surrogacy. Eugenics in Russia, as in many other countries, also has gained interest in recent years. It can be explained not only by the apparent achievements of genetics, to the extent it can modify or even “improve” human beings. At present, Russia is surviving a critical socio-economic and demographic situation. For many years the mortality rate in the country is higher than the birth rate, the population is getting older each year. “Absolutely healthy” children are born very rarely. The level of hereditary deceases has increased significantly. “Social deceases”, such as crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, prostitution, etc. are also characterized by negative trends. In this situation, there is a strong temptation to use eugenic measures, including sterilization, for the improving the nation’s gene pool and also to prevent crime and other asocial deviant behavior. Though such a use of eugenics is now just a topic for academic debate, such proposals should be treated with a big caution. The civilized state does not have a right to “adjust” the morality by forced sterilization. “Breeding” people is contrary to fundamental human rights and unacceptable in democratic society. Even the most serious offenders cannot be denied the right to a private and family life and right to have children. Moreover, it is very easy to predict inevitable abuses in this area, such as those that took place in Soviet psychiatry used for punishing the dissidents4. Eugenic “selection” itself is not a criminal offence in the Russian Federation unless such practices make criminally relevant harm to the values, protected by the criminal law (causing death or serious bodily harm). As already noted, the human cloning is not a criminal offence, although a cloning itself is prohibited since 2002. Therefore, the ban on cloning was only proclaimed. It is important to note, that the law does not prohibit the cloning of organisms other than human (plants, animals). No criminal or other responsibility exist for creating

4 N.E. Krylova, op. cit. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

266 Genetics: general overview of Russian criminal law so-called chimeras. Thus, Russian criminal law is still very far from the modern achievements of genetics and does not provide for sufficient protection of legal interests in this sphere. There are no special rules on criminal liability for unlawful genetic therapy and genetic experiments, for causing physical and mental harm as a result of genetic engineering, for discrimination on genetic grounds, for illegal eugenic selection, the cloning of human beings, illegal use of embryonic stem cells, etc. Criminal liability for some actions is only possible on the basis of general rules on “traditional” crimes. So, if illegal genetic experiments or genetic therapy caused death or serious bodily harm, criminal liability should arise from the norms of inflicting such harm (art. 105 (“murder”), 111 (“intentional serious bodily injury), etc.). Disclosure of the information about the genetic characteristics of persons may be prosecuted under art. 137 of the Criminal Code (“violation of privacy”). Criminal liability may arise from the articles on crimes against public health (art. 235-238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). For example, the production and sale of products, or drugs derived from genetic engineering, does not meet safety requirements, are punishable under art. 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The creation of “genetic weapons”, i.e. weapons of mass destruction produced by means of genetic engineering methods and should result in criminal liability under Article 355 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation «development, production, stockpiling, acquisition or sale of weapons of mass destruction». The prohibition of “genetic” weapons is contained in the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, ratified 1971 USSR and retains its legal force for the Russian Federation as the successor to the Soviet Union. As the rules of general part are concerned, the notion of “justified” (reasonable) risk as a circumstance excluding criminal liability (art. 41 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) may be relevant to genetic experiments. Such a risk is that following “socially useful purpose”, having taken all possible measures to prevent adverse effects. The risk (for instance of genetic experiment) cannot be considered “justified”, when it inevitably endanger “the life of many people, environmental catastrophe or public calamity”. At the same time, many serious violations in the sphere of genetics are still beyond the reach of criminal law. In particular, illegal genetic manipulation at the molecular and cellular levels, using modified RNA and DNA to create genetically modified organisms (viruses, transgenic animals and plants, etc.). The further development of medical genetics may cause new problems of ethical and legal nature. The increase in the number of persons subjected to genetic screening, and, correspondingly, the number persons, interested in the results of the DNA testing. In sum, legal regulation in the sphere of genetics in Russia is unsatisfactory. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

N. Krylova, G. Bogush 267

Russia may unfortunately serve as an example of the legal vacuum, that can have negative consequences in the future. Among them is a real danger of using Russia’s rich facilities as a safe heaven for criminal activity. There is a strong need for international legal policy in this important field. It is very important that Russia would adhere to international instruments in this field and implementation of the best practices in Russian law. First of all, the criminal law should provide for the provisions on criminal responsibility for serious violation in this field, like discrimination on genetic grounds; intentional modification of the human genotype for non-medical purposes; therapeutic and reproductive human cloning; other genetic manipulation, leading to the loss of genetic identity; illegal genetic manipulation at the molecular, cellular levels involving modified RNA and DNA to create genetically modified organisms (viruses, microorganisms, transgenic plants and transgenic animals and their cells); illegal testing of genetically modified organisms. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

The protection of human genome by means of criminal law in Hungary and related issues on the punishability of incest

Zsolt Szomora

Table of contents: 1. The protection of human (and foetal) genome − The structure of related legal sources and provisions. − 1.1. Statutory offences in the Criminal Code. − 1.2. Background norms of the Criminal Code. − 1.3. The punishability of manipulative genetic procedure and cloning. − 1.4. Rules on medically assisted procreation, cryopreservation of gametes and embryos, research on embryos – and related criminal offences. − 2. Genetics and the punishability of incest – legal concerns.

1. The protection of human (and foetal) genome - The structure of related legal sources and provisions 1.1. Statutory offences in the Criminal Code As for the structure of legal regulation on this matter, legal sources are to be divided into two groups: statutory definitions of the Criminal Code and background norms outside the Criminal Code, which norms are essential for the application of the statutory definitions of criminal offences. Statutory offences aiming at the protection of the human and foetal genome were first introduced in the Hungarian Criminal Code1 in 19982. Before 1998, the protection by means of criminal law did not exist.

1 At the time of the incorporation of these offences in 1998, the Criminal Code of 1978 (Act IV of 1978) was in effect (hereinafter referred to as CC). It has to be noted that, unlike the criminal law of numerous Western European countries, the entire substantive criminal law is codified in a single uniform act in Hungary. Concerning natural persons, no separate penal statues exist in the Hungarian legal system, i.e. the only statute defining the elements of any criminal offences and providing the sanctions is the single Criminal Code. In 2012, a new Criminal Code was enacted that has been in force since 1 July 2013. The new CC did not affect the related rules in their main substance. 2 Act XXII of 1998 on the Amendment of the Criminal Code of 1978. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

270 The protection of human genome by means of criminal law in Hungary

The Explanatory Notes of the Amending Act of 1998 to the Criminal Code3 refers to the fact that the recent development of medical biology and genetics not only enables a significant broadening of the scope of healing and research but also can lead to the danger of misuse of such practices. The legislature explicitly regards the misuse of genetic practices as an artificial and inacceptable intervention into the order of nature. Therefore, the Explanatory Notes state that the rules of the research on human gametes and embryos as well as that of medically assisted procreation have to be backed by penal sanctions. The legislature took the Biomedicine Convention of the Council of Europe also into consideration4. Since 1998, the Hungarian Criminal Code includes a separate Chapter under the title “Criminal offences against the order of medical procedures and research” (Chapter XVI). The new Criminal Code of 2012 has not affected the provisions on these offences in their main substance, it is therefore not necessary to differentiate between the Codes of 1978 and 2012 for the goals of this paper. Hereinafter, the Articles of the CC 2012 will be referred to. The statutory offences relevant to genetic identity are as follows5: - Manipulative procedure on human genome (Art. 168 CC); - Illicit use of human gametes (Art. 169. CC); - Altering the gender of an unborn child (Art. 170 CC); - Violation of the rules of experimental research on gametes and embryos (Art. 172-173 CC); - Creating genetically identical human individuals (Art. 174 CC); - Illicit use of human body (Art. 175 CC). One remaining statutory offence laid down in this Chapter, which offence is though not relevant to the protection of human genome: - Violation of the rules of experimental research on human individuals (Art. 171 CC).

1.2. Background norms of the Criminal Code Naturally, each of these statutory offences is laid down in a framework definition in the Criminal Code, which definition refers back to the detailed special legal norms on procedures on human gametes, embryos and genome. These legal provisions

3 The Explanatory Notes are attached to a Bill by the person who brings the Bill before the Parliament in order to get it passed. In case of the 1998 Amending Act introducing the criminal offences discussed in this paper, it was the Minister of Justice to prepare the Explanatory Notes. 4 It is remarkable that, despite the Biomedicine Convention having been ratified by the Hungarian Parliament only in 2002, its provisions were already taken into consideration when the criminal offences discussed here were introduced to the CC in 1998. 5 On a detailed analysis of these offences, seeK. Karsai, Az egészségügyi beavatkozás és kutatás rendje elleni bűncselekmények (Btk. XVI. Fejezet) [Criminal offences against the order of medical procedures and research (Chapter XVI of CC)], in K. Karsai (ed.): Kommentár a Büntető Törvénykönyvhöz (Kommentár a Büntető Törvénykönyvről szóló 2012. évi C. törvényhez), Budapest, 2013, pp. 338-351. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Z. Szomora 271 are included in a separate Chapter of the Act on the Health Care System6 and in a Decree on medically assisted special procreation procedures, the disposal and the cryopreservation of gametes and embryos (Decree of the Ministry of Welfare 30/1998)7. As already mentioned, the legislature also refers to the Biomedicine Convention as the relevant international legal instrument. The consideration of these background rules is essential for the correct interpretation of the statutory definitions in the Criminal Code. In case procedures on human genome are carried out in accordance with the provisions of these background norms, they do not constitute any criminal offence, since these rules are regarded as explicit grounds of justification precluding the punishability of such procedures8. Explicit grounds of justification that are laid down outside the Criminal Code can be considered according to Art. 24 CC that generally declares conducts, which are allowed by (other) legal norms, unpunished.

1.3. The punishability of manipulative genetic procedure and cloning Looking at the provisions of the Hungarian Criminal Code, one can see that any manipulative procedures on both human and foetal genome are punishable. Already the commencement of a manipulative procedure constitutes a completed offence9, which is the basic type of the offence. In case the procedure results in the actual alteration of the genome, a qualified type of the offence is committed (Pars 1 and 2, Art. 168 CC). The wording of the relevant statutory definition under § 168 CC does not literally refer to the exceptions that constitute a ground of justification. As already mentioned, they are laid down in the separate Act on the Health Care System. In accordance with Art. 162 Health Care Act, such manipulative procedures are allowed only if they aim at diagnosis, prevention or therapy. Concerning foetal genome, manipulative procedures may be carried out only if they aim at diagnosing of genetic diseases that have their basis on the gender of the foetus or if they aim at the detection or healing of other genetic diseases (Arts 181 and 182 Health Care Act). A general clause of proportionality is also included in these norms of justification: the alteration of the genome must be limited to an absolutely necessary method and extent. These provisions of the Health Care Act are in accordance with Chapter IV of Biomedicine Convention.

6 Chapter IX of Act CLIV of 1997 [1997. évi CLIV. törvény az egészségügyről]. 7 Decree of the Ministry of Welfare Nr. 30 of 1998 [30/1998. (VI. 24.) NM rendelet az emberi reprodukcióra irányuló különleges eljárások végzésére vonatkozó, valamint az ivarsejtekkel és embriókkal való rendelkezés és azok fagyasztva tárolására vonatkozó részletes szabályokról]. 8 On the system of grounds of justification in Hungarian criminal law, seeF. Nagy, A magyar büntetőjog általános része [The General Part of Hungarian Criminal Law], Budapest, 2008, p. 140. 9 K. Karsai, op. cit., p. 338. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

272 The protection of human genome by means of criminal law in Hungary

Under § 174 CC, human cloning is punishable. The prohibition of cloning is an absolute one, both reproductive and therapeutic cloning are strictly forbidden; no ground of justification exists.

1.4. Rules on medically assisted procreation, cryopreservation of gametes and embryos, research on embryos – and related criminal offences In Hungary, both homologous and heterologous insemination are permitted (Art. 171 Act of Health Care). The above mentioned ministerial Decree Nr. 30 of 1998 on the detailed rules of assisted procreation limits the number of embryos to be implanted to three pieces. There are four exceptional cases when four embryos may be implanted into the mother’s uterus (Art. 2 par. 2): - first, if one previous implantation was unsuccessful; - second, if the mother receiving the embryo is older than 35 years of age; - third, if the hormone examinations indicate an ovarian weakness; - fourth, if no more embryos originating from the same persons are available for cryopreservation. The actual indication for implanting four embryos has to be recorded in the documentation of the procreation procedure. The ministerial Decree also lays down the detailed conditions of the cryconservation of gametes and embryos. The indications for cryopreservation of embryos are as follows (Annex IV of the Decree): - the number of embryos is more than 3 or 4 and they are suitable for a next possible implantation cycle; or - the embryos are available but their implantation is actually contraindicated due to any reasons; or - the mother concerned is expecting chemo- or radiotherapy; or - the embryos undergo pre-implantation diagnostic procedures before being implanted. Annex IV of the Decree also specifies the indications of thecryopreservation of sperm for the purpose of homologous insemination. These indications are - the expected chemo- or radiotherapy of the male partner; - before medically indicated vasectomy or other operations leading to sterility; - the erectile dysfunction of the male partner; or - even social indications (such as a longer absence of the male partner). As it can be seen from the just mentioned grounds for cryopreservation of embryos, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is permitted, but only for the purpose of detecting diseases in connection with the gender of the unborn child or other genetic diseases (cf. Art. 182 Health Care Act). The genome of the embryo can be altered if it is necessary and suitable for the healing of the genetically based disease. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Z. Szomora 273

Consequently, a selection of the embryos after the pre-implantation diagnosis is also permitted. Any other selection of the gametes or embryos for eugenic purposes or any other interventions aimed at altering their genetic heritage is forbidden and constitutes a criminal offence. Depending on the circumstances of the actual selection or manipulative procedure, this criminal offence can be the altering the gender of an unborn child (§ 170 CC), illicit use of human gametes (§ 169 CC) or the violation of the rules of experimental research on gametes and embryos (Art. 172 CC). In terms of experimental research with gametes and embryos, it has to be stressed that no embryos may be created for the purposes of research. Consequently, embryos can undergo research only if they have been created in the course of an assisted procreation procedure. The research requires the approval of the persons concerned. However, no approval is needed if the embryos are damaged. In both cases, also the separation of embryonic stem cells and the research on them are permitted. Embryos that have been created in an assisted procreation procedure may never be used for creating more embryos or for creating embryos that have different genetic features compared to the embryo created by conception except the already mentioned case of diseases based on the gender of the unborn child. The cells of an embryo may be separated from each other only for the detection of a probable disease of the unborn child or the damage of the embryo (Arts 180 to 182 Act on Health Care). Any violation of these rules constitutes one of the criminal offences listed above. Fortunately, trading with gametes and embryos or the so-called procreative tourism are not typical phenomena in Hungary, against which the legislature and the authorities would have to combat. So, this topic does not raise special problems in our country. The aforementioned criminal offences have left no trace in criminal statistics and did not yet particularly arouse the interest of criminal layers10. I am however sure that the interest of criminal law scholars will be aroused as soon as the very first cases happen and are brought before the court.

2. Genetics and the punishability of incest – legal concerns For the second part of this paper, a topic has been chosen that has a slightly bit more relevance in the criminal law system of Hungary: the criminal offence of incest and its relation to genetics. The offence of incest does not leave significant trace in criminal statistics either. Usually, the number of registered incest cases does not

10 As an exception, one comprehensive paper can be metioned: G. Kovács, I. Németh, B. Gellér, Az egészségügyi beavatkozás, az orvostudományi kutatás rendje és az egészségügyi önrendelkezés elleni bűncselekmények I-II. [Criminal offences against medical procedures, the order of medical research and against the health autonomy of individuals I and II], in “Büntetőjogi Kodifikáció”, 1/2005, pp. 7-24 and 2/2005, pp. 3-24. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

274 The protection of human genome by means of criminal law in Hungary exceed twenty per year11. It is still significantly more than the number of offences related to the protection of genetic identity. The punishability of incest raises special questions from the point-of-view of criminal law doctrine and from that of the constitutional prohibition of discrimination. In Hungary, - all sexual activities among ascendants and descendants, - as well as heterosexual vaginal intercourse and any homosexual activities of siblings were punishable. In 1999, the statutory definition of incest (Art. 203 CC of 1978) was reviewed by the Constitutional Court. The review had the following result: the punishability of homosexual activities among siblings was abolished with reference to the prohibition of discrimination12. In case of siblings, heterosexual activities other than vaginal intercourse had been unpunished, while each kind of homosexual activity had been forbidden by the Criminal Code 1978. This situation violated the constitutional prohibition of discrimination, according to the opinion of the Constitutional Court. In view of other incestuous relationships, the statutory definition remained untouched. Incest - by any kind of sexual activities between ascendants and descendants, - as well as heterosexual vaginal intercourse of siblings is still punishable (also in Art. 199 CC of 2012). The Constitutional Court did not accept the complaints that aimed at a complete annulment of the punishability. The Court brought forward the argument that the protection of marriage, the family, the youth and the genetic health of progeny represent reasonable grounds for the punishability of the remaining incestuous activities in the statutory definition13. As we can see, the Hungarian Constitutional Court referred to a complexity of legally protected interests and one of these interests is the genetic health of children that could possibly be born from an incestuous relationship. The fact that heterosexual vaginal intercourse is now the only punishable sexual activity among siblings reinforces the impression that genetic protection is supposed to be a distinguished interest to be protected among those I have just

11 1990: 20 (out of 1343 sexual offences); 1991: 9 (out of 1591 sexual offences); 1992: 16 (out of 1906 sexual offences); 1993: 17 (out of 2968 sexual offences); 1994: 27 (out of 1847 sexual offences); 1995: 14 (out of 1543 sexual offences); 1996: 12 (out of 2199 sexual offences); 1997: 15 (out of 1554 sexual offences); 1998: 13 (out of 1519 sexual offences); 1999: 17 (out of 1642 sexual offences); 2000: 28 (out of 1350 sexual offences); 2001: 7 (out 1382 sexual offences); 2002: 13 (out of 1307 sexual offences); 2003: 16 (out of 1265 sexual offences); 2004: 11 (out of 1298 sexual offences); 2005: 33 (out of 1365 sexual offences); 2006: 15 (out of 1247 sexual offences). Source: Official note of the Hungarian Central Statistics Office upon request. 12 Dec. of the Constitutional Court: 20/1999. (VI.25.) AB hat. 13 20/1999. (VI.25.) AB hat. II.1.2. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Z. Szomora 275 mentioned. I am not going to discuss the punishability of incest in general14. I am going to focus on the argument of genetic protection and review the question of whether or not the genetic health of progeny can be accepted as a legally protected interest in criminal law. It is not Hungary the only country, in which the criminalization of incest is based on the argument of genetic protection, amongst other arguments15. The German Constitutional Court refers to possible genetic damages three times in its 2008 decision on incest among siblings16. Some other countries can also be mentioned where the courts or the legislature itself or legal literature uses the same argument: Poland, Sweden, Romania and Chile for example17. It is not my task to present and argue the results of the related medical, genetic researches and to challenge the common knowledge that children of relatives can suffer from genetic- based diseases with an increased probability18. In my opinion, the question of whether or not the increased probability of genetic damages is an acceptable reason for criminalization can be answered easily and clearly from the point of view of law. In order to give the answer, a case that occurred in Great Britain shall first and provocatively be described. Sharon and Nail Bernardi lost all seven of their children to a rare genetic disease. The majority of the children did not live longer than a couple of hours or days. It was their fourth child where the doctors and the couple clearly got aware of the mother’s genetic disorder that is inherited dominantly and leads to fatal disturbances in the central nervous system. Despite being aware of these findings, the couple gave birth to three more children who died shortly after having

14 On a detailed, critical purposive analysis of the statutory definition of incest in the Hungarian literature, see Zs. Szomora, A nemi bűncselekmények alapkérdései [Fundamental issues of sexual offences], Budapest, 2009, pp. 224-244. See also M. Hollán, N. Kis: § 203. In: Az 1978. évi IV. törvény kommentárja. Az 1978. évi IV. törvény kapcsolódó anyagaként. In: Hivatalos Jogszabálytár. Hatályos Jogszabályok Hivatalos Gyűjteménye. Hivatalos Közlönykiadó. 2005/11. CD-formátum. 15 On the basis of the legislature’s working papers on the CC 1978, the Hungarian legislature regarded the genetic argument only as a subsidiary aspect behind the dominance of the moral incest taboo that was primarily referred to as the legal interest to be protected [cf. J. László (Ed.): Az 1978. évi IV. törvény (Btk.) előkészítése (The preparation of the Criminal Code of 1978), vol. VIII, Budapest, 1989, pp. 307-309]. Contrary to the legislature, the wording of the Constitutional Court’s 1999 decision makes the impression that the Constitutional Court, in the course of and from the point of view of the constitutional review of the statutory offence of incest, regarded the several relevant interests to be protected as equal ones. 16 Regarding only the own argumentation of the German Constitutional Court, i.e. references to genetic aspects by others involved in the proceedings of the Constitutional Court are here not connumerated: BverfG, 2BvR 392/7 of 26 February 2008, marginal no. 41, 56, 61 (http://www.bverfg. de/entscheidungen/rs20080226_2bvr039207.html). 17 Cf. Stellungnahme zu dem Fragenkatalog des Bundesverfassungsgerichts in dem Verfahren 2 BvR 392/07 zu § 173 Abs. 2 StGB – Beischlaf zwischen Geschwistern –. Fassung vom 19. November 2007, vorgelegt von H.- J. Albrecht und U. Sieber, pp. 70-74 (http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rs20080226_2bvr039207. html). 18 On a detailed overview on the results of medical research, see the expert opinion in Fn. 17, pp. 112- 117. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

276 The protection of human genome by means of criminal law in Hungary been born. After the death of the seventh child, the couple gave up their attempts to give birth to healthy children19. If we compare this case with incest cases, in which a major part of medical findings allege an increased probability of the manifestation of recessive genetic disorders, the clear conclusion can be made that no reasonable ground can be found for the distinction of legal consequences in these two cases20. Impunity for knowingly transmitted dominant diseases and punishability for a certain probability of the manifestation of recessive disorders: this sort of distinction is an obvious discrimination. The prohibition of discrimination can only apply concerning so- called homogenous groups. If we talk about genetically inherited disorders, the factor, on which the comparable groups can be built up, can only and exclusively be the genome of the persons affected. As for the legal aspects, the presence or absence of the genome disorders of the individuals affected can only and exclusively be taken into consideration. In my view, no other circumstances can be relevant. In order to prevent misunderstandings, I would like to emphasize that I under no circumstances argue for punishing people who knowingly transmit genetic diseases. There are very good reasons for which such life situations have to remain untouched by criminal law and eugenic health should not be defined as a goal of penal sanctioning21. We know these reasons very well from our history22. Consequently, if one wants to substantiate the punishability of incest, one has to do without the genetic factor and look for other protected interests that might constitute a reasonable limit to the sexual freedom of relatives. This paper comes to the conclusion that the protection of genetic health of progeny cannot be accepted as a legally protected interest in the system of criminal law since it can under no circumstances be relieved of its discriminatory nature.

19 The woman who lost all seven children (Robin Banerji, BBC World Service) http://www.bbc.co.uk/( news/magazine-19648992#story_continues_2). 20 Cf. H. Jung, Zur Strafbarkeit des Inzests, in H.-J. Kerner et al. (Eds), Kriminologie – Psychiatrie – Strafrecht. Festschrift für Heinz Leferenz, Heidelberg, 1983, p. 315. 21 H. Tröndle, T. Fischer, Strafgesetzbuch und Nebengesetze, 53. Aufl. München, 2006, p. 1038. 22 F. Baumann, Die Blutschande und ihre rechtlichen Folgen, in “Schweizerische Juristenzeitung”, 21/1967, p. 323; M. Frommel: §§ 173-184f, in U. Kindhäuser et al. (Eds), Nomos Kommentar. Strafgesetzbuch, Band 2. 2. Aufl., Nomos, Baden-Baden, 2005, pp. 3207-3208. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

The new frontiers of criminal law1

Leonardo Mazza

During two intense days of congress we examined in an inter-disciplinary key and with the intervention of several and illustrious scholars coming from various Countries and having very different legal traditions the issues raised by genetics and robotics in the legal field and in the field of criminal law, especially with the connected implications of moral character, in an era in which deep socio-economical transformations imply their direct and immediate repercussion on the custom and on the judgments of value. The complexity of the topics we dealt with in sectors having unceasing developmental dynamics makes ever more difficult the reflection on the role that law (and, in our case, substantive and procedural criminal law) has to play in the regulation of scientific activity, on the same capability of known and experimented legal instruments to adequately protect the single subjects from new forms of aggression against the human person before a myth that has been long towering over the heart of society: technology. Facing the establishment of a different relation between the various fields of experience and of the knowledge trying to regulate it, in the era of globalisation we should ask ourselves whether and to what extent it is possible to take the responsibility of binding decisions in the sectors of bio-ethics, of the fight against organised crime, of the protection of health broadly conceived and of the well-being of the cives, in a universe that seems to entrust to the functional effectiveness of its devices the answer to every kind of every-day problem. The rapid and sudden mutation produced in a short time by scientific discoveries with their operational innovations caused technology to turn from an instrument of the ends and values set by the reason into an exhaustive meter of life, to the extent that it makes necessary to consider also the aspect of the consequences deriving from it for the very dignity and happiness of the human person and to prospect the possibility of tracing the features of an impalpable «neuro-ethics». This fully justifies also the question on the function of morals not only as a practical exercise of personal choices, but also, according to Ezio Riondato’s and Antonino Poppi’s opinion, as

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

278 The new frontiers of criminal law a rational reflection and normative science of the strategic decisions of the single subjects in the sociality of their own relations. Also in the present time of civilisation and culture, marked by a sheer restlessness, man cannot give up a serious and complete consideration of the ways and the ends of life and of practice without abdicating his duty and his dignity. We owe some philosophers of law operating in the second half of the Twentieth Century the merit of having dealt among the first in Italy the problems posed by the still ongoing technological transformation in highly industrialised societies with the crisis of mentality and customs it necessarily involves and to which Mario Losano, Sergio Cotta and Vittorio Frosini gave divergent solutions due to their different attitude towards the ethical evaluation of such a phenomenon: the first focused attention on the shift from natural language to that formalised by logic and by programming, emphasising the role of cyberlaw and in general of the complexity of computer machines; the Florentine disciple of Gioele Solari, taking up the technologic challenge and charmed by the ptolemaic Great Syntax, inserted science and its derivatives in the cognitive process of a generation tending to daydream about a mythical reality of welfare, which is but an artifice and which is capable of elaborating behavioural models illusoriliy responding to a radically renovated age; the secular Sicilian, in the context of lively Sienese debates together with Letizia Gianformaggio, Silvio Riondato and Peter Sloterdijk with his motto Du musst dein Leben ändern, was concerned about always saving the privacy of the individuals from the penetrating invasions of the most advanced cognitive instruments such as the social communication networks, without giving up for this to constantly suggest new adjectives to their experience. In the new millennium such contributions are decisive for the study of genetics and robotics, in order to understand the contrast between natural entities and non- natural entities, and put the criminal lawyer, facing the eruption of new realities in a renovated legal experiences, before the doubt concerning, in general, the endurance of penal institutions which have been part of the lawyer’s cultural inheritance since a long time. Think, for instance, to the capability of understanding and willing («capacità di intendere e di volere») and to the possible crisis (which renews itself in time) of the postulate of the necessary connection between culpability and imputability (with the relative judgement of value), or of the idea that intent and negligence are exclusively to be attributed to subjects characterised by certain notes of physio-psychological normality, without discussing the autonomy between the judgement of imputability and the judgment of culpability. The charm of neurosciences in their dialectic with substantive and procedural criminal law is not limited to the identification of the biological roots of criminality (with the related problems concerning the mechanisms of the formation of morals), to the perils of the entrance of scientific evidence in the procedural mechanisms File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

L. Mazza 279 chosen by the legislator, but especially involves the use of such a knowledge by the lawyer, who is not at all closed in a splendid isolation, as Musumeci wrongly believes (and the present Conference organized by the University of Padua proves it), or in a trench, so to assume an attitude of indifference, according to what Di Giovine emphasises: the effort that the criminal lawyer is called to make consists in framing new scientific realities within the substantive and procedural schemes and the legal categories acquired by our legal inheritance (think about the indirect perpetration of crime, as to the aspect of the responsibility of the robot as non-human agent), by inserting them within such schemes and categories without necessarily having to create unknown figures, also in order to avoid the belief that a legally subjectivized nature engenders such a persuasive capability to modify the social perception of the protected object, that is the affirmation of an intrinsic dignity of all that is alive, and in order to prevent a present risk: the use of the undeniable progresses of cognitive neurosciences and of molecular genetics might revive some forms of criminal law of the offender («diritto penale d’autore»), thus ousting from the system the configuration of a criminal law of the fact («diritto penale del fatto») that is mandated by our own constitution itself. Indeed, the well-known precepts of art. 25 Const. impose that our penal order falls within the «criminal laws of the fact», with a strong refusal of any different orientation that, in order to sanction the subject, privileges, instead, his/her being or even his/her mere attitude towards the will expressed by the legislator, whose intervention makes sense whereas correlated to the need for prohibiting a fact, for forbidding it in compliance with the principle of culpability and in such terms as to ensure the protection of a certain legal good and/or of a particular facet or modalization, in accordance with the binding prescriptions deriving from the combined provisions of articles 2, 3 and 25 of the fundamental Charter. For sure, criminal law shall not assume forms contrasting with the use of the most advanced technologies, but it is better not to be influenced by facile enthusiasms aimed at depicting a new framework of the penal system in an evolutionist reading (think, for instance, of the implications that some would draw from the analysis of emotions – differentiated according to whether they are based on reasonable judgements or not! – and empathy) and it is also necessary to prevent trials against defendants that are impossible subjects of criminal law, such as robots, which still remain means and can never be non-human agents. A cautious attitude in this topic is also advised by the need for the new knowledge to be properly “tested” in order to be possibly used within a process that shall define itself “just”: it is necessary that scientific evidence always presents high credentials of reliability, but reliability of neurosciences with all their several disciplines still suffers from a certain “immaturity” unavoidably reflected not only on the investigation on the influence of mental insanity on the ability of understanding and willing File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

280 The new frontiers of criminal law and on the judgement of social dangerousness, but also on the whole structure of imputability and of other fundamental institutes of the penal system, far beyond merely cosmetic terminological modifications, different from the traditional ones, but not always implying substantive diversity compared with the precedent ones. Hence springs the invitation to meditate on some “intuitions” of the members of the positive School and on the impossibility of acting differently, too soon and hastily labelled by Ettore Dezza as “amenities”, and relegated with contempt by Paolo Grossi to the shores of an “figurative and vulgar anti-legalism”, marked by an “subversive conception of interpretation”. A further serene reflection, free from any ideological prejudice, could instead bring to the conclusion that it is “never too late” to open new frontiers. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Le nuove frontiere del diritto penale

Leonardo Mazza

Nel corso di due intense giornate congressuali sono stati esaminati in chiave interdisciplinare, con l’intervento di numerosi ed illustri studiosi provenienti da vari Paesi con tradizioni giuridiche assai diverse, le questioni che genetica e robotica sollevano nel campo del diritto e di quello penale in particolare con le connesse implicazioni di carattere morale, in un contesto epocale in cui profonde trasformazioni socio-economiche comportano una loro diretta ed immediata ripercussione sul costume e sui giudizi di valore. La complessità dei temi affrontati in settori contrassegnati da una incessante dinamica evolutiva rende sempre più ardua la riflessione sul ruolo che deve svolgere il diritto (e nel caso che ci occupa il diritto penale sostanziale e processuale) nella regolamentazione della attività scientifica, sulla stessa capacità degli strumenti giuridici già conosciuti e sperimentati di tutelare adeguatamente i singoli soggetti da nuove forme di aggressione alla persona dinanzi ad un mito che da tempo giganteggia nel cuore della società: la tecnologia. Dinanzi all’instaurarsi di un diverso rapporto fra i vari campi dell’esperienza e dei saperi che tentano di disciplinarla, è da chiedersi nell’era della globalizzazione se ed in quale misura divenga possibile assumersi la responsabilità di decisioni vincolanti nei settori della bioetica, della lotta alla criminalità organizzata, della salvaguardia della salute intesa in senso lato e del benessere dei cives, in un universo che sembra affidare alla efficacia funzionale dei suoi dispositivi la risposta per risolvere ogni tipo di problema che prospetta la quotidianità. Il rapido e repentino mutamento che le scoperte scientifiche con le relative innovazioni applicative hanno prodotto in breve tempo ha fatto sì che proprio la tecnologia da strumento in veste dei fini e dei valori stabiliti dalla ragione sia invece assurta al rango di metro esaustivo della vita tanto da imporre di considerare anche il profilo delle conseguenze che ne derivano per la stessa dignità e felicità della persona umana, e da prospettare la possibilità di tratteggiare le sembianze di una impalpabile “neuroetica”. Il che, peraltro, giustifica a pieno la domanda sulla funzione che deve svolgere la morale non solo quale esercizio pratico delle scelte personali, ma pure, secondo la impostazione di Ezio Riondato ed Antonino Poppi, come riflessione razionale e scienza normativa delle decisioni strategiche dei singoli soggetti nella socialità dei loro rapporti. Anche nel momento attuale di civiltà e di cultura, contrassegnato da una profonda in- quietudine, l’uomo non può infatti rinunciare ad una seria e compiuta considerazione dei modi e dei fini della vita e della prassi senza abdicare al suo compito ed alla sua dignità. Si deve ad alcuni giusfilosofi operanti nella seconda metà del Novecento il merito di aver affrontato tra i primi in Italia i problemi posti dalla trasformazione tecnologica tuttora in atto nelle società ad alta industrializzazione con la crisi di mentalità e di costume che essa File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

282 Le nuove frontiere del diritto penale necessariamente coinvolge ed ai quali Mario Losano, Sergio Cotta e Vittorio Frosini hanno dato divergenti soluzioni in ragione del diverso modo del loro atteggiarsi nella valutazione etica del fenomeno in discorso: il primo, esaltando il ruolo del ciberdiritto ed in genere della complessità delle macchine informatiche, ha appuntato l’attenzione sul passaggio dal lessico naturale a quello formalizzato della logica e della programmazione, l’allievo fiorentino di Gioele Solari, raccogliendo la sfida tecnologica ed affascinato dallaGrande sintassi tolemaica, inseriva la scienza e i suoi derivati nel processo cognitivo di una generazione che tende a fa- voleggiare intorno ad una mitica realtà del benessere, tutta artificio ed in grado di elaborare modelli comportamentali illusoriamente rispondenti ad una età radicalmente rinnovata, il laico siciliano, nel contesto di vivaci dibattiti senesi unitamente a Letizia Gianformaggio, Sil- vio Riondato e Peter Sloterdijk con il suo motto Du musst dein Leben ändern, si preoccupava invece di salvare sempre la privatezza dei singoli dalle penetranti invasioni dei più avanzati strumenti cognitivi come le reti di comunicazione sociale, senza per questo rinunciare a proporre costantemente nuove aggettivazioni alla loro esperienza. Ancora nel nuovo millennio questi contributi sono determinanti per lo studio dei settori della genetica e della robotica, al fine di comprendere la contrapposizione fra entità naturali ed entità non naturali, e pongono il penalista dinanzi al dubbio concernente in generale, dinanzi all’irrompere di nuove realtà in una rinnovata esperienza giuridica, la tenuta di istituti penalistici acquisiti da tempo al patrimonio culturale del giurista. Si pensi, ad esempio, alla capacità di intendere e di volere ed alla possibile crisi (rinnovantesi nel tempo) del postulato del necessario collegamento tra colpevolezza ed imputabilità (con il relativo giudizio valoria- le), ossia della idea dell’indefettibile riferirsi del dolo e della colpa esclusivamente a soggetti caratterizzati da determinate note di normalità fisiopsichica, ferma restando l’autonomia tra giudizio di imputabilità e giudizio di colpevolezza. Il fascino delle neuroscienze nella loro dialettica con il diritto penale sostanziale e processuale non si limita alla identificazione delle radici biologiche della criminalità (con i connessi problemi relativi ai meccanismi preposti alla formazione della morale), alle insidie scaturenti dall’ingresso della prova scientifica nei meccanismi del processo prescelti dal legislatore, ma coinvolge soprattutto l’utilizzazione di tale sapere da parte del giurista, che non si chiude affatto in uno splendido isolamento, come crede a torto la Musumeci (e lo dimostra a chiare note il presente Convegno organizzato dall’Università degli Studi di Padova), od in una trin- cea per assumere un atteggiamento di indifferenza, secondo quanto sottolinea la Di Giovine: lo sforzo che il penalista deve compiere consiste nell’inquadrare nuove realtà scientifiche negli schemi sostanziali e processuali e nelle categorie giuridiche acquisite al nostro patrimonio giuridico (si pensi all’autoria mediata per quanto concerne il profilo della responsabilità del robot come agente non umano), inserendole in essi senza dover necessariamente creare figure non conosciute, anche per scansare da sé la credenza che da una natura giuridicamente sog- gettivizzata scaturisca una capacità persuasiva tale da modificare la percezione sociale dell’oggetto tutelato, vale a dire la affermazione di una intrinseca dignità di tutto ciò che è vivo e per evitare un rischio incombente: l’utilizzo dei progressi innegabili delle neuroscienze cognitive e della genetica molecolare potrebbero far rivivere forme di un diritto penale d’autore scal- zando dal sistema la configurazione di un diritto penale del fatto quale deve essere il nostro per stesso dettato costituzionale. È, invero, affermazione imposta dai noti precetti contenuti nell’art. 25 Cost. quella che File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

L. Mazza 283 riporta l’ordinamento penale nell’ambito dei “diritti penali del fatto”, con deciso rifiuto di un diverso indirizzo che privilegi, invece, ai fini della sanzionabilità del soggetto o l’essere di costui od anche il suo mero atteggiamento nei confronti della volontà espressa dal legislatore, il cui intervento ha un senso ove correlato all’esigenza di vietare un fatto, di proibirlo com- patibilmente con il principio di colpevolezza ed in termini tali da assicurare la protezione di un bene giuridico determinato e/o di una sua sfaccettatura o modalizzazione, nel rispetto, dunque, delle prescrizioni vincolanti ricavabili dal combinato disposto degli artt. 2, 3 e 25 della Carta fondamentale. Di certo, il diritto non deve assumere forme che contrastino l’uso delle tecnologie più avanzate, ma è bene non farsi suggestionare da facili entusiasmi tesi a dipingere un nuovo quadro del sistema penale in una lettura evoluzionistica (si pensi, ad esempio, alle implicazioni che vorrebbero trarsi dalla analisi di emozioni – fra loro distinte a seconda che siano basate su giudizi ragionevoli o non! – ed empatia) ed occorre altresì evitare che possano celebrarsi processi i quali vedano sul banco degli imputati nuovi impossibili soggetti di diritto penale come i robot che restano sempre e comunque mezzi e non mai agenti non umani. Un atteggiamento prudente in materia è altresì consigliato dal rispetto della esigenza che il nuovo sapere venga adeguatamente “testato” perché possa divenire fruibile nell’ambito di un processo che deve definirsi “giusto”: è necessario, infatti, che la prova scientifica presenti sempre una elevata credenziale di attendibilità, ma la affidabilità delle neuroscienze con le diverse discipline ad esse afferenti denota ancora una certa “immaturità” che si riflette inevitabilmente non solo in ordine alla indagine sulla incidenza del disturbo mentale sulla capacità di intendere e di volere e sul giudizio di pericolosità sociale, sibbene anche sull’intero impian- to della imputabilità e di altri istituti portanti del sistema penale, al di là di possibili modificazioni terminologiche di facciata, differenti da quelle tradizionali, che, però, non sottendono sempre sostanziali diversità rispetto alle precedenti. Da qui scaturisce l’invito a meditare su alcune “intuizioni” degli appartenenti alla Scuola positiva e sul non poter agire altrimenti, troppo presto e frettolosamente bollate da Ettore Dezza come “amenità”, e relegate da Paolo Grossi, con sprezzante livore, sulle sponde di un “antilegalismo icastico e sguaiato”, contrassegnato da “una concezione eversiva della interpretazione”. Una ulteriore serena riflessione, sgombra da qualsiasi pregiudizio ideologico, potrebbe invece far giungere alla conclusione che non è mai “troppo tardi” per l’apertura di nuove frontiere. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Part II Behavioral genetics, neurosciences and criminal responsibility File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Morality and immorality: a neuroscientific perspective

Andrea Manfrinati, Rino Rumiati

For much of the twentieth century, philosophy and science went their separate ways. In moral philosophy, fear of the so-called naturalistic fallacy kept moral philosophers from incorporating developments in biology and psychology. Since the 1990s, however, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain sciences, and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. This collaborative trend is especially strong in moral philosophy, and the neuroscience of morality is in its infancy, with the first brain imaging studies of moral development undertaken only in 20011. There are many issues addressed in the moral psychology: the neural bases of moral emotions and moral judgments as well as comparison of normal adult moral judgments with those made by children, and people with psychopathy, brain damage, and autism2. In Moral Minds, Marc Hauser claims that «we evolved a moral instinct, a capacity that naturally grows within each child, designed to generate rapid judgments about what is morally right or wrong based on an unconscious grammar of action. […]. I argue that our moral faculty is equipped with a universal moral grammar, a toolkit for building specific moral systems» (p. xvii)3. The idea is that we were “designed” to discern Good from Evil. But often, things are different. It is well established that in adults who have had normal development of social behavior, damage to certain sectors of prefrontal cortex produces a severe impairment of decision-making and disrupts social behavior, although the patients so affected preserve intellectual abilities and maintain factual knowledge of social conventions and moral rules4. The famous case of Phineas Gage is paradigmatic in this sense.

1 J.D. Greene, R.B. Sommerville, L.E. Nystrom, J.M. Darley, J.D. Cohen, An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment, in “Science”, 293, 2001, pp. 2105-2108. 2 For a complete review of these topics see W. Sinnot-Armstrong, Moral Psychology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. 3 M. Hauser, Moral Minds: How nature designed our universal sense of right and wrong, New York, Ecco Press, 2006. 4 A. Damasio, Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain, New York, Grosset/Putnam, 1994; M. Koenigs, L. Young, R. Adolphs, D. Tranel, F. Cushman, M. Hauser, A. Damasio, Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements, in “Nature”, 446, 2007, pp. 908- 911; J. Moll, R. Oliveira-Souza, Moral judgments, emotions and the utilitarian brain, in “Trends in Cognitive Sciences”, 11, 2008, pp. 319-321. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

288 Morality and immorality: a neuroscientific perspective

There is a region of the human brain, theventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), whose damage consistently compromises both reasoning/decision-making, and emotion/feeling, especially in the personal and social domain. In particular, moral emotions play a central role in both implicit and explicit moral appraisal, being an essential ingredient for human social cognition. The idea is that there is a significant relationship between emotional experience and moral judgment5. Patients with damage on the prefrontal cortex shown considerable similarity to those of patients with psychopathy or sociopathy (Conduct Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder, according to DSM-V nosology), another disorder characterized by a pervasive disregard for social and moral standards, consistent irresponsibility and a lack of remorse6. Psychopathy may be associated with dysfunction in prefrontal regions, especially in persons without predisposing psychosocial risk factors. Since there is a relationship between the prefrontal cortex and emotional processing, many studies support the idea that the deficit in moral psychology seen among psychopaths is due to the deficit in emotional processing7. A growing number of theorists have begun to acknowledge that emotion cannot truly be coherently subtracted from decision-making and moral judgment. For example, according to Haidt’s social intuitionist account of moral judgment, emotional intuitions play a crucial role in moral decision making8, while reasoning processes merely rationalize judgments after the fact. Likewise, Moll and colleagues rely on brain imaging research to argue that moral judgments are largely the product of automatic emotional processes whereby emotional states assign moral values to actions9; and Jesse Prinz has argued that emotions are both necessary and sufficient for moral judgment10. In the 2001, Joshua Greene and colleagues undertook the first brain imaging study on moral judgment. The behavioral and neuroimaging results allowed Greene to propose a dual process theory in which two different patterns of neural activity are involved in moral judgment: a fast, unconscious, and effortless emotional system, and a slow, conscious, and effortful cognitive system. In this view, the emotional

5 J. Haidt, The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment, in “Psychological Review”, 108, 2001, pp. 813-834; J.D. Greene et al., op. cit., 2001; J.D. Greene, L.E. Nystrom, A.D. Engell, J.M. Darley, J.D. Cohen, The neural bases of cognitive conflict and control in moral judgment, in “Neuron”, 44, 2004, pp. 389-400. 6 A. Roskies, Are ethical judgments intrinsically motivational? Lessons from “acquired sociopathy”, in “Philosophical Psychology”, 16, 2003, pp. 51-66. 7 M. Cima, F. Tonnaer, M.D. Hauser, Psychopaths know right from wrong but don’t care, in “Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience”, 5, 2010, pp. 59-67. 8 J. Haidt, op. cit., 2001. 9 J. Moll, R. Oliveira-Souza, P.J. Eslinger, I.E. Bramati, J. Mourão-Miranda, P.A. Andreiuolo, L. Pessoa, The neural correlates of moral sensitivity: A functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of basic and moral emotions, in “The Journal of Neuroscience”, 22, 2002, pp. 2730-2736. 10 J. Prinz, The emotional construction of moral, New York, Oxford University Press, 2007. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Manfrinati, R. Rumiati 289 system refers to a class of processes that are valenced, quick, and automatic, though not necessarily conscious. The cognitive system, in contrast, refers to controlled processes that are important for reasoning, planning, manipulating information in working memory, controlling impulses or, more generally, to higher executive functions11. Traditional studies on moral judgment used resolutions of moral dilemmas. Moral dilemmas, at the very least, involve conflicts between two or more moral requirements. In this case, an agent regards herself as having moral reasons to do each of two actions, but doing both actions is not possible12. The main features of a moral dilemma are the following: a) the agent is required to do each of two (or more) actions; b) the agent can do each of the actions; c) but the agent cannot do both (or all) of the actions. The agent thus seems condemned to moral failure; no matter what she does, she will do something wrong (or fail to do something that she ought to do). Consider, for example the well-known Trolley Dilemma13: imagine that there are five people tied up on a railroad track with a trolley car barreling towards them. On an adjacent track, there is a single person. A bystander is able to push a switch that will divert the trolley onto the alternate track, so that it kills the one person instead of the other five. As a result, the one person dies, but the other five live. So the question: was there anything wrong with the bystander’s action? The consensus among philosophers, as well people who have been tested experimentally is that is morally acceptable to save five lives at the expense of one in this case. Next, consider the Footbridge Dilemma14: once again, five people are tied up on a railroad track. But this time there are two bystanders, and one of them is a really big guy, large enough to derail the trolley should he wind up in front of it. The other bystander shoves the large guy in front of the trolley, to sacrifice one life for the benefit of the other five. As a result, the large guy dies, but the trolley is derailed and stops, and the other five people live. So the question: was there anything wrong with the bystander action? Here the consensus is that it is not okay to save five lives at the expense of one. The results of the Greene experiment revealed that when participants considered the Footbridge Dilemma, they showed increased activity in brain areas associated with emotion and social cognition and decreased activity in areas associated with working memory and abstract reasoning than when they considered Trolley Dilemma. On the contrary, the Trolley Dilemma elicited less

11 J.D. Greene et al., op. cit., 2001. 12 E.J. Lemmon, Moral dilemmas, in “The Philosophical Review”, 71, 1962, pp. 139-158; A. MacIntyre, Moral dilemmas, in “Philosophy and Phenomenological Research”, 50, 1990, pp. 367- 382; C. Bagnoli, Dilemmi morali, Genova, De Ferrari, 2006. 13 P. Foot, The problem of abortion and the doctrine of the double effect,in “Oxford Review”, 5, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1967. 14 J.J. Thomson, Rights, restitution, and risk: Essays in moral theory (W. Parent Ed.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

290 Morality and immorality: a neuroscientific perspective emotional activity and more activity in the cognitive areas of the brain, as compared to the Footbridge Dilemma15. One of the most interesting aspects of these studies is that the participants are “normal” persons without brain damage or brain disorders. And the results are intriguing because the same person that in the Trolley Dilemma accept the trade- off 1 vs. 5 lives, is the same person who does not accept the same trade-off in the Footbridge Dilemma; the same person that in the Trolley Dilemma behave according to a Consequentialist point of view, is the same person that in the Footbridge Dilemma behave according to a Deontological point of view; the same person that in some situations seems “moral”, is the same person that in a different situation seems “immoral”. But, what neuroscience tell us about these behaviors? Neuroscience tell us that the person is the same but that the processing information and the brain activations are completely different! People’s moral judgments appear to be products of at least two different kinds of psychological processes. First, brain imaging data suggest that there are prepotent negative emotional responses that drive people to disapprove of the harmful actions proposed in cases like the Footbridge Dilemma. These responses are characteristic of Deontology, but not of Consequentialism. Second, further brain imaging results suggest that “cognitive” psychological processes can compete with the aforementioned emotional processes, driving people to approve of personally harmful moral violations, primarily when there is a strong Consequentialist rationale for doing so16. But, we should consider that emotional processes only guide Deontology and that Consequentialism is only guided by cognitive processes? We think that the answer is no. We do not think that the main question about moral judgments is if moral judgments are the products of reason, or the products of emotions. We think that the real question is how reason and emotion interact in order to provide moral judgments. Thus, we think that emotional processes play a relevant role in defining not only Deontological but also Consequentialist perspectives. We have provided some experimental results supporting this interpretation, and these results are based on the characteristic structure of the moral dilemma17. Specifically, considering that a moral dilemma is formally undecidable by definition, an agent forced to choose between two possible resolutions, probably will perceive both as highly conflicting and unpleasant, independently of which decision

15 J.D. Greene et al., op. cit., 2001. 16 J.D. Greene, The secret joke of Kant’s soul, in W. Sinnot-Armstrong (Ed.), Moral psychology. Vol. 3: The neuroscience of morality: Emotion, brain disorders, and development, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008, pp. 35-79. 17 A. Manfrinati, L. Lotto, M. Sarlo, D. Palomba, R. Rumiati, Moral dilemmas and moral principles: When emotion and cognition unite, in “Cognition & Emotion”, 27, 2013, pp. 1276-1291. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Manfrinati, R. Rumiati 291 he will choose and independently of the trade-off between cost and benefit associated with the two resolutions. The agent experiences the formal impossibility of resolving the dilemma, and he recognizes that the two obligations are both right, but he is forced to choose one while still considering the rejected alternative as valuable, thus reaffirming the impossibility of resolving the dilemma. On the other hand, when people choose a Consequentialist resolution they might consider the consequences of an act as relevant in determining its morality, but they most likely feel that this resolution could undermine their moral integrity, thus evoking an unpleasant emotional feeling. If the consequentialist judgment engages controlled reasoning processes to construct a set of practical principles for our moral behavior then the whole process might have a high emotional cost that yields to a feeling of displeasure. But not only moral norms are related to right or wrong human conduct. The domain of law, as it is formulated and applied, poses another example that is of high relevance to our social life. What happens at the neural level if subjects are engaged in legal reasoning and judgment? Is there an overlap between brain activation during legal and moral decision-making or are there different regions involved in the legal condition? And does such neuroscientific knowledge imply anything for our understanding of normative decision-making? The tension between moral and legal norms is illustrated by debates in the scholarly literature, where the application of legal rules is contrasted with the reliance on moral intuitions. The predominant view conceives law ideally as purely rational, free from emotion and passion. In the light of aforementioned scientific evidence emphasizing the role of emotion and intuition in moral perception and judgment, it is pertinent to know whether legal judgments are also subject to people’s emotions and intuitions. A recent study has shown that several brain regions previously associated with moral cognition, particularly the DMPFC (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex), the left STG (superior temporal gyrus), and TPJ (temporoparietal junction) are also related to legal judgment and that legal decisions are rather made by applying explicit rules than by relying on intuitions, as indicated by stronger activation in the left DLPFC (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). Therefore, these results showed that there are neural similarities between moral and legal judgments, suggesting a considerable overlap in cognitive processing between both normative tasks. Furthermore, despite in the subjects’ rating of emotional involvement, lawyers perceived themselves as significantly less involved during normative judgment than non-lawyers people, these results are not confirmed at the neural level. Then, the idea that that lawyers would pay more attention to normatively salient features than other academics and in consequence would show less activation related to processing of emotions is not confirmed18.

18 S. Schleim, T.M. Spranger, S. Erk, H. Walter, From moral to legal judgment: the influence of normative context in lawyers and other academics, in “Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience”, 6, 2011, pp. 48-57. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

292 Morality and immorality: a neuroscientific perspective

In conclusion, it no longer makes sense to engage in debate over whether moral judgment is accomplished exclusively by reason as opposed to emotion. Rather, moral judgment is the product of complex interactions between emotional and cognitive mechanisms. Furthermore, while some authors as Greene and Cohen have argued that neuroimaging results related to normative issues will change the way we think about law and morals19, we think that it is currently too early to draw any firm normative conclusions from these experimental findings. We suggest that it is more to learn about the way the brain processes normatively relevant information as can be understood by focusing on morals alone. Both domains are instances of norms related to right and wrong human conduct and as suggested by experimental results, it matters in which light we see normative issues.

19 J.D. Greene, J. Cohen, For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everyting, in “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences”, 359, 2004, pp. 1775-1785. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia: neuroimaging and forensic consideration

Giuseppe Sartori, Cristina Scarpazza, Pietro Pietrini

Table of contents: Introduction. – Brain alteration and behavioral changes. – Concepts and definitions. – Aim of the present work. – Analysis of literature on the neural basis sexual of arousal and pedophilia. – Case report. – Forensic considerations. – Forensic conclusions. – Criticisms on the use of neuroscientific knowledge in the courtroom. – Neuroscientific conclusions.

Introduction “One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform” said the King of the asteroid 325 to the Little Prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupery book. What often happens, is that people take normal behaviors for granted, without considering that there are some situations in which normal behavior is impossible due to an alteration in brain structure/function. In those cases, the acting person should not be considered responsible for his behavior. This has implications both in a clinical and forensic setting. Indeed, forensic psychiatry applications are based on the assumption that altered mental states lead to a higher propensity to commit crimes. To ascribe a crime to the influence of a mental disorder is intrinsically linked to a reduction of legal responsibility. In the forensics setting, a fundamental logical step is to determine the defendant’ “state of mind” at the time he committed the crime. The expansion of neuroscientific knowledge is welcomed as a rich resource by the community. Recently, it is being increasingly looked at as a potential resource in the legal context1. The uncertainty that judges face, and their need to take clear-cut decisions in complex cases, is apparently helped by the advances of neurosciences, revealing fascinating and solid

1 V. Hughes, Science in court: head case, in “Nature”, 2010; 464(7287), pp. 340-2. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

294 The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia evidence about truths hidden to the naked eye2. The progress of neuroscientific techniques has allowed us to better understand how damage to particular brain structure might facilitate behavioral changes sometimes observed in criminals and, therefore, may account for the alteration of the mental state of the defendant at the time he committed the crime. Worldwide, cases of murder have been evaluated with the help of neuroscientific tools, in the hope that at least a “convergence” of clues may support decision3. The idea is spreading that the numerous correlates that are being discovered for human behavior, from lie4 to aggression5, may provide an objective explanation of the behavior, able to reduce the responsibility that the individual can reasonably assume for it. For instance, the Trieste and Como sentences have become famous worldwide6 because for the first time in Italy, the neurosciences techniques have been allowed into the courtroom to be placed side by side with the psychological and psychiatric assessment usually used in order to evaluate the defendant’s state of mind, and as a consequence the criminal responsibility. This approach has been strongly and heavily criticised by those who believe that the introduction of neuroscience into a legal context could be a first step towards biological determinism, which would allow any criminal to be able to assert: “ It was not me, it was my brain.” These criticisms, however, are based on an image of neuroscience that does not correspond to the actual state of the discipline. The forensic neuroscientists know that the neurosciences do not deny the importance of cultural, educational and environmental, but rather emphasise the fact that these sociocultural factors influence on behavior is constrained by the specific biological structure within which they have to act. For example, a child who was born with mental retardation will never reach a normal intelligence level, even if he lived in a high socio-cultural environment, because his biological substrate (i.e. the brain) do not allow it. The purpose of this essay is to emphasize how neurosciences can help to discriminate criminals who should be considered responsible for their own actions, i.e. have to be convicted for their criminal behavior, from criminals who shouldn’t, i.e. need to be treated with a medical perspective. Since the use of the most advanced neuroscience’

2 D.S. Weisberg, F.C. Keil, J. Goodstein, E. Rawson, J.R. Gray, The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations, in “J. Cogn. Neurosci.”, 2008; 20(3), pp. 470-7. 3 V. Hughes, Science in court: head case, cit.; D. Rigoni, S. Pellegrini, V. Mariotti, A. Cozza, A. Mechelli, S. D. Ferrara, P. Pietrini, G. Sartori, How neuroscience and behavioral genetics improve psychiatric assessment: report on a violent murder case, in “Front. Behav. Neurosci.”, 2010; 4, p. 160. 4 Y. Yang, A. Raine, K.L. Narr, T. Lencz, L. LaCasse, P. Colletti, A.W. Toga, Localisation of increased prefrontal white matter in pathological liars, in “Br. J. Psychiatry”, 2007;190, pp. 174-5. 5 B.K. Puri, S. J. Counsell, N. Saeed, M.G. Bustos, I.H. Treasaden, G.M. Bydder, Regional grey matter volumetric changes in forensic schizophrenia patients: an MRI study comparing the brain structure of patients who have seriously and violently offended with that of patients who have not, in “BMC Psychiatry”, 2008. 6 http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091030/full/news.2009.1050.html. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Sartori, C. Scarpazza, P. Pietrini 295 techniques (electroencephalography, voxel-based morphometry analysis of the structure of the brain-end, and “truth” machine, to name a few) is currently the subject of heated discussions in the forensic setting, we decided to discuss a case in which neuroscience were allowed into courtrooms without making use of these new technologies, but only based on their own particular way of reasoning and logical inference.

Brain alteration and behavioral changes The concept that alteration of the brain could be causally linked to the onset of abnormal behavior is not knew. Guillaume Apollinaire used to write his girlfriend passionate letters nearly every day before being wounded in the head, more precisely in the right temporal lobe, during the World War I, in 1916. The wound is shown inFigure 1. As a result of this, his personality and behavior changed dramatically and his affective relationship were deeply modified as well. The most significant example being his rapid disinterest for his fiancée. Moreover, he became irritable, anxious, grumpy and aggressive. A few weeks after the brain injury, he went back to his literary writing. However, while his lyricism did not decline, his general tone became darker, more defiant and nostalgic, referring to “something lost”. On the contrary, no significant changes in cognitive and executive ability was ever noted by Apollinaire’s contemporaries. The descriptions provided to us by his contemporaries are unanimous in telling that after this injury his personality changed drastically and its affective relationships were profoundly altered. Irritability, susceptibility, emotional intolerance, affect flattening, anxiety, and personality change coupled with spared cognitive functions perfectly fit with the right temporal lobe dysfunction diagnosis7. We mention briefly here Apollinaire’s case as an example, instead of the well known Phineas Gage8, to clarify a really important concept in forensic neuroscience: not all the alterations/lesions of brain structure lead to criminal behavior. Guillaume Apollinaire, as well as Phineas Gage, suffered a severe brain injury after which they showed obvious and dramatic changes of personality, but they do never went on to commit crime.

7 J. Bogousslavsky, Guillaume Apollinaire, the lover assassinated, in J. Bogousslavsky, F. Boller (eds.), Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists. Frontiers of Neurology and Neuroscience, 2005, 19, pp. 1-8. 8 L. F. Haas, Phineas Gage and the science of brain localisation, in “J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry”, 2001; 71(6), p. 761. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

296 The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia

Concepts and definitions Responsibility: Responsibility is defined as “the ability to foresee the consequences of one’s own behavior and correct the same on the basis of this provision.” Therefore, the responsibility presupposes a situation of freedom, in which the person can choose which behavior to adopt. If that choice was not possible, even if it were able to foresee the consequences of their actions, this person could not possibly adopt a different behavior in light of his prediction. In Italy, in 1993/1994 a violent serial killer (GS) suffocated and strangled six women during extreme sex acts. He subsequently dismembered and concealed their bodies. However, this man had suffered a severe head injury resulting in a bilateral lesion of the frontal lobes, which are the brain region responsible for the impulses’ control and inhibition9. Despite the brutality of these murders, GS was initially declared legally not responsible for the murders, because, due to the frontal lobe lesions, he was unable to inhibit an uncontrollable impulse (sexual urge). However, he was considered responsible for the dismemberment and concealment of the dead bodies, which are premeditated acts, free from any impulse. Anatomo-clinical correlation: This example introduces another concept of fundamental importance: the so called “anatomical- clinical correlation.” The lesion site, in this case the frontal lobes, which are the neural basis of inhibitory control of impulses, suggested that MAYBE GS could not be considered responsible for the criminal acts he committed during a uncontrollable impulse. The same brain injury, however, cannot in any way justify those behaviors that are planned and organized. The “anatomic- clinical correlation” principle refers to the correspondence between altered brain areas and altered behavioral and neuropsychological symptoms detected in an individual. In other words, the lesion must be consistent with the “legally relevant” behavioral and neuropsychological symptoms. The psycho-legal error: Stephen Morse, one of the leading critics of the use of neuroscientific evidence in the courtroom, emphasizes what he called “psycho- legal fundamental error.” This error is the belief that “causation, especially abnormal causation, is per se an excusing condition”10. To detect a brain abnormality does not automatically mean that that person cannot be considered responsible for his own actions. Indeed, returning to GS clinical and forensic case, it was discovered that GS practiced the same sexual activities also with his fiancée, but he never killed her. This provides unequivocal evidence about the integrity of GS’s ability to interrupt his sexual acts. The experts could reasonably conclude that the brain injury, although objective and disabling, could not in any way be related to GS’s crimes. As a

9 F.T. Crews, C.A. Boettiger, Impulsivity, frontal lobes and risk for addiction, in “Pharmacol. Biochem. Behav.” 2009; 93(3), pp. 237-47. 10 S.J. Morse, Brain Overclaim Sydrome and criminal responsability: a diagnostic note, in “Ohio State Journal Criminal Law”, 2005, 3, p. 397. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Sartori, C. Scarpazza, P. Pietrini 297 consequence, he has been convicted for the murders. Free will: The concept of outstanding importance that we want to emphasize is that not all brain injuries lead to an alteration in behavior which in turn results to a diminished criminal responsibility of the individual. There is no equation “ brain injury = lack of responsibility,” as critics of neuroscience have understood. Indeed, when dealing with criminality and forensic responsibility, one should be able to ask psycho-legal questions, namely, “Does this man have the ability to inhibit his action if he wanted to?”. In this (GS) case the answer is “yes, he has this ability, he could have acted differently”. The incontrovertible evidence for this, lies in the truth that GS’s girlfriend had not been killed during extreme sex acts. Neuroscience in the courtroom aims to document the possible existence of brain disease and to highlight its possible causal relationship with the crime. The criteria for responsibility are, and must be, behavioral, clinical and neuropsychological. These criteria cannot be replaced by the empirically demonstrable states of the brain. In other words, an individual could be considered not responsible of his actions because neuroscientists are able to unequivocally demonstrate that he was not able to inhibit his own impulses when he committed the crime. On the contrary, an individual could NOT be considered not responsible for his actions only on the basis of the presence of a brain damage in the frontal lobe. Even in the presence of a perfect correlation between brain alterations and irresponsible behavior, the brain changes are to be considered, in the forensic setting, nothing more than mere evidence of behavioral states. If the defendant meets the clinical and neuropsychological criteria that define him responsible for his acts, then the defendant should be considered responsible, whatever any brain analysis highlights. Batts wrote “Advances in neuroscience may lead to additional biological evidence to the possible existence of mental defect due to an organic cause”11. First, the author writes that neuroscience might help. He used the conditional tense. Neuroscience is unlikely to be helpful in all cases. Moreover, the author said that neuroscience could lead additional evidence. Neuroscience alone is useless within a forensic setting. It can support behavioral evidence, provide objective data and may provide an explanation for why the observed behaviors have occurred, but neuroscience alone cannot replace the clinical evidence.

Aim of the present work This work describes the recent case of a man charged with pedophilia. The man has been found to suffer from a massive brain tumor, which directly caused his

11 S. Batts, Brain lesions and their implications in the criminal responsibility, in “Behavioral Sciences and Law”, 2009, 27, pp. 261-272. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

298 The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia criminal behavior. We will broadly describe the clinical characteristics of the patient and all the procedures carried out by neuroscientists to diagnose him. Moreover, we will analyze the considerations and logical steps that allowed the clinician to causally link the brain tumor to the pedophilic behaviors. First, we need to define the difference between acquired and congenital disorders. In neuropsychology, the term “acquired” denotes a symptom that is new and that coincides with the onset of a disease of the nervous system. On the contrary, the term “congenital” denotes a disorder with dismaturative characteristics that is present in individuals who have never reached a normal level of maturity in a given skill or function. Regarding pedophilia, most individuals who are labeled pedophiles suffer from a congenital psychiatric disorder. On the contrary, in the present case, the man, in his sixties, declared that he had never experienced sexual interest in children until one year before his arrest. This suggests that his pedophilia is just a symptom of an underlying organic disease.

Analysis of literature on the neural basis of sexual arousal and pedophilia Sexual arousal: Due to developments in neuroimaging techniques, our knowledge about the underlying neurobiological processes of sexual experience has grown in recent years. Four component seems to be central in a neurobehavioral model of sexual arousal: a cognitive, motivational, emotional and automatic responses components could be identified in literature12. The results show that the neurobiology underlying human sexual and emotional behavior are multidimensional event consisting of interrelated psysiological and psychological processes. The neural network responsible for sexual arousal includes the orbitofrontal cortex, responsible for the catergorization and evaluation of the sexual stimuli13; the insula and amygdale, responsible for the hedonic quality of a stimulus, which describes the stimulus degree of pleasantness and unpleasantness14; the caudal part of the left anterior cingulated cortex, responsible for the motivational component15; and the hypothalamus, responsible for the sex driven autonomic component, which includes effects on cardiovascular and respiratory levels16.

12 J. Redoute, G. Stoleru, M.C. Gregoire, Brain processing of visual sexual stimuli in human males, in “Human Brain Mapping”, 2000; 11(3), pp.162-77. 13 A. Ferretti, M. Caulo, C. Del Gratta, Dynamyc of male sexual arousal: distinct components of brain activation revealed by fMRI, in “NeuroImage”, 2005; 26(4): 1086-96. 14 H. Mouras, S. Stoleru, J. Bittoun, Brain processing of visual sexual stimuli in healthy men: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, in “NeuroImage”, 2003; 20(2), pp. 855-69. 15 S. Karama, A.R. Lecours, J. M. Leroux, Areas of brain activation in male and female during viewing of erotic film excerpts, in “Human Brain Mapping”, 2002; 16(1), pp. 1-13. 16 S. Karama, A.R. Lecours, J.M. Leroux, op. cit. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Sartori, C. Scarpazza, P. Pietrini 299

Neural basis of pedophilia: in view of the neural correlates of sexual processing in healthy individuals, deficits in these in persons with congenital pedophilia can be interpreted as a modified interaction between emotional and cognitive component of sexual arousal. One region of particular interest in this context is the frontal cortex, since several studies have already shown aberrant activation patterns in pedophilic patients. The orbitofrontal cortex is frequently involved in cases of pedophilia17. Another study18 also demonstrated abnormal activation patterns in this area and in the amygdale, a brain structure associated with emotional evaluation. Interestingly, a study by Schiltz et al.19, demonstrated anatomic-structural changes in male patients with pedophilia. They observed volume reductions in frontal brain areas and the amygdale in individual with pedophilia. Taken together, neural deficit particularly involved pedophilia relates to brain structure involved in emotional (i.e. amygdale) ad in sexual stimuli processing (i.e. frontal lobe). Acquired pedophilia: An inappropriate sexual interest in children may results from brain disease as well as from the sexual dysfunction disorder of pedophilia. Pedophilia is a disorder characterized by a complex interaction of disturbances of the emotional, cognitive and sexual experience. Although the current pathogenetic theories support a neurobiological understanding of psychiatric disorders, the brain correlates of pedophilia are still largely unknown. Table 1 reported available study in which pedophilia has been observed in brain diseased patients. It is worth noting that the majority of cases refer to patients suffering from a direct lesion in the reported area (i.e. the area had been directly damaged by a tumor, as in Burns and Swerdlow20, and Devinsky et al.21; or the area had been damaged surgically, as in Mendez and Shapira22, case 7). In other cases, pedophilia occurred as a symptom due to widespread cortical and/or subcortical atrophy in dementia23. Only two early studies on this topic reported the onset of pedophilia due to compression of otherwise normal brain regions24. This latter cases are of special interest in the field

17 C.L. Harenski, D.M. Thornon, K.A. Harenki, Increased frontotemporal activation during pain observation in sexual sadism, in “Arch. Gen. Psychiatry”, 2012; 69(3), pp. 283-92. 18 H. Dressing, T. Obergriesser, H. Tost, Homosexual pedophilia and functional networks- an fMRI case report and literature review, in “Fortschr. Neurol. Psychiatr.”, 2001; 69(11), pp. 539-44. 19 K. Schiltz, J. Witzel, G. Northoff, Brain pathology in pedophilic offenders: evidence of volume reduction in the right amygdale and related diencephalic structures, in “Arch. Gen. Psychiatry”, 2007; 64(6), pp. 737-46. 20 J. M. Burns, R.H. Swerdlow, Right orbitofrontal tumor with pedophilia symptom and constructional apraxia sign., in “Arch. Neurol.”, 2003; 60(3), pp. 437-40. 21 J. Devinsky, O. Sacks, O. Devinsky, Kluver-Bucy syndrome, hypersexuality, and the law, in “Neurocase”, 2010; 16(2), pp. 140-5. 22 M. Mendez, J.S. Shapira, Pedophilic behavior from brain disease, in “J Sex Med.”, 2011; 8, pp. 1092-1100. 23 M. Mendez, J.S. Shapira, op. cit. 24 Q.R. Regestein, P. Reich, Pedophilia occurring after onset of cognitive impairment, in “J of nervous and mental disease”, 1978; 166(11), pp. 794-798; B. Miller, J. L. Cummings, H. McIntyre, G. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

300 The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia of forensic neuroscience, as they allow the study of the causal link between brain disease and symptoms onset and the possible reversibility of the symptomatology. We described a 60-year old male who developed pedophilia late in his life, and whose clinical profile is compatible with this interesting casuistry.

Case report Summary: A 60 years old male pediatrician (D.M.) was charged for pedophilia after being found to act pedophilic behavior in a primary school. D.M. denied a previous attraction to children. He was unable to inhibit sexual urges and to estimate the severity of his behavioral choice. During the neurological examination he displayed signs of neurological diseases as well as symptoms of neuropsychological dysfunction. Almost all symptoms were attributable to a frontal lobe suffering (e.g. dishinibition, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, deficit in emotion attribution and in moral reasoning) and compression of the optic chiasm (e.g. diplopia, tunnel vision). D.M. and his wife reported that the emergence of these symptoms could be dated one year before. This subjective report has been confirmed using the Autobiographical Implicit Association test (aIAT)25, a behavioral tests based on reaction time. This test confirm, in an objective way, that D.M. sexual interest in child arose one year before he was charged for pedophilic behavior. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed the presence of a big clivus chordoma (a rare slow-growing neoplasm arising from bone in the skull base) that displaced the pituitary gland and compressed the orbitofrontal cortex, the optic chiasm and the hypothalamus. The tumor is shown in Figure 2. The pedophilic behavior and all neurological and neuropsychological dysfunctions receded following tumor resection. Despite these findings, D.M. has been convicted for pedophilia. The facts: DM, a 60-year-old medical doctor, was a pediatrician working in primary schools. He came to the attention of the court after having misused his authority to sexually abuse children by touching their pubis, rubbing his penis against their bodies, and in some cases attempting penetration. Moreover, DM produced a huge amount of child pornography. His pedophilic behavior was discovered because he left the door to his surgery open and a teacher saw him touching a child. During the interrogation, teachers declared that DM’s attitude towards children had changed in the last year. He began to show much more interest than usual in children. DM denied ever being sexually attracted to children until one year before. He declared that he was not aware of the risk he was taking, and that he had not

Ebers, M. Grode, Hypersexuality or altered sexual preference following brain injury, in “Medical Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry”, 1986; 49, pp. 867-873. 25 S. Agosta, G. Sartori, The autobiographical IAT: a review, in “Front Psychol.”, 2013; 4, pp. 519- 531. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Sartori, C. Scarpazza, P. Pietrini 301 realized the seriousness of the acts he was committing. His wife, who described him as thrifty, loving and responsible, reported having noticed that her husband had not been the same in the last year: he cried without any plausible reason, he was often irritable and he developed an immoderate passion for photography, bringing his camera everywhere. Clinical and neuropsychological assessment: In his first visit with DM, an expert witness of the defense (one of the authors of this essay) conducted clinical and neurological evaluations. He then requested neuro-radiological tests because his examination had revealed neurological signs and symptoms indicative of brain dysfunction, i.e. diplopia (double vision), visual field restriction, unprovoked outbursts of crying (spastic crying), tendon reflexes livelier in the right limb, and a sudden onset of obsessive-compulsive behavior (passion for photography). The MRI revealed the presence of a big tumor at the base of the skull (clivus chordoma). A chordoma is a slow-growing malignant tumor which can invade the surrounding bone, compressing, displacing and damaging the adjacent nervous and vascular structures. The location and size of DM’s chordoma were such that the tumor compressed the pituitary gland (which appeared to be dislocated from its natural location), the hypothalamus, the pons and the white matter connections to the frontal lobes. All these structures are part of the limbic system, which regulates appetitive motivation (hunger, thirst, and sexual interest). Beyond the chordoma, the optic chiasm was compressed by the dislocated pituitary gland, causing the onset of diplopia and the reduction of the visual field. Therefore, the tumor location could fully explain DM’s neurological symptoms. During interviews with the experts, DM declared he had noticed the sudden onset of a sexual interest in children about a year before his arrest, and he denied any previous pedophilic behavior. He described his pedophilic behavior as an urge that required immediate satisfaction. Moreover, he declared that he had not realized that the he could get caught. Critically, he did not understand the gravity of what he was doing. In clear contrast with this characterization, his relatives described him as a respectful and responsible man. The neuropsychological examination revealed that DM had an intelligence above the norm. In contrast, he performed very poorly on tests used to evaluate frontal lobe functionality. In particular, DM had the following difficulties: poor verbal fluency based on phonemic access (ability to access and retrieve words by selecting an appropriate search strategy based on phonemic access); literal interpretation of idioms and metaphors, denoting a poor capacity for abstraction; poor performance on the Trail Making Test, characterized by a difficulty in changing a behavior once it had been initiated; poor performance on the Hayling test, highlighting a difficulty in inhibiting automatic and impulsive responses. Social cognition tests revealed DM’s difficulty in recognizing and attributing File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

302 The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia emotions, particularly happiness and anger. He was also impaired in evaluating the severity of social norm violations, but he was able to recognize which behaviors could be considered appropriate in different contexts. Moreover, DM showed disadvantageous decision making, as well as an inability to learn from his own errors and to intuitively estimate the probability of an outcome given a certain action. These findings, which could fully explain DM’s behavior, denote a selective dysfunction of the orbital part of the frontal lobe26. In contrast, DM’s scores on tests assessing logical reasoning and problem solving were within the normal range, indicating proper functioning of the dorsolateral part of the frontal lobe27. DM’s pattern of impairments makes him very similar to a patient described by Damasio, who, after an injury to the orbital part of the frontal lobe, was quite able to identify morally correct behaviors in hypothetical situations, but his own behavior tended increasingly towards immediate gratification, even when he was aware that he was acting in an unethical manner or that the long-term effects of his behavior would be negative28. In order to evaluate the truthfulness of DM’s declaration regarding the onset of his pedophilia, the experts used an empirical technique based on reaction time measurement, which allowed them to verify the presence of an autobiographical memory that may not be accessible to the consciousness of the subject. This technique is called aIAT (autobiographic Implicit Association Test, for a complete discussion of the topic please read Agosta and Sartori29). This test relies on the “compatibility effect”, i.e. is it easier (quicker) to respond to information stored in memory compared to new information. The aIAT meets the criteria for scientific evidence30. The aIAT has been used to investigate whether DM has always been sexually attracted to children, or whether this sexual interest began in the previous year, as he declared. The experts considered this test of particular importance for demonstrating that the onset of attraction to children was contemporary with the onset of the other neurological symptoms. If this was true, then the sexual deviancy could be considered a clinical symptom due to tumor growth. For this purpose the

26 A. Bechara, H. Damasio, A. R. Damasio, Emotion, decison making and the orbitofrontal cortex, in “Cerebral Cortex”, 2000, 10(3), pp. 295307; R.J. Blair, “A cognitive developmental approach to mortality: investigating the psychopath, in “Cognition”, 1995; 57(1), 1-29; S.C. Herpertz, U. Werth, G. Lukas, M. Qunaibi, A. Schuerkens, H.J. Kunert, R. Frees, M. Flesch, R. Mueller-Isberner, M. Osterheider, H. Sass, Emotion in criminal offenders with psychopathy and borderline personality disorder, in “Archives of General Psychiatry”, 2001; 58(8), pp. 737-45. M. Koenings, The role of prefrontal cortex in psychopathy, in “Review in Neuroscience”, 2012; 23(3), 253:262. 27 D. Tranel, K. Manzel, S.W. Anderson, Is the prefrontal cortex important for fluid intelligence? A neuropsychological study using Matrix Reasoning, in “Clin. Neuropsychol”, 2008; 22(2), pp. 242-61. 28 A. Bechara, H. Damasio, A.R. Damasio, Emotion, decision making and the orbitofrontal cortex, in “Cerebral Cortex”, cit. 29 S. Agosta, G. Sartori, The autobiographical IAT: a review, in “Front Psychol.”, cit. 30 S . Agosta, G. Sartori, op. cit. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Sartori, C. Scarpazza, P. Pietrini 303 experts created sentences that describe two different versions of the same situation (eg, “I have only recently felt sexually attracted to children” or “I’ve always been sexually attracted to children”). DM’s task was to press a button as quickly as possible to indicate whether the previous sentences were true or false. The aIAT revealed that the memory trace in DM’s mind is compatible with his verbal account and his that sexual attraction to children arose about a year before his arrest.

Forensic considerations Is it possible now to analyze how the experts evaluated all the available information and formed a judgment about DM’s state of mind at the time of the pedophilic acts. Firstly, the timeline of the symptoms is of critical importance. Indeed, there was a clear progression from a total absence of symptomatology to the more or less contemporary onset of all the symptoms (neurological, neuropsychological, personality changes), including the sexual interest in children. This temporal specificity is consistent with DM’s statement and those of his wife and the teacher who discovered him. In addition, the recent onset of DM’s pedophilia has also been empirically confirmed using the aIAT, a behavioral test based on the analysis of reaction times that is impossible to fake. Altogether, these data suggest that DM’s sexual deviancy, which began about a year before his arrest, coincided with the achievement of a critical mass of tumor volume in his brain. Indeed, at the time of the MRI, the chordoma was compressing the hypothalamus, which is clearly involved in guidance and sex drive31. Secondly, the neuropsychological assessment detected numerous signs of orbitofrontal dysfunction, such as deficits in foreseeing and understanding the effects of certain behaviors; difficulties in decoding emotions and moral reasoning; emotional fragility; a compulsive passion for photography; changes in personality (irritability, intolerance to frustration) and a difficulty in inhibiting impulses. This constellation of symptoms clearly localizes DM’s brain dysfunction to the frontal lobe. It is worth noting that some of the above-cited impairments are particularly relevant to the capacity for self-determination. Let’s consider, for example, the inability to decode negative emotions. How could a person who is unable to decode negative emotions understand the emotional signals coming from the victims of his aggression? Let’s consider, now, the deficit in moral thinking. How does an individual incapable of understanding moral violations evaluate the moral implications of his own actions so that he may inhibit them before they are carried out? According to what DM said at

31 M. Brunetti, C. Babiloni, A. Ferretti, et al., Hypothalamus, sexual arousal and psychosexual identity in human males: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, in “Eur. J. Neurosc.”, 2008; 27, pp. 2292-2927. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

304 The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia the time of his arrest, he was not aware of the severity of his behavior. On the one hand, the chordoma was compressing the hypothalamus, leading to a sexual attraction to children; on the other hand, the chordoma was also compressesing the orbitofrontal regions, causing deficits in moral judgment and understanding others’ emotions, which prevented DM from understanding the seriousness his behavior. Moreover, the orbitofrontal dysfunction also led to an inability to inhibit impulses, which directly caused DM’s pedophilic behavior. The anatomical-clinical correlation is astonishing. The tumor’s mass, location and size are fully able to explain the entire symptomatology experienced by DM: altering the functionality of both the hypothalamus and the orbitofrontal lobes gave rise to the constellation of observed symptoms. All symptoms reported by DM are in fact attributable to dysfunction of the hypothalamus, the frontal cortex, and the optic chiasm and can therefore be unambiguously explained on the basis of the principle of anatomic contiguity. It was the combination of an irresistible impulse (inability to want) with an impaired ability to understand the reprehensible nature of his own behavior (inability to understand) that composed DM’s inability to do otherwise (free will) and, thus, DM’s lack of self-determination. Thus, is it possible to assert that the brain tumor prevented DM from exercising free will at the time of the pedophilic acts, and that, consequently, DM cannot be considered responsible for his behavior. However, the presence of brain abnormalities is not in itself sufficient to ensure that an individual has a problem in cognitive functioning or behavioral inhibition. Contemporary neuropsychology recognizes that brain abnormalities are simply risk factors for the onset of a particular behavior. Thus, the theory of causation which applies to the link between mental disorder and crime, is not the deterministic causation which is implicitly assumed by most critics of the use of neuroscience in competency assessments in criminal trials, but rather the so-called ‘INUS causation’(Insufficient but Non-redundant parts of Unnecessary but Sufficient conditions32. This model asserts that, in a set of causes (which include, in the case of mental disorders, psychological, social, neural causes) an INUS cause indexes that each subset of causes is sufficient but none in itself is necessary to cause the outcome33; however, taken together, the causes are sufficient to cause the outcome. The INUS cause is a probabilistic cause with different importance given to different aspects of the causative set. Thus, the causal mechanism of criminal behavior must be encoded according to the INUS criteria. DM’s disease, consequently, should be considered an INUS condition of the observed behavior, i.e. the pedophilic behavior, as none of the symptoms alone is necessary to cause the criminal behavior, but all

32 H. Anckarsäter, S. Radovic, C. Svennerlind, et al., Mental disorder is the cause of crime: the cornerstone of forensic psychiatry, in “Int J Law & Psychiatry”, 2009; 32, pp. 342-347. 33 H. Anckarsäter et al., op. cit. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Sartori, C. Scarpazza, P. Pietrini 305 the symptoms together are sufficient to cause the same behavior. The probabilistic causal model accounts for the link between the onset of DM’s chordoma and his pedophilia coupled with a lack of impulse control. It is worth remembering that the pedophilia was just one of the symptoms DM experienced that was attributable to the expansion of the tumor. In addition to pedophilia, for example, there was the onset of a deficit in moral reasoning, which abolished DM’s ability to identify the pedophilic aggression as morally reprehensible, and an inability to inhibit impulses, which led DM to act on every impulse he experienced. Another aspect that should be etiologically related to DM’s criminal behavior is his impaired risk perception, as documented in both the interrogation and the neuropsychological examination. The propensity to engage in risky behaviors is a new feature of DM’s personality and is in deep contrast with his premorbid personality. This accounts for certain irrational behaviors, such as leaving the surgery door open while committing pedophilic acts. Finally, DM also showed a new and excessive interest in photography. His wife declared that he brought his camera everywhere, photographing anything. Thus, one could reasonably consider his production of child pornography to be a manifestation of an obsessive-compulsive disorder, also due to frontal lobe dysfunction. Essential to the discussion of the causal relationship between DM’s neurological condition and his impaired mental state is the restitutio a integrum that followed surgical removal of the tumor, i.e. a total remission of all neurological, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms, including pedophilia. In conclusion: - The experts concluded that DM’s severe neoplastic disease and the consequent clinical manifestations were sufficient to say that DM was not responsible for his criminal acts, because DM free will was diminished due to the frontal lobe compression. Indeed, the whole spectrum of symptoms, and in particular the criminal behavior, was causally attributable to the compressive effects of the tumor on the surrounding brain regions. In addition, the spectrum of symptoms was indicative of an altered state of mind that likely resulted in the criminal behavior. - DM’s cognitive and behavioral symptomatology clearly demonstrated an inability to understand (underlined by the inability to identify and evaluate pedophilic behavior as morally reprehensible) and an inability to want (underlined by the inability to inhibit his sexual urges). What is the peculiarity of this case compared to cases of individuals with congenital pedophilia? The congenital pedophiles, while suffering from a psychiatric psychopathology, do not usually have impairments that make them unable to control their sexual impulses and understand the negative social value of pedophilic behavior. In most cases, individuals may experience sexual attraction to children, but they are aware that acting on this attraction would be neither morally nor socially acceptable, and, accordingly, they control their behavior so as not to commit criminal acts. If File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

306 The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia one of these people, however, decides to act on the attraction, committing pedophilia even though he would be perfectly capable of inhibiting that sexual impulse, then that person is legally responsible for his own conduct.

Forensic conclusions Incompetency or diminished responsibility, are considered to be proven if evidence is given of a causal link between a pathological mental state and the criminal behavior. We described a burden of symptoms that explains the pedophilic behavior. According to the INSU (Insufficient but Non-redundant parts of Unnecessary but Sufficient conditions) concept widely adopted in forensic psychiatry34, no one of these symptoms, alone, could account for D.M. pedophilic behavior, but all together they are able to explain the emerging pedophilic behavior in D.M. For instance, the abnormal sexual interest for children alone, would not be considered sufficient to cause pedophilic behavior. However, if coupled with an impairment in impulsive behavior control, and in understanding other’s emotion, it is able of giving rise to this criminal behavior. In addition, we provided an objective description of pedophilia as one within a constellation of symptoms caused by the clivus chordoma to corroborate the idea that D.M. was not malingering his disease. The tumor location could account for all the observed symptoms. Since sexual arousal and preferences depend primarily on limbic system structures including hypothalamus35, the hypothalamus hypofunctioning, due to compression, offer a convincing explanation for the alteration of sexual drives in D.M.36. Furthermore the orbitofrontal cortex functioning alteration could account for the impaired levels of emotion recognition37, moral reasoning38 and impulse inhibition39.

34 H. Anckarsäter et al., op. cit. 35 M. Brunetti, C. Babiloni, A. Ferretti, et al., hypothalamus, sexual arousal and psychosexual identity in human males: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, in “Eur. J. Neurosc.”, cit. 36 M. Brunetti, C. Babiloni, A. Ferretti, et al., op. cit.; A.D. Baird, S. J. Wilson, P.F. Bladin, et al., Neurological control of human sexual behavior: insight from lesion studies, in “J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry”, 2007; 78, pp. 1042-1049; M.W. Walter, J. Witzel, C. Weibking, et al., Pedophilia is linked to reduced activation in hypothalamus and lateral prefrontal cortex during erotic stimulation, in “Biol Psychiatry”, 2007; 62, pp. 698-701. 37 D.H. Zald, C. Andreotti, Neuropsychological assessment of the orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, in “Neuropsychologia”, 2010; 48(12), pp. 3377-91. R. Adophs, Recognizing emotion from facial expressions: psychological and neurological mechanisms, in “Behav Cogn Neurosci Rev.”, 2002; 1(1), pp. 21-62. 38 M. Fumagalli, A. Priori, Functional and clinical neuroanatomy of morality, in “Brain”, 2012; 135, pp. 2006-2021. 39 A. Bari, T.W. Robbins, Inhibition and impulsivity: behavioral and neural basis of response control, in “Progr. Neurobiol”, 2013; 108: 44-79; G. Schoenbaum, M.R. Roesch, T.A. Stalnaker, et al., A new perspective on the role of the orbitofrontal cortez in adaptive behavior, in “Nat. Rev. Neurosci.”, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Sartori, C. Scarpazza, P. Pietrini 307

The restitutio ad integrum after neurosurgery decreed the causal link between clivus chordoma and pedophilia. On presentation of these findings one can conclude that D.M’s criminal behavior was the result of uncontrollable symptoms underlying his mental disorder, thus D.M. has to be considered not responsible for his behavior. The burden of symptoms does not allow to establishing a causal link between the brain state and the criminal behavior, but rather between D.M.’s impaired mind and his criminal behavior. However, we would like to emphasize that D.M.’s impaired mental state is the result of an impaired brain. Our case highlight the complex medical- legal issue regarding responsibility for behavior in the setting of neoplasm which impair both hypothalamus and orbitofrontal cortex functioning. Hypothalamus is critical for sexual behavior and the orbitofrontal cortex for impulsivity control. In light of this mitigating factors, was he criminally responsible for his actions? In other words: did his behavioral actions warrant imprisonment? We believe the answer is no to both questions.

Criticisms on the use of neuroscientific knowledge in the courtroom Critic 1: Behavioral assessment is sufficient while the neuroscientific evidence is superfluous. This view was stated in Brown and Murphy40, who claim that neuroscience add nothing to the overall accuracy of the assessment based on behavioral psychology and descriptive psychopathology. Response: This position misses a crucial point: the danger of malingering. The patient could be faking, or exaggerating, symptoms: therefore, behavioral assessments need to be integrated with objective evidence supporting the clinical observation. In addition, the brain sciences do not aspire to becoming a substitute for the current clinical criteria of patient classification. As we have already stated, the criteria for responsibility are, and must be, behavioral, clinical and neuropsychological, and not based on brain structural and functional alterations. The brain analysis is useful only as a correlate of behavioral observation. Critic 2: The presence of brain and genetic anomalies is not in itself evidence of incompetency (psycho-legal error). Response: The use of neuroscience as a means of evidence in the courtroom does not presuppose the belief in the existence of a one-to-one correspondence between brain states and behavior. It is a well-established fact in contemporary neuropsychology that brain alterations are mere risk factors for the occurrence of abnormal behaviors. As we have argued, this probabilistic causal link is best described

2009; 10(12), pp. 885-92. D.G. Dillon, D.A. Pizzagalli, Inhibition of action, thought and emotion: a selective neurobiological review, in “Appl. Prev. Psychol.”, 2007; 12(3), pp. 99-114. 40 T. Brown, E. Murphy, Through a scanner darkly: functional neuroimaging as evidence of a criminal defendant’s past mental states, in “Stanford Law Rev.”, 2010; 62(4), pp. 1119-208. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

308 The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia by the INUS causation model41. Critic 3: Neuroscientific assessments are based on data that have been validated only in group studies and not in single case studies: therefore, their actual value at single-case level is not known. Response: Medicine in general, including (but not limited to) neuroscience, is about applying a general scientific principle to a particular case. All medical assessments are based on an array of diverse sources of information, and are based on careful weighting of all such information. Since the neuroscientists are well aware of this problem, they are trying to at least estimate the probability to find false positive results when trying to translate to the single-case the knowledge about the group studies42. Critic 4: The neuroscientific forensic assessment aims to find the neural correlate of a neurological disorder. Response: the neurological and psychiatric disorders are diagnosed on the basis of observable symptoms, rather than neural correlates. This is true for psychiatric, as well as neurological disorders. Let us consider, for example, a classic case in psychiatry: schizophrenia. The condition is diagnosed based on a specific pattern of behavioral symptoms such as hallucination, depersonalization, apathy, disorders of the coherence of the speech; all these symptoms are usually originated from dysfunction of a brain network that mainly includes the superior temporal gyri. However, the presence of this brain dysfunction alone does not imply that the person suffers from schizophrenia. The same logic applies to any neuropsychological disorder irrespective of its etiology, neurological or psychiatric. In sum, behavioral disorders are defined at the behavioral level and neuroscience only provides, in some case, an objective evidence of the symptoms already observed.

Neuroscientific conclusions Even if there are regions in the brain which appear to be responsible for specific functions (for example, the orbitofrontal cortex for impulses inhibition and for moral reasoning), the brain is also well known for the redundancy of its connections, i.e. each regions in involved in more than one cognitive function and behavior, for the interconnectivity between different regions and for its plasticity43. It has been shown that the orbital region of the frontal lobe is involved in moral reasoning and

41 H. Anckarsäter, S. Radovic, C. Svennerlind, et al., Mental disorder is the cause of crime: the cornerstone of forensic psychiatry, in “Int J Law & Psychiatry”, cit. 42 C. Scarpazza, G. Sartori, M.S. De Simone, A. Mechelli, When the single matter more than group: very high false positive rates in single case voxel based morphometry, in “NeuroImage”, 2013; 70, pp.175-88. 43 B. Kolb, A. Muhammad, R. Gibb, Searching for factors underlying cerebral plasticity in the normal and injured brain, in “J Commun Disord”, 2011;44(5), pp. 503-14. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Sartori, C. Scarpazza, P. Pietrini 309 in impulses inhibition, but there are patients reporting lesions in the orbitofrontal cortices who do not have any deficit of moral reasoning or impulses inhibition. In other words, even if a brain injury can influence behavior, there is no “moral region” in the brain. This is the reason why it is not possible to adopt a deterministic reasoning in forensic setting. Instead, it is indispensible to emphasize that the existence of specific brain structures involved in the control of behavior could account for the frequent observation that when these structures or their connection are damaged, the patients are more likely to experience behavioral changes. To date, the neurosciences are useful in courtroom because they offer the possibility to provide objective evidences for the existence of an altered state of mind, which, however, must be demonstrated by the standard clinical, psychiatric and / or neuropsychological assessment. The neurosciences can provide another piece of the puzzle to make the defendant mental state description more accurate and more objective. To achieve this aim, the integration of neuroscientific knowledge in the legal proceeding is mandatory, so that this latter one can benefit from the scientific and logical reasoning. In the case above described, the presence of a tumor which compresses the areas involved in sexual orientation (hypothalamus) and inhibition of impulses (orbitofrontal cortex) supports the hypothesis that the pedophilia arose as a symptoms of a neurological disease. However, this consideration in only the conclusion of a logical reasoning which was intended to explain the neurological, neuropsychological, behavioral and social changes observed in the patients. All these symptoms together suggest that the man’s control over his own behavior was weakened. In line with our etiological hypothesis of a causal link between the tumor growth and behavioral alteration, all the symptoms receded after the surgical removal of the chordoma. Finally, we would like to conclude this essay as we started: using Antoine de Saint- Exupery words. “One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform”. As well as we cannot expect sophisticated reasoning from a child with mental retardation, we cannot expect the ability to exert inhibition over his sexual urges from DM. Indeed, in both cases the presence of an important biological constraint prevents the brain from properly functioning, leading to an alteration in mental status. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

310 The neuroscience of acquired pedophilia

Patient Localization of Author_year (year, Etiology Mechanisms Sexual changes lesion gender) Regestein and 56, ♂ R frontal Meningioma Compression P Reich, 1978 Miller et al. L midbrain, 34, ♂ Glioma Compression P 1986 hypothalamus

Burns and 40, ♂ R orbitofrontal Tumor Invasive mass P Swerdlow, 2003 Devinsky et al. R temporal Ganglio glioma Invasive mass 2010 51, ♂ (amygdala) (surgery removed) P Mendez and 60, ♂ Frontotemporal Dementia Atrophy P Shapira, 2011 67, ♂ Frontotemporal Dementia Atrophy P 76, ♂ Frontotemporal Dementia Atrophy P 82, ♂ Basal ganglia Dementia P (pallidum) 59, ♂ Basal ganglia Parkinson’s Atrophy P 32, ♂ Basal ganglia Huntington Atrophy P (caudate, pallidum, striatum) 59, ♂ Basal ganglia Pallidotomy to Surgery lesion P (pallidum) cure Parkinson 67, ♂ R medial Hippocampal Atrophy P temporal lobe slerosis.

Table 1. Available study reporting the onset of pedophilic behavior as a results of brain disease. R=right; L=left. P=Pedophilia.

Figure 1. The figure depicted: A) Apollinaire’s helmet (adapted from Bogousslavsky, 2005); B) Apollinaire during the recovery from the wound (download from the web); C) Apollinaire’s brain region damaged by the wound. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

G. Sartori, C. Scarpazza, P. Pietrini 311

Figure 2. The figure depicted D.M. magnetic resonance. The clivus chordoma, indicated by the red arrow, is a rare slow-growing neoplasm thought to arise from cellular remnants of the notochord. The clivus (latin for “slope”) is a part of the cranium, a shallow depression behind the dorsum sellæ that slopes obliquely backward. In D.M. this tumor displaced the pituitary gland and compressed the orbitofrontal cortex, the optic chiasm and the hypothalamus. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

In search of Mister Hyde. A few reflections on forensic genetics and the penal rationalism1

Francesca Zanuso

In this paper I will deal with a specific profile of forensic genetics, that concerning the possibility of establishing the so-called disposition to crime. The DNA composition is the genetic data presiding over our biologic identity and from this point of view genetics is an excellent instrument to «trace back» a «personal identity»2. I refer to an identity we know as being individual and unrepeatable since the first assembling of male and female gametes, in the extraordinary human adventure of procreation. DNA is unique and unparalleled and, therefore, researches and investigations aimed, for instance, at individuating a particular subject to hold him to account for his actions are more than welcome; it does not seem that any particular doubts arise in this regard, other than those engendered by the proper protection of the privacy of the so-called highly sensitive data. In other words, whenever we decide to use the language of genetics we may recognise a genetic identity that will not risk undue absolutizations, provided that we keep in mind we used a peculiar scientific protocol to detect it3.

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. 2 The various dimensions of identity and their legal relevance have been punctually illustrated byG. Pino, Il diritto all’identità personale. Interpretazione costituzionale e creatività giurisprudenziale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2003, in E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali. Profili di diritto comparato e europeo, Padova, Cedam, 2008 and, very recently, by S. Amato, F. Cristofari, S. Raciti (eds.), Biometria. I codici a barre del corpo, Torino, Giappichelli, 2013. 3 Giuseppe Sermonti has accurately highlighted such a risk, which is based on the diffused but erroneous belief that human nature could be entirely and solely represented through the decoding of DNA; cf. G. Sermonti, Dimenticare Darwin, Milano, Rusconi, 1999. His remark is not superfluous at all, since recently one of the most «mass media» figures of Italian science, Umberto Veronesi, has expressed shocking convictions. According to the authoritative oncologist, DNA goes beyond the contingent: «Our DNA does not die and keep living in our children and in all the generations to come. My DNA, that is to say, all the physical and psychical characters, comes unaltered from human beings of millennia ago. Immortality could simply be the fact that we transmit our DNA. It is a modern form of metemsomatosis and of metempsychosis, that is, of reincarnation» (U. Veronesi, A. Elkann, Essere laico, Milano, Bompiani, 2008, p. 74, our transl.). This apparent reference to the infinite, “depurated” by metaphysics, has been conveniently criticised by F. D’Agostino, Parole di Bioetica, Torino, Giappichelli, 2004, pp. 102-3. On this issue, see also Id. (ed.), Darwinismo e problemi di giustizia, Milano, Giuffrè, 2008. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

314 In search of Mister Hyde

All this does not seem to pose, indeed, particular legal-philosophical problems, unless we presume that biologic identity reduces to itself every other dimension of identity (such as the cultural, the familiar, the social ones and so on). It is, therefore, indispensable not to fall into the error of genetic reductionism4, which may lead us to erroneously conceive reality as a set of phenomenally significant data, which can be manipulated and, therefore, dominated by human will5. This would be a blunder: for several reasons, «reality» cannot be diminished to what may be an object of the human thought. The most immediate of such reasons is the following: such a presumed «reality» would miss the most important element, that is to say, that subject who, by thinking, pretends to assume as an object whatever surrounds him6. In other words, reality cannot be conceived as something to be limited to what we may perceive in the space-time dimension: «beyond» this dimension there is all that could never be assumed at the mercy of human will, because it is essentially what contributes to form it7. Instead, it is to be acknowledged that subjective life manifests itself as a constant, but elusive testimony of this phenomenal and ultra-phenomenal dimension, of which it keeps the mystery. These considerations, albeit approximately traced, show what is the real stake facing the stimulating suggestions of forensic genetics8. The recurrent risk is scientism9, which appears in the moment it assumes to be worth a peculiar application

4 We should remember that the Nobel prize Gerald Edelman, one of the fathers of neurosciences, wishes neurosciences to accomplish Darwin’s program by making also the brain and the thought a product of evolution and by depriving them of their metaphysical and mysterious air (cf. G.M. Edelman, Seconda natura. Scienza del cervello e conoscenza umana, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2007); in this regard, cf. A. Bianchi, Neuroscienze e diritto: spiegare di più per comprendere meglio, in A. Bianchi, G. Gullotta, G. Sartori, (eds.) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, Milano, Giuffrè, 2009, pp. XVIII-XIX. 5 In this regard cf. F. Zanuso, La consulenza genetica tra realtà e immaginazione, in L.Palazzani (ed.), Gen-ius. La consulenza tra genetica e diritto, Roma, Studium, 2011, pp. 35-43. 6 On this topic cf. F. Cavalla, All’origine del diritto al tramonto della legge, Napoli, Jovene, 2011, pp. 6-8. 7 Mauro Ronco, who authored a really stimulating essay on the topic, criticises the necessarily fragmentary conception of neurosciences that neglects the holistic dimension of the brain to examine some of its parts as several objects; cf. M. Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, in “Archivio penale”, 3, 2011, p. 868. On the topic cf. also Id., Gli sviluppi della neurobiologia e la libertà personale, in “Iustitia”, 4/11, pp. 429-440. 8 It is due but pleasant for me to recognise an intellectual debt to Stefano Fuselli, recalling S. Fuselli, Oltre i dualismi: un itinerario tra diritto, neuroscienze e filosofia, in “Diritto & Questioni Pubbliche”, 13/2013, pp. 61-141. 9 I cannot resist quoting such a provocative statement: «Astrologists, magicians, medicines, mathematicians have always given their knowing contribution and oriented the decision of the judge on the basis of the infallibility of their knowledge» (L. de Cataldo Neuburger, Scienza e processo penale: linee guida per l’acquisizione della prova scientifica, Padova, Cedam, 2010, pag. XII-XIII, our transl.). On the relations between science and law see the classic S. Jasanoff, La scienza davanti ai giudici, Milano, Giuffrè, 2001, as well as S. uselliF , Apparenze. Accertamento giudiziale e prova scientifica, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2008 and M.C. Tallacchini, Diritto e scienza, in Luoghi della Filosofia del diritto. Idee strumenti mutamenti (ed. by B. Montanari), Torino, Giappichelli, 2012, pp. 145-169. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 315 of genetic discoveries to the penal field: I refer to the pretension of inferring from genetic makeup a higher or lower predisposition to deviance10. In this case it is not simply said that, genetically, that individual is that unrepeatable subject, based on his unrepeatable genetic sequence; on the contrary, it is presumed that, by virtue of that unrepeatable genetic sequence, that subject shows a sort of weakness that inclines him to crime or, at least, does not make it sufficiently resistant to the temptation of establishing inter-subjective relations in a violent way. Genetics would not be used, therefore, to call a subject to account for his actions; instead, it would be supposed that genetics itself is able to offer a more or less exhaustive explanation of acting itself11. In other words, here is at stake the pretension of individuating a sort of «evil gene» in order to defend ourselves12. In the field of the philosophy of criminal law, this topic is particularly interesting since it concerns the concept of free will, of responsibility, of blameworthiness («rimproverabilità»)13 and, therefore, it touches the heart of the traditional conception of culpability as a nexus between action and will, the intention of the subject and the meaning of penal sanction itself14. The risk of a rising etiologic determinism and of

10 In a remarkable essay, Messina writes that neurosciences are the most refined evolution of cognitive psychology and that «neurosciences replace the quest for and the description of the most significant and diffused cognitive illusions conditioning individual choices and behaviour in the perspective of social psychology with a much more difficult and ambitious aim, that of becoming able to control and predict mental processes through the knowledge of their physiological and biological correlatives» (G. Messina, Le neuroscienze nel processo: profili problematici e orizzonti prospettici di un nuovo confronto fra scienza e diritto, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen”, 1/2010, p. 347, our transl.). Even more critical is Lorusso, as he writes of «fascinations coming from the hyper-evaluation of the technical-scientific knowledge applied to criminal trial» (S. Lorusso, Il contributo degli esperti alla formazione del convincimento giudiziale, in “Archivio penale”, 3/2011, p. 817, our transl.). 11 On the topic cf. P. Sommaggio, Umano post-umano. I rischi di un uso ideologico della genetica, in “Diritto e Questioni Pubbliche”, 8/2008, cit., pp. 237 ff. See also the complete and well articulated collective volume edited by L. Palazzani, Il diritto nelle neuroscienze: non siamo i nostri cervelli, Torino, Giappichelli, 2013. 12 The expression is used byE. Musumeci, Cesare Lombroso e le neuroscienze: un parricidio mancato. Devianza, libero arbitrio, imputabilità tra antiche chimere ed inediti scenari, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2012, p. 102. On the naiveté of this presumption cf. S. Bauzon, De la disposition génétique au crime, in L. Picotti, F. Zanuso (eds.), L’antropologia criminale di Cesare Lombroso: dall’Ottocento al dibattito filosofico-penale contemporaneo, Napoli, ESI, 2011, pp. 61-67. 13 On this topic we may recall what Ronco conveniently stated: «Neurobiological science has not yet proved experimentally, according to objective and verifiable criteria, neither the existence nor the inexistence of the liberty of will. Nor could it possibly do that... since the problem can be solved only on the metaphysical level, which considers man as a whole unit» (M. Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, cit., p. 856, our transl.). For a first approach to the relation between liberty and responsibility in the legal field cf. B. Montanari, Libertà, responsabilità, legge, in Luoghi della Filosofia del diritto, cit., pp. 171-207. 14 In English-speaking Countries the issue is a central one since more than ten years now; as a mere example see A. Evansburg, But your Honor, it’s in his genes. The case for genetic impairments as grounds for a downward departure under the federal sentencing guidelines, in “American Criminal Law Review”, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

316 In search of Mister Hyde a consequent «labelling» of deviance (labelling theory) is, in fact, always lurking and, therefore, an open-minded reflection cannot be delayed any further15. Such a reflection is unavoidable especially today, since nowadays our society is tempted, even more than in the past, by a sort of genetic stigmatisation that should allegedly (be able to) protect it from evil, by stopping an increasing social alarm. Of course, many of these considerations are prompted by the news of the actual application (of the results) of molecular genetics and of the so-called neurosciences also in Italian courts, in decisions taken in different stages of litigation, in order to better establish the culpability of the defendant. By way of example, I report two judgements that caused a great sensation in the public opinion, due to the wide popularisation offered by the media, as well as the reflections appeared in many scientific journals: the decision of the «Corte di Assise di Appello di Trieste» (n. 5 of 18 September 2009) and the decision of the judge for the preliminary investigation («Giudice per le indagini preliminari»: GIP) of Como on the Albertani case (25 May 2011). I cannot discuss here the merits of these decisions, as I am sure that other papers in this book will well illustrate the conditions and consequences of these forensic surveys. What I wish to emphasise here is the risk of the scientistic degeneration of the data used in these surveys ascertaining the genetic vulnerability to crime. Of course, the danger is to interpret a scientific data, which is by its very nature hypothetical and conventional and result of a peculiar reading of reality for operational purposes, as an objective, neutral data, standing before our reason as an undoubted and indubitable

2001, pp. 1565-1566, M. Jones, Overcoming the myth of free will in criminal law: the true impact of the genetic revolution, “Duke Law Journal”, 2002, pp. 1031-1035, D. Wasserman, Is there value in identifying individual genetic predisposition to violence, in “Journal of law, Medecine and Ethics”, 2004, pp. 24-33, O.R. Goodenough – K. Prehn, A neuroscientific approach to normative judgement in law and justice, in Law and the brain, “Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London” B, 2004, 359, pp. 1709-26; S.J. Morse, New neuroscience, old problems, in B. Garland (ed.), Neuroscience and the law: brain, mind, and the scales of justice, Dana, New York, 2004, pp. 157-98; Id., Moral and legal responsabilty and the new neuroscience, in J. Illes, Neuroethics: Defining the Issuesin Theory, Practice and Policy, Oxford University Press, New York, 2006, pp. 33-50, M. Rajadhyaksha, Condemned by birth: the Implications of Genetics for the Theories of Crime and Punishment, in “Socio-Legal Revue”, 85/2006, pp. 85-103. 15 In a recent essay, Larizza asks herself whether it is possible to prevent crime by imposing a preventive treatment to those bearing anomalies without harming fundamental human rights (cf. S. Larizza, Sui limiti posti dal sistema penale alle ricezione degli esiti conoscitivi della neuroimaging, in M.G. Ruberto, C. Barbieri, Il futuro tra noi. Aspetti etici, giuridici e medico-legali della neuroetica, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2011, p. 34). Then, she criticises the return of a naïve criminal aetiology op.( ult. cit., p. 35). In fact, one can foresee the relapse in the deterministic logic; on the topic, just for a first orientation, cf. J. Greene, J. Cohen, For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything, in Law and the brain, cit., pp. 1775- 85 and, in Italy, in G. Gulotta, La responsabilità penale nell’era delle neuroscienza, in A. Bianchi, Neuroscienze e diritto, cit., pag.8. Amongst Italian publications, see A. Forza, Neuroscienze e diritto, “Rivista Penale”, 3/2009, pp. 247-255. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 317 element, which one cannot but be aware and conscious of16. Knowing it would mean individuating it as an object of one’s own knowledge; using it to protect society would be necessary and unavoidable for legal, political but also ethical purposes. In other words, the scientific discovery that a low-activity allele for the MAOA (MAOA-L) gene inclines to aggressiveness in presence of provocations or displays of social exclusion could engender two presumptions. According to the first one, a person could be persuaded to think that such a fact offers the basis for a perfect (even if just initial from a quantitative point of view!) understanding of the functioning of the «criminal mind»; according to the second one, a person could be tempted to think that such altered genetics not only represents a vulnerability to criminal temptations, but also characterises «born to kill» subjects. I do not use such an expression as a provocation just to wake up the reader’s attention. I use it because it has been widely utilised by the Italian press after the Albertani decision17. It is out of doubt that both forensic scientists and legal scholars took into account with the due prudence and wisdom what science seems to hand on a silver platter, in order to discover one for all the appearance of crime… and to defend us from it! I think of several interviews promptly released by the two men of science who signed the survey recalled by the Trieste decision18 and of other scientific contributions

16 In this regard, it is worth emphasising the peculiarity of the neurosciences and neuroethics issues that are related to our conscience, our sense of self, pretending to assume it as an object of the reflection. On the topic, see what Salvatore Amato states: «Science cannot think to limit itself to describe… but it is called to suggest (or demolish) a certain image of man and of the world that deeply affects customs, by conditioning behavioural rules and social expectations» [S. Amato, Biopolitica, biodiritto e biotecnologie, in L.Palazzani (ed.), Nuove biotecnologie, biodiritto e trasformazioni della soggettività, Studium, Roma, 2007, cit., p. 27, our transl.]. On this topic see the interesting reflections byA. Farano, Percorsi della responsabilità: le neuroscienze cambiano tutto o niente?, in “i-lex”, 18, 2013, pp. 189-200. The Author distinguishes between the concept of man as idem and as ipse, reprising it from Ricoeur and Romano, and concludes her short essay stating that: «The discourse of neurosciences is related to man conceived as idem, therefore to what in man does not change, his body, but also his character, his genetic predispositions, whereas responsibility consists of identity conceived as ipseity, that is, that permanence of self that keeps together in a coherent narrative framework past actions, of which we recognise authors, and future actions, towards which we are committed. Therefore neuroscience changes everything and nothing at all, provided it is returned to its descriptive function, thus preserving a notion of responsibility rooted in ipseity» (op. ult. cit., p. 199, our transl.). 17 Just for instance, here are some titles appeared right after the Albertani decision: Cirimido, uccise la sorella: alterati i suoi geni [«Cirimido, she killed her sister: her genes altered», our transl.], in “La Provincia di Como”, 29.8.2011, Quella donna uccise per colpa dei geni [«That woman killed because of her genes», our transl.], in “Corriere della Sera”, 30.8.2011, Born to kill: la colpa è nei geni [«Born to kill: the culpability is in the genes», our transl.] (Insubria 30.8.2011), Italian court reduces murder sentence based on neuroimaging data, in “Newsblog”, 1.9.2011 in www.natur.com), Nata per uccidere, è colpa dei geni [«Born to kill, put the blame on the genes», our transl.] in “Giustizia giusta”, 1.9.2011. 18 In an interview for the online review “Brain Factor” Giuseppe Sartori observed: «The decision recognises evidential efficacy to cognitive and molecular neurosciences, pointing out how the use of such techniques increases the certainty of dealing with a real mental illness. That is to say, the proof is stronger» (2/11/2009 www.brainfactor.it, our transl.). In other words, genetics would offer File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

318 In search of Mister Hyde about it19; I also remind some well-balanced contributions commenting the Como decision from a penal point of view20. This seems to be a way to avert the danger of falling into penal rationalism, that is, into that sort of «moral sickness» nestled in the Western cultural history, a considerable support to traditional neuro-psychiatric assessments by strengthening the assumed objectivity of their conclusions. Nevertheless, this «objectivity» is not deemed to be immediately evidential by Pietrini in an interview on the same website; the Scientist points out, in fact, that «in the current state of knowledge no genetic variable has been put in causal relation with aggressive antisocial behaviour, that is to say, there is no genetic variable that can absolutely determine the presence of a certain behaviour» (17/11/2009 www.brainfactor.it, our transl.). 19 Mindful scientists may, therefore, acknowledge the presence of a statistically higher risk. Amongst the many contributions in this regard see A. Lavazza, L. Sammicheli, Il delitto nel cervello. La mente fra scienza e diritto, Torino, Codice edizioni, 2012, where the Authors point out with clarity and decision the non causal nature of generic variables to which one may attribute the power of creating a sort of genetic vulnerability cf. pp. 84-85. Two esteemed researchers expressed analogous views: «Although [recent studies in brain-imaging] clearly suggest a neural basis for certain aggressive and criminal behaviours, they must not be intended in a deterministic key. To admit the limits of brain imaging is not to admit that the available results are meaningless, but only to recognize that further research is in need» (P. Pietrini , V. Bambini, Homo ferox: the conribution of functional brain studies to understanding the neural bases of aggressive and criminal behaviour, in “International Journal of Law and Psychiatry”, 32, 2009, pp. 259-265) also published in Italian language in A. Bianchi, G. Gulotta, G. Sartori (eds.), Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, Milano, Giuffrè, 2009, pp.41-63.In a similar way, cf. S. Pellegrini, Il ruolo dei fattori genetici nella modulazione del comportamento: le nuove acquisizioni della biologia molecolare genetica, in A. Bianchi, G.Gullotta, G.Sartori, (eds.) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, cit., p. 79. An adequate consciousness characterises also those who state, with reference to the data acquired: «The image deriving from them should not be interpreted as a photograph of what happens in that particular moment, but as the fruit of a statistical elaboration of data, since the metabolic activity of a tissue is strongly variable» (M.G. Ruberto, G.Ferrari, Neuroetica: una scienza nuova, in M.G. Ruberto, C. Barbieri, Il futuro tra noi, cit., p. 81, our transl.). However, Sartori, writing with Sammicheli, observes: «The peculiarity of neuroscientific evidence is in the higher demonstrability and noticeability (at a biological level) of the state of pathological functioning of legally relevant mental functions» [L. Sammicheli, G. Sartori, Neuroscienze giuridiche: i diversi livelli di interazione fra diritto e neuroscienze, in A. Bianchi, G. Gullotta, G. Sartori (eds.) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, cit., p. 25, our transl.]. All this would be reassuring if the conclusions of such research and experiments would not be articulated as follows: «Neurosciences have the objective of drawing a neuro-behavioural geography of the criminal subject» (op. ult. cit., p. 28, our transl.). 20 See, for instance, M.T. Collica, Il riconoscimento del ruolo delle neuroscienze nel giudizio di imputabilità, in “Diritto penale contemporaneo”, 1/2012, pp.1-26 and F. Casasole, Neuroscienze, genetica comportamentale e processo penale, in “Diritto penale e processo”, 1/2012, pp. 110-117. Other essential instruments for a comprehension of the penal reflections on this topic are offered by:A. Forza, Neuroscienze e diritto, in “Rivista penale”, 3/2009, pp. 247-255; A. Colorio, Diritto e cervello: verso le nuove frontiere del neurodiritto, in “I-Lex Scienze Giuridiche, Scienze Cognitive e Intelligenza artificiale” (on-line review); 2010; M. De Caro, M. Marraffa, Libertà, responsabilità e retributivismo, in “Sistemi intelligenti”, 2/2010, pp. 357-374; L. Capraro, V. Cuzzocrea, E. Picozza, D. Terracina (eds.), Neurodiritto. Un’introduzione, Torino, Giappichelli, 2011, F. Macioce, Le neuroscienze. Vecchie domande e nuove sfide per il diritto, in “Archivio giuridico Filippo Serafini”, 1/2012, pp. 25-59;A. Nisco, Il confronto tra neuroscienze e diritto penale sulla libertà di volere, in “Diritto penale e processo”, 4/2012, pp. 499-508, F.G. Pizzetti, Neuroscienze forensi e diritti fondamentali: spunti costituzionali, Torino, Giappichelli, 2012, A. Santosuosso, Neuroscienze e diritto: un quadro delle opportunità , in “Rivista italiana di medicina legale”, 1/2012, pp. 83-103. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 319 which reveals itself in the pretension of the reason to dispose of primal, certain and evident premises (but actually subtracted from demonstration) from which derive in a coherently cogent way punctual truths and indisputably valid legal norms21. Moreover, often rationalism goes together with scientism, caused by a fall of problematic tension, which leads to the absolutization of scientific results, forgetting their hypothetical and conventional dimension22. Within the penal field, historically such an error resulted in series of dangerous assumptions such as that of distinguishing exhaustively the in-nocent man from the ab-normal one, and consequently of protecting society from the latter one, thus strengthening the dominating values and coming to a non-wanted but deep-rooted State conception of penal law23. As I said before, I think with well-founded reasons that scholars have not fallen in such an error. So what? Is everything all right? I fear not! Indeed, if scientists and criminal lawyers have been «pouring oil on troubled waters», albeit with different buckets, each one of different capacity, the media bombarded the public opinion with boasting and resounding articles, engendering the conviction that the application of genetics and neurosciences to criminal trial is already realised, without any drawbacks. But too often media disclose what the public expects from them, then a disquieting question crept into my mind: why does the public want this? I think we can answer by stating that the public opinion has been constantly fascinated by every attempt to explain, through a presumably objective criterion, the deviant’s personality, the genesis of crime in its origin and in its probable evolution. An illustrious example of this fascination is given by the success of Lombroso’s studies at the beginning of the last century. Back then, as it happens today, there was the recurrent rationalistic illusion of defining and, therefore, confining evil in

21 On rationalism as moral sickness of Western modernity cf. F. Cavalla, La pena come riparazione. Oltre la concezione liberale dello stato: per una teoria radicale della pena, in F. Zanuso, S. Fuselli (eds.), Ripensare la pena. Teorie e problemi nella riflessione moderna, Padova, Cedam, 2004, p. 30. 22 In this, the popular conviction is also supported by a naïve conception of empirical verifiability, deemed able to exhaustively demonstrate the validity of the adopted hypotheses. Here the traditional critical statement of two logical neo-positivists par excellence applies: «Hypotheses are proven with empirical data, with the so-called facts; but we choose, analyse and interpret empirical data based on the assumed principles» (M.R. Cohen, E. Nagel, Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method, 1934, p. 596, our transl.). In this regard, Mauro Ronco conveniently highlights that: «The new scientific evidence, sometimes presented as objectively incontrovertible, is – even more than traditional evidence – extremely subjective in its origin, in its elaboration and in its interpretation, as it depends more than ever on the precision and integrity with which the expert observes the many and often contradictory elements of fact, as well as on the methodological rigour and the objectivity with which he elaborates and interprets them» (M. Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, cit., p. 858, our transl.). 23 F. Cavalla, La pena come riparazione, cit., pp. 33-36. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

320 In search of Mister Hyde a well determined category of subjects, the so-called abnormal24; such an illusion goes together with the naïve assumption of clearly distinguishing the latter from the community of the so-called innocents, of those who seem capable to integrate themselves well in the social fabric25. This social trend, cherished by dogmatic rationalism, arises from a fear that seems to have a double nature and, therefore, has to be distinguished. In the first place, the manifestation of Evil – for instance in the ferocity of a crime – disquiets us. I would say that it disquiets equally the scholar and the ordinary man. We are afraid of it, of course, because we fear for our own safety. But not only for that! The fear goes together with a subtle anguish that «flows», unpleasant and therefore contrasted, by the awareness of the possibility that the seed of evil may lie in all of us, more or less deeply, in the flesh and in the spirit26. A masterpiece of the Eighteenth century literature warns us about that. I think of the tale by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde and especially of the underlying thesis of the writing, which wants to be an apology of human nature. The moralist, the fierce guardian of his public image and of the bourgeois respectability, transforms first intentionally and, then, progressively, blamelessly and unconsciously into his opposite, in the hidden monster, filthy and repulsive, in which all malevolence appears27. Yet, the scission of the twofold – mark well! at first willingly and tenaciously programmed by the scientific knowledge of thehomo faber dr. Jekyll – is rooted in collective imagination since we fear Mister Hyde but we are, alas, aware that every dr. Jekyll hosts, in a more or less durably hidden way, a potential deviant. It is no coincidence that the monster’s name evokes what should be kept hidden because obscure (to hide); besides, the scientist, the most respectable and meritorious man for his times, bears in his name an assonance with the most cruel of all crimes (to kill). We cannot, therefore, be surprised by the fact that since ancient times man tried to «exorcise» such an evil, of which we fear the connaturality, by confining it within precise, definable and, thus, predictable schemes. In other words, we always tried to protect ourselves from the evil that is outside of us, but which can also be inside us.

24 The issue is broadly dealt with in D. eloV Dalbrenta, La scienza inquieta. Saggio sull’antropologia criminale di Cesare Lombroso, Padova, Cedam, 2004; by the same Author cf. also Id., Lombroso, in I. Birocchi, E. Cortese, A. Mattone, M.N. Miletti (eds.), Dizionario Biografico dei Giuristi Italiani (XII-XX secolo), II, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013, pp. 1189-1192. 25 Besides, the same scientists who deny the risk of a neuro-reductionist drift fall in dangerous slopes; for instance, P. Pietrini, V. Bambini, Homo ferox: il contributo delle neuroscienze alla comprensione dei comportamenti aggressivi e criminali, in A. Bianchi, G. Gullotta, G. Sartori, (eds.) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, Milano, Giuffrè, 2009, p. 54 name a paragraph «The criminal brain: morphological and functional differences between criminal and normal individuals». 26 The alternative is not pleonastic but intentional, referred as it is to the various neuroscientific theses. 27 For a reconstruction of the tale by Stevenson and of its links with the then born psychoanalysis cf. M. Trevi, Introduzione a R.L. Stevenson, Il dottor Jekyll e Mr. Hyde, Milano, Feltrinelli,1991, pp. 5-16. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 321

In order to protect ourselves against it we must know it and, therefore, according to the modern ways of thinking, make it an objective, and thus controllable, element: besides the day before yesterday such an element was recognised in a particular morphology, studied by physiognomics, yesterday it has been identified in the presence of the occipital dimple or in a chromosome deformity28. Today, the eternal temptation of «confining» evil, by defining it with an accurate and verifiable description, is more alive than ever and it is mantled within the guise of scientificity; to be precise, it uses the most à la page guises, that is to say, the ones offered by neurosciences and molecular genetics. It counts on the chance to enter in a painless way into the folds of the brain and to find there, in their regularity and connection, the origin of the will29 or, better, of the deficit of the rising of the prohibition preventing the will from manifesting in its too frequent anti-sociality30. This results in the temptation to explain, thanks to the investigation on cerebral neurones and to the genetic recording, the criminal propensity or, at least, the incapacity to conform to social regularity31. Actually, as I was saying, the most accurate literature maintains that certain alterations of morphology and, therefore, of the functioning of the frontal region and the structures it involves (which are presumably in charge with governing the modulation of aggressive and anti-social behaviour) as well as the alterations of the genetic composition may constitute not strictly necessitating, but surely strongly prominent factors in determining with a good level of probability deviant criminal behaviour32. However, the public opinion, led by capable journalists, passes over the dimension of probability, illusorily turning it into necessity33. This happens for a

28 On the topic cf. F. Zanuso, L’emergente attualità di Lombroso, in L. Picotti, F. Zanuso (a cura di), L’antropologia criminale, cit., pp. 5-9. Di Giovine emphasizes how the idea that the mind is the brain and that the conscience has biological nature reminds the rules of Darwinian evolutionism and evokes «spectres» of biological reductionism recalling the Lombrosian era (cf. O. Di Giovine, Chi ha paura delle neuroscienze?, in “Archivio penale”, 3/2011, p. 838-840, our transl.). 29 For an example of these studies adhering to a deterministic and neuro-physiological vision of human behaviour see D. Dennet, Freedom evolves, New York, Viking Press, 2003; for the effects in the legal field cf. S. orseM , Addiction, Genetics and Criminale Responsibility, in “Law and Contemporary Problems”, vol. 69, 2006, p. 165 ff. 30 In this regard see the studies contained in M. Gazzaniga, The Ethical Brain, New York, Dana Press, 2005. 31 It’s no accident that one of the main challenges of neuroethics is the reflection on the concept of normality; cf. M.G. Ruberto, G. Ferrari, Neuroetica: una scienza nuova, cit., p. 114. 32 Similar theses, centred on the role of the so-called somatic marker can be found in the classic A. Damasio, Descartes’Errors: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain, 1994, italian translation in Adelphi, Milano, 1995, pp. 245-6. 33 Someone speaks of «scourge of media exposition»: A. Bianchi, Psicodiagnostica forense: utilità e limiti, in A. Bianchi, G. Gullotta, G. Sartori, (eds.) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, cit., p. 91 (our transl.). Such a drift of the media has been immediately criticised; for instance, see the declarations in E. Feresin, BadLighter sentence for murderer with bad genes, in “Naturenews” (30.10.2009). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

322 In search of Mister Hyde further dimension of fear, which apparently affects really closely criminal policy34. Today, far more than yesterday and the day before yesterday, we fear the diverse that is in us but also that is close to us35. In our multi-racial and multi-cultural society, the diverse troubles us. Especially, we fear that the diverse may turn into an adverse. There are of course psychological and sociological reasons that may explain such a fear36. However, there is one radically cultural reason on which philosophy of law has something important to say. The Western world, fed with jacobinic spirit and careless of the dialectic lesson of classicism, is inclined to think that the diverse is the adverse and that the adverse is necessarily the alien, that is, he who is incomprehensible, the one with whom there cannot be any sharing nor communication. The most prevalent mentality is afraid of the diverse, the opposite, because it has been educated in a modern fashion to «freeze» the conflicts, to deny their aspect constitutive of theex-sistence 37. At the same time, multiculturalism proceeds in a relativist, tired, exhausted, unconfident society, in which asking and answering does not seem to have sense any more38. How shall we found, then, the perspective of responsibility? How can we ask somebody to answer for his behaviours? How can we ascertain the very responsibility for a crime? Of course, it is more appealing to think that there is a new, non-renounceable discovery that shows a «sembiante del delitto» (an appearance or physiognomy of crime)39, able to erect the boundary: here are the good ones, there the evil ones. In other words, a society that cannot understand the diverse, especially when it proves to be adverse, since it is not able to call anybody to be responsible, gladly embraces the possibility to «confine» the evil, the danger in a well defined datum, for instance in a defective allele. Nevertheless, this trend is, allow me the pun, extremely dangerous, since it brings

34 On this functional relation between empirical sciences and criminal law cf. G. Forti, L’immane concretezza, Metamorfosi del crimine e controllo penale, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2000. 35 On this topic cf. F. Bilancia, F.M. Di Sciullo, F. Rimoli (eds.), Paura dell’Altro. Identità occidentale e cittadinanza, Roma, Carocci, 2008. 36 On the issue cf. I. Merzagora Betsos, Colpevoli si nasce? Criminologia, determinismo, neuroscienze, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2012. 37 On the topic cf. F . Zanuso, Conflitto e controllo sociale nel pensiero giuridico-politico della modernità, Padova, Cleup, 1993, p. 19. 38 On the topic cf. the various essays dedicated to the issue of multiculturalism and its effects in the legal field published in “Ragion Pratica” 1/2013; see especially F. Basile, Il diritto penale nelle società multiculturali: i reati culturalmente motivati, in «Ragion Pratica» 1/2013, pp. 9-48, F. Santoni De Sio, Responsabilità fondamentale e differenze culturali, in “Ragion Pratica” 1/2013, pp. 49-70, B. Pastore, Reati culturalmente motivati e valutazione probatoria, in “Ragion Pratica” 1/2013, pp. 97-105. 39 On the issue cf. D. Velo Dal Brenta, La scienza inquieta, cit., p. 95 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 323 to a preventionist drift. In fact, if I can predict the perpetration of evil deeds, why should not I prevent it40? The never realised old positivist dream (in the end, everybody had to admit not to have an indubitable criterion to uphold the inclination to crime before its own manifestation in a criminal act41) today could be facilitated by apparently soft pillows! How can we defend ourselves from this public opinion turmoil that might bring to a result contrary to individual rights, whereas, for instance, the use of genetic investigations should be requested not only in bonam partem, but also in malam partem42? Not only, therefore, to punish more adequately, but, especially, to prevent crime more effectively? First of all, we can defend ourselves by firmly invoking the solid Patavinian tradition that, connected to the teachings of Giuseppe Bettiol43 and nowadays of Mauro Ronco44, Silvio Riondato45, Enrico Ambrosetti46 and their pupils, does not cease to warn us against special-preventionist temptations and to remind us the personalistic dimension of criminal law. Moreover, a valuable protection can be offered by a further consciousness: that of the acknowledgement of the bifacial nature of criminal law, which must protect society from crime but, at the same time, cannot stop defending the criminal from the arbitrary exercise of one’s pretended right47. To this end, the issue of the factual finding of culpability and individual responsibility is fundamental to promote a penalty that favours the reparation of the rift caused by crime and, especially, the reconciliation of the social fabric, able to be responsible but also to call for responsibility, in a constitutively dialogical dimension48.

40 On this topic cf. O. Di Giovine, La sanzione penale nella prospettiva delle neuroscienze, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.” 2/13, pp. 626-642. 41 Cf. F. Cavalla, La pena come problema. Il superamento della concezione razionalistica della difesa sociale, Padova, Cedam, 1979, pp. 66-67. 42 Until now, it seems that neuroscientific evidence is used only to mitigate responsibility but one should also fear it can be used in malam partem for preventive purposes; this way, the «so rightly abhorred category of the diritto penale d’autore (criminal law of the author), thrown out of the door, re-enters through the window» (M. Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, cit., p. 861, our transl.). 43 The whole production of the Maestro of Padua is worth being reminded, oriented as it is towards the constant defence of retributivist personalism against any preventionist drift; cf. for instance G. Bettiol, Scritti giuridici (1966-1980), Padova, Cedam, 1980. 44 Other than the references we have been citing so far, punctually concerning our topic, cf. M. Ronco, Il problema della pena. Alcuni profili relativi allo sviluppo della riflessione sulla pena, Torino, Giappichelli,1996. 45 See, amongst many others, S. Riondato, Un diritto penale detto ragionevole. Ricordando Giuseppe Bettiol, Padova, Cedam, 2006. 46 The Author has dealt with the preventionist risk in his E. Ambrosetti, Recidiva e recidivismo, Padova, Cedam,1997. 47 We recall here L. Ferrajoli, Diritto e ragione: teoria del garantismo penale, Roma, Laterza, 1989, p. 507. 48 On the topic, see F. Cavalla, La pena come riparazione, cit., passim, F. Zanuso, Giustizia riparativa e File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

324 In search of Mister Hyde

In conclusion, it seems fundamental to ask ourselves how to use these extraordinary discoveries49 and these valuable findings without provoking the wrath of Dionysus (the god of diversity and of the elsewhere) and therefore our unconscious madness50, effective metaphor of the dogmatic forgetfulness of the fact that what constitute us in relation is diversity. How can we use them to rethink responsibility, as a significant and constitutive dimension of sociality51, without falling in the jacobinic mistake of assuming to be able to realise a community of equals, simply ignoring, expelling and neutralising differences52? This is the challenge that lies ahead.

mediazione: un modello classico, in G. Mannozzi, F. Ruggieri (eds.), Pena, riparazione, riconciliazione, Insubria Press, Como 2007, pp. 35-59, F. Reggio, Giustizia Dialogica. Luci e ombre della Restorative Justice, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2010. 49 Bianchi maintains that neurosciences refer to such an innovative anthropology to impose a radical rethinking of the conceptual architecture of legal knowledge (A. Bianchi, Neuroscienze e diritto, cit., p. XI). In a different orientation, Di Giovine writes: «Neurosciences, at least in the abstract, seem to merely offer evidentiary support ad adiuvandum, leaving conceptual categories unchanged for the rest… Scientific evidence, which was looked at with favour with regard to their entrance in the criminal trial, due to their assumed simplifying capabilities, instead of obtaining more certainty, in some cases revealed itself as a paradoxical factor of complication and destabilization of the evidence» (O. Di Giovine, Chi ha paura delle neuroscienze?, in “Archivio penale”, cit., pp. 841-843, our transl.). 50 On this issue, I recall the suggestive considerations on this myth by F. Cavalla, Alle origini, cit., pp. 99-102. 51 The suggestion of a cautious approach of neurosciences to the universe of law may be made «in view of a construction of a penalty respectful of human dignity, included that of the culpable for serious crimes» (M. Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, cit., p. 856, our transl.). 52 We are called to be penally responsible for what we have presumably committed, but the response cannot be intended as an acceptation, a bending to social dictates, but instead as an availability to acknowledge the reasons of sociality; cf. F. Zanuso, A ciascuno il suo. Da Immanuel Kant a Norval Morris: oltre la visione moderna della retribuzione, Padova, Cedam, 2000, pp. 182-188. In order not to fall in the mistake of penal rationalism we should not bend to granted predominant values, but recognise the undeniable dimension of sociality; cf. F. Cavalla, La pena come riparazione, cit., pp. 88- 100. Thus, punishment should consist in limitation of otherwise protected goods in order to promote responsibility, which is the attitude to recognise in oneself the difference and the need for relation, for community. That is why punishment in its concept is reparatory, not only because of its purpose, but also in its modalities. It does not seem to me, therefore, that accepting such contributions of neurosciences and forensic genetics necessarily mandates to «invent something different from the actual criminal law» (S. Larizza, Sui limiti posti dal sistema penale, cit., p. 38, our transl.). Instead, it could be convenient to remind the wisdom of the ancient; cf. F. Zanuso, Les promesses de la justice réparatrice et la Sagesse du Tribunal de l’Héliée, in “Essais de Philosophie Pènale et de Criminologie”, vol. 8/2009, Paris, ed. Dalloz, 2009, pp. 331-357. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Alla ricerca di Mister Hyde. Alcune considerazioni sulla genetica forense e sul razionalismo penale

Francesca Zanuso

In questo mio intervento mi occuperò di un profilo puntuale della genetica forense, quello che riguarda la possibilità di accertare la c.d. disposizione al crimine. La composizione del DNA è il dato genetico che presiede alla nostra identità biologica e sotto questo profilo la genetica è un fenomenale strumento per “rintracciare” una “identità anagrafica”1. Mi riferisco ad una identità che sappiamo essere individuale ed irripetibile fin dal primo comporsi dei gameti maschile e femminile in quella straordinaria avventura umana che è la procreazione. Il DNA è unico e senza eguali e, pertanto, ben vengano ricerche ed accertamenti volti a individuare un particolare soggetto per chiamarlo, ad esempio, a rispondere del suo operato; non mi pare sorgano al riguardo particolari perplessità al di là di quelle suscitate dalla opportuna tutela della riservatezza dei dati c.d. sensibilissimi. In altre parole, laddove decidiamo di usare il linguaggio della genetica possiamo ravvisare una identità genetica che non correrà il rischio di indebite assolutizzazioni a condizione di ricordare che abbiamo utilizzato per individuarla un peculiare protocollo scientifico2. Tutto questo non mi pare, appunto, ponga particolari problemi filosofico-giuridici a meno di non presumere che l’identità biologica riduca a sé ogni altra dimensione dell’identità (ad esempio quella culturale, familiare, sociale, etc.). È indispensabile, pertanto, non cedere

1 Le varie dimensioni dell’identità e la loro rilevanza giuridica sono illustrate con dovizia in G. Pino, Il diritto all’identità personale. Interpretazione costituzionale e creatività giurisprudenziale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2003, in E. Stefanini, Dati genetici e diritti fondamentali. Profili di diritto comparato e europeo, Padova, Cedam, 2008 e nel recentissimo S. Amato, F. Cristofari, S. Raciti (a cura di), Biometria. I codici a barre del corpo, Torino, Giappichelli, 2013. 2 Giuseppe Sermonti ha accuratamente denunciato questo rischio, che si basa sulla diffusa quanto erronea convinzione secondo la quale la natura umana sarebbe raffigurabile interamente ed esclusivamente grazie all’avvenuta decifrazione del DNA; cfr. G. Sermonti, Dimenticare Darwin, Milano, Rusconi, 1999. Il suo richiamo non è certo superfluo poiché, di recente, uno dei più “mediatici” esponenti della scienza italiana, Umberto Veronesi, ha espresso convinzioni a dir poco sconcertanti. Secondo l’autorevole oncologo, ciò che va al di là del contingente è il DNA: «Il nostro DNA non muore e continua a vivere nei nostri figli e in tutte le generazioni future. Il mio DNA, cioè tutti i caratteri fisici e psichici, proviene intatto dagli umani di millenni fa. L’immortalità potrebbe semplicemente consistere nel fatto che noi trasmettiamo il nostro DNA. È una forma moderna della metemsomatosi e della metempsicosi, cioè della reincarnazione» (U. Veronesi, A. Elkann, Essere laico, Milano, Bompiani, 2008, p. 74). Questo apparente rinvio all’infinito, “depurato” dalla metafisica, è stato opportunamente denunciato in F. D’Agostino, Parole di Bioetica, Torino, Giappichelli, 2004, pp. 102-3. Sul punto cfr. altresì F. D’Agostino (a cura di), Darwinismo e problemi di giustizia, Milano, Giuffrè, 2008. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

326 Alla ricerca di Mister Hyde all’errore del riduzionismo genetico3, che ci porterebbe a pensare erroneamente la realtà come ad un insieme di dati fenomenicamente apprezzabili, manipolabili e, perciò, dominabili dalla volontà umana4. Si tratterebbe di un abbaglio: la “realtà” non può esser ridotta a quanto può essere posto ad oggetto del pensiero umano per vari ordini di motivi di cui il più immediato è il seguente: a questa “realtà” presunta sfuggirebbe proprio l’elemento più importante, ossia quel soggetto che, pensando, pretende di porre ad oggetto quanto lo circonda5. In altre parole, il reale non è da pensarsi come limitabile a quanto possiamo percepire nella dimensione spazio-temporale; “al di là” della stessa vi è tutto quanto non potrà mai essere preteso alla mercé della volontà umana, poiché è quanto concorre essenzialmente a co- stituirla6. Piuttosto, è da riconoscersi che proprio la vita soggettiva si manifesta come costante quanto inafferrabile testimonianza di questa dimensione fenomenica ed ultra-fenomenica, di cui custodisce il mistero. Queste considerazioni, pur approssimativamente accennate, mostrano qual è la concreta posta in gioco di fronte alle stimolanti proposte della genetica forense7. Il rischio è quello ricorrente dello scientismo8, che traluce nel momento in cui suppone di valere una peculiare applicazione delle scoperte genetiche al campo del diritto penale: mi riferisco alla pretesa di inferire dal corredo genetico una maggior o minor predisposizione alla devianza9. In questo

3 Da ricordarsi è che Gerald Edelman, premio Nobel e uno dei padri delle neuroscienze, auspica che quest’ultime portino a compimento il programma di Darwin rendendo anche il cervello e il pensiero un prodotto della evoluzione e togliendogli l’alone metafisico e misterioso (cfr.G.M. Edelman, Seconda natura. Scienza del cervello e conoscenza umana, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2007); al riguardo, cfr. A. Bianchi, Neuroscienze e diritto: spiegare di più per comprendere meglio, in A. Bianchi, G. Gullotta, G. Sartori, (a cura di) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, Milano, Giuffrè, 2009, pp. XVIII-XIX. 4 Al proposito cfr. F. Zanuso, La consulenza genetica tra realtà e immaginazione, in L. Palazzani (a cura di), Gen-ius. La consulenza tra genetica e diritto, Roma, Studium, 2011, pp. 35-43. 5 Sul tema cfr. F. Cavalla, All’origine del diritto al tramonto della legge, Napoli, Jovine, 2011, pp. 6-8. 6 Mauro Ronco, autore di un saggio veramente stimolante sul tema, lamenta la concezione necessariamente parcellizzata della neuroscienza che trascura la dimensione olistica del cervello per esaminarne come tanti oggetti alcune parti; cfr. M. Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, in “Archivio penale”, 3/2011, p. 868. Sul tema cfr. altresì Id., Gli sviluppi della neurobiologia e la libertà personale, in “Iustitia” 4/11, pp. 429-440. 7 È per me doveroso quanto gradito riconoscere un debito intellettuale al riguardo nei confronti di Stefano Fuselli di cui segnalo S. Fuselli, Oltre i dualismi: un itinerario tra diritto, neuroscienze e filosofia, in “Diritto & Questioni Pubbliche”, 13/2013, pp. 61-141. 8 Non posso rinunciare a riportare questa provocatoria affermazione: «Astrologi, maghi, medici, matematici hanno sempre dato il loro contributo conoscitivo e orientato la decisione del giudice sul presupposto dell’infallibilità del loro sapere» (L. de Cataldo Neuburger, Scienza e processo penale: linee guida per l’acquisizione della prova scientifica, Padova, Cedam, 2010, p. XII-XIII). Sui rapporti fra scienza e diritto rinvio all’ormai classico S. Jasanoff, La scienza davanti ai giudici, Milano, Giuffrè, 2001, a S. Fuselli, Apparenze. Accertamento giudiziale e prova scientifica, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2008 e a M.C. Tallacchini, Diritto e scienza, in Luoghi della Filosofia del diritto. Idee strumenti mutamenti (a cura di B. Montanari), Torino, Giappichelli, 2012, pp. 145-169. 9 In un bel saggio Messina afferma che le neuroscienze sono la più raffinata evoluzione della psicologia cognitiva e che «alla ricerca e alla descrizione delle più significative e diffuse illusioni cognitive che condizionano le scelte e il comportamento individuale secondo la prospettiva della psicologia sociale, le neuroscienze sostituiscono un obiettivo ben più arduo ed ambizioso, quale quello di riuscire a controllare e a prevedere i processi mentali attraverso la conoscenza dei loro correlativi fisiologici e biologici» (G. Messina, Le neuroscienze nel processo: profili problematici e orizzonti prospettici di un nuovo File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 327 caso non ci si limita a dire che geneticamente quell’individuo è quell’irripetibile soggetto in base alla sua irripetibile sequenza genetica; si presume, piuttosto, di poter affermare che, in virtù di quella irripetibile sequenza genetica, quel soggetto manifesta una sorta di debolezza che lo inclina al delitto o, almeno, non lo rende abbastanza resistente alla tentazione di impostare in modo violento le relazioni intersoggettive. Non si utilizzerebbe quindi la genetica per chiamare a rispondere un soggetto delle sue azioni ma si ipotizzerebbe piuttosto che la genetica stessa sia in grado di offrire una spiegazione più o meno esaustiva allo stesso agire10. È qui in gioco, in altre parole, la pretesa di individuare una sorta di “gene del male” per difendersene11. Questo tema è particolarmente interessante per la filosofia del diritto penale poiché concerne il concetto di libero arbitrio, di responsabilità, di rimproverabilità12 e, quindi, tocca al cuore la concezione tradizionale della colpevolezza come nesso fra l’azione e la volontà e l’intenzione dell’agente e il significato stesso della sanzione penale13. Il rischio di un risalente determinismo etiologico e di una conseguente “etichettatura” della devianza (labelling theory)

confronto fra scienza e diritto, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen”, 1/2010, p. 347). Ancor più decisamente critico risulta Lorusso nel momento in cui parla di «fascinazioni provenienti dall’ipervalutazione del sapere tecnico-scientifico applicato al processo penale» (S. Lorusso, Il contributo degli esperti alla formazione del convincimento giudiziale, in “Archivio penale”, 3/2011, p. 817). 10 Sul tema cfr. Cfr. P. Sommaggio, Umano post-umano. I rischi di un uso ideologico della genetica, in “Diritto e Questioni Pubbliche”, 8/2008, cit., p. 237 ss. Completo e ben articolato è altresì il collettaneo L. Palazzani ( a cura di), Il diritto nelle neuroscienze: non siamo i nostri cervelli, Torino, Giappichelli, 2013. 11 La locuzione è utilizzata in E. Musumeci, Cesare Lombroso e le neuroscienze: un parricidio mancato. Devianza, libero arbitrio, imputabilità tra antiche chimere ed inediti scenari, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2012, p. 102. Sull’ingenuità di questa presunzione cfr. S. Bauzon, De la disposition génétique au crime, in L. Picotti, F. Zanuso (a cura di), L’antropologia criminale di Cesare Lombroso: dall’Ottocento al dibattito filosofico-penale contemporaneo, Napoli, ESI, 2011, pp. 61-67. 12 Sul tema volga quanto opportunamente precisa Ronco: «La scienza neurobiologica, a tutt’oggi, non ha provato sperimentalmente, secondo criteri obbiettivabili e verificabili, né l’esistenza né l’inesistenza della libertà del volere. Neppure potrebbe farlo… poiché il tema è risolvibile soltanto sul piano metafisico che considera l’uomo come un tutto unitario» (M. Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, cit., p. 856). Per un primo orientamento sul rapporto fra la libertà e la responsabilità in ambito giuridico cfr. B. Montanari, Libertà, responsabilità, legge, in Luoghi della Filosofia del diritto, cit., pp.171-207. 13 Nei paesi di lingua inglese il tema è centrale da più di un decennio; a mero titolo d’esempio cfr. A. Evansburg, But your Honor, it’s in his genes. The case for genetic impairments as grounds for a downward departure under the federal sentencing guidelines, in “American Criminal Law Review”, 2001, pp.1565- 1566; M. Jones, Overcoming the myth of free will in criminal law: the true impact of the genetic revolution, “Duke Law Journal”, 2002, pp. 1031-1035; D. Wasserman, Is there value in identifying individual genetic predisposition to violence, in “Journal of law, Medecine and Ethics”, 2004, pp. 24-33; O. R. Goodenough, K. Prehn, A neuroscientific approach to normative judgement in law and justice, in Law and the brain, “Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London” B, 2004, 359, pp. 1709-26; S. J. Morse, New neuroscience, old problems, in B. Garland (ed.), Neuroscience and the law: brain, mind, and the scales of justice, Dana, New York, 2004, pp. 157-98; Id., Moral and legal responsibility and the new neuroscience, in J. Illes, Neuroethics: Defining the Issues in Theory, Practice and Policy, New York, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 33-50; M. Rajadhyaksha, Condemned by birth: the Implications of Genetics for the Theories of Crime and Punishment, in “Socio-Legal Revue”, 85/2006, pp. 85-103. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

328 Alla ricerca di Mister Hyde

è, in effetti, pur sempre in agguato e pertanto una riflessione spregiudicata è improcrastina- bile14. È irrinunciabile soprattutto oggi poiché la nostra società, ancor più che nel passato, è tentata da una sorta di stigmatizzazione genetica che, confida, sarà in grado di porla al riparo dal male, facendo cessare un incalzante allarme sociale. Ovviamente, gran parte di queste considerazioni sono stimolate dalla notizia della avvenuta applicazione anche nei tribunali italiani, in sentenze di vario grado, dei risultati della genetica molecolare e delle c.d. neuroscienze ai fini di meglio valutare la colpevolezza dell’imputato. Mi riferisco, a titolo di esempio, a due sentenze che molto clamore hanno suscitato nell’opinione pubblica, grazie alla ampia divulgazione compiuta dai mass media oltre che alle riflessioni presenti in numerose riviste scientifiche: la sentenza della Corte di Assise di Appello di Trieste ( n.5 del 18.09.2009) e la sentenza del GIP di Como sul caso Albertani (25.5.2011). Non posso per l’economia di questo scritto entrare nel merito, sicura che altri contributi in questo volume ben illustreranno i presupposti e le conseguenze di queste perizie forensi. Quello che qui mi preme evidenziare è il rischio della degenerazione scientistica dei dati utilizzati per tali perizie che hanno accertato la vulnerabilità genetica al delitto. Ovviamente, il pericolo è quello di intendere un dato scientifico, per sua natura ipotetico e convenzionale e frutto di una peculiare lettura della realtà a fini operativi, come oggettivo, neutrale, presente di fronte alla nostra ragione come un elemento indubbio e indubitabile di cui solo si può prendere contezza, consapevolezza15. Conoscerlo sarebbe quindi individuarlo, rispecchiarlo

14 Larizza in un recente saggio si chiede se sia possibile prevenire il delitto, imponendo un trattamento preventivo ai portatori di anomalie senza ledere i diritti fondamentali delle persone (cfr. S. Larizza, Sui limiti posti dal sistema penale alle ricezione degli esiti conoscitivi della neuroimaging, in M.G. Ruberto, C. Barbieri, Il futuro tra noi. Aspetti etici, giuridici e medico-legali della neuroetica, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2011, p. 34). Denuncia quindi il riproporsi di una ingenua eziologia criminale (op. ult. cit., p. 35). In effetti, la ricaduta nella logica deterministica del trattamento è prevedibile; sul tema cfr. a titolo di mero orientamento J. Greene, J.Cohen, For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything, in Law and the brain, cit., pp. 1775-85 e, in ambito italiano, in G. Gulotta, La responsabilità penale nell’era delle neuroscienza, in A. Bianchi, Neuroscienze e diritto, cit., p. 8. Tra le pubblicazioni italiane si segnala A. Forza, Neuroscienze e diritto, “Rivista Penale”, 3/2009, pp. 247-255. 15 È opportuno sottolineare al riguardo la peculiarità dei temi trattati dalle neuroscienze e dalla neuroetica che hanno a che fare con la nostra coscienza, con il nostro senso di sé, pretendendo di porlo ad oggetto della riflessione. Sul tema cfr. quanto afferma Salvatore Amato:« La scienza non può illudersi di limitarsi a descrivere... ma si trova a proporre (o a demolire) una certa immagine dell’uomo e del mondo che incide profondamente sui costumi, condizionando regole di comportamento e attese sociali» [S. Amato, Biopolitica, biodiritto e biotecnologie, in L. Palazzani (a cura di), Nuove biotecnologie, biodiritto e trasformazioni della soggettività, Roma, Studium, 2007, cit., p. 27]. Sul tema interessanti riflessioni sono contenute in A. Farano, Percorsi della responsabilità: le neuroscienze cambiano tutto o niente? , in “i-lex”, 18, 2013, pp.189-200. La studiosa distingue fra concetto di uomo come idem e come ipse, riprendendolo da Ricoeur e Romano, e conclude il suo breve saggio affermando:« Il discorso delle neuroscienze afferisce all’uomo inteso come idem, dunque a ciò che nell’uomo non muta, il suo corpo, ma anche la sua indole, le predisposizioni genetiche, laddove la responsabilità rileva dell’identità intesa come ipseità, cioè quella permanenza di sé che tiene insieme in una cornice narrativa coerente le azioni passate, di cui ci riconosciamo autori, e le azioni future verso le quali ci impegniamo. La neuroscienza allora cambia tutto e niente, a patto di restituirla alla sua funzione descrittiva, preservando così una nozione di responsabilità radicata nell’ipseità» (op. ult. cit., p. 199). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 329 come oggetto del proprio sapere; servirsene a fini di tutela della società sarebbe necessario e irrinunciabile a fini giuridici, politici ma anche etici. In altre parole, la scoperta scientifica che un allele a bassa attività per il gene MAOA (MAOA-L) renderebbe inclini all’aggressività in presenza di provocazioni o di manifestazioni di esclusione sociale potrebbe generare due presunzioni. In base alla prima, si potrebbe essere indotti a ritenere che questo dato fornisca la base per una perfetta (anche se magari iniziale dal punto di vista quantitativo!) comprensione del funzionamento della “mente criminale”; in base alla seconda, si potrebbe essere tentati di ritenere che tale genetica alterata non configuri solo una vulnerabilità di fronte alla tentazione criminale ma caratterizzi soggetti “nati per uccidere”. Non uso questo termine a fini provocatori per risvegliare l’attenzione del lettore. Lo utilizzo perché è stato ampiamente adoperato dalla stampa italiana dopo la sentenza Albertani16. Infatti, non mi pare dubbio che sia gli scienziati forensi sia la dottrina penalistica abbiano preso con la dovuta prudenza e sapienza quanto la scienza sembra offrire su di un piatto d’argento per scoprire una volta per tutte il sembiante del delitto… e difendercene! Penso a numerose interviste tempestivamente rilasciate dai due scienziati che hanno firmato la perizia richiamata dalla sentenza di Trieste17 e ad altri contributi scientifici su di essa apparsi18;

16 A titolo d’esempio segnalo un elenco di titoli apparsi in seguito alla sentenza Albertani: Cirimido, uccise la sorella: alterati i suoi geni (“La Provincia di Como”, 29.8.2011), Quella donna uccise per colpa dei geni (“Corriere della Sera”, 30.8.2011), Born to kill: la colpa è nei geni (“Insubria”, 30.8.2011), Italian court reduces murder sentence based on neuroimaging data (“Newsblog”, 1.9.2011 in www.natur.com), Nata per uccidere, è colpa dei geni (“Giustizia giusta”, 1.9.2011). 17 Giuseppe Sartori ha affermato in una intervista rilasciata alla rivista elettronica “Brain Factor”: «La sentenza riconosce efficacia probatoria alle neuroscienze cognitive e molecolari segnalando come l’utilizzo di queste tecniche aumenti la certezza che ci si trovi di fronte ad una vera infermità mentale. La prova è cioè più forte» (2/11/2009 www.brainfactor.it). In altre parole, la genetica offrirebbe un considerevole sostegno alle tradizionali valutazioni neuro-psichiatriche rafforzandone la pretesa oggettività delle conclusioni. Tuttavia, questa “oggettività” non è ritenuta da Petrini, in una intervista sullo stesso sito, immediatamente probante; lo scienziato puntualizza, infatti, che «allo stato attuale delle conoscenze non esiste alcuna variante genetica che sia stata messa in relazione causale con il comportamento aggressivo antisociale, cioè non esiste alcuna variante genetica che determini in maniera assoluta la presenza di un certo comportamento» (17/11/2009 www.brainfactor.it). 18 Il consapevole scienziato può, quindi, riconoscere la mera presenza di un rischio statisticamente maggiore. Fra i molti contributi al proposito segnalo A. Lavazza, L. Sammicheli, Il delitto nel cervello. La mente fra scienza e diritto, Torino, Codice edizioni, 2012, nel quale gli studiosi puntualizzano con chiarezza e decisione la natura non causativa delle varianti genetiche a cui può essere attribuito solo il potere di creare una sorta di vulnerabilità genetica cfr. pp. 84-85. Analogamente si erano espressi due apprezzati ricercatori: «I recenti studi di brain-imaging, anche se indicano chiaramente una base neurale per certi comportamenti aggressivi, non devono essere intesi in chiave deterministica. Il limite delle brain-imaging non è quello di ammettere che i risultati disponibili sono privi di significato, ma quello che è necessario procedere ad ulteriori ricerche» (P. Pietrini, V. Bambini, Homo ferox: the contribution of functional brain studies to understanding the neural bases of aggressive and criminal behaviour, in “International Journal of Law and Psychiatry”, 32, 2009, pp. 259-265) pubblicato anche in italiano in A. Bianchi, G. Gulotta, G. Sartori (a cura di), Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, Milano, Giuffrè, 2009, pp.41-63. Analogamente cfr. S. Pellegrini, Il ruolo dei fattori genetici nella modulazione del comportamento: le nuove acquisizioni della biologia molecolare genetica, in A. Bianchi, G. Gullotta, G. Sartori, (a cura di) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, cit., p. 79. Adeguata consapevolezza caratterizza anche chi afferma, riferendosi ai dati rilevati:« L’immagine che ne deriva non deve essere interpretata File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

330 Alla ricerca di Mister Hyde segnalo altresì alcuni equilibrati contributi dedicati a commentare sotto il profilo penalistico la sentenza di Como19. In questo modo parrebbe scongiurato il pericolo della caduta nel razionalismo penale, ossia in quella sorta di “malattia morale” annidata nella storia culturale dell’Occidente, che si manifesta nella pretesa da parte della ragione di disporre di premesse prime, certe ed evidenti (ma in realtà sottratte alla dimostrazione) da cui derivare in modo coerentemente cogente verità puntuali e norme giuridiche indiscutibilmente valide20. Il razionalismo inoltre si accompagna, di sovente, allo scientismo, causato da una caduta della tensione problematica, che porta ad assolutizzare i risultati scientifici, dimenticandone la dimensione ipotetica e convenzionale21. come una fotografia di quello che avviene in quel determinato momento, bensì come il frutto di una elaborazione statistica dei dati, perché l’attività metabolica di un tessuto è fortemente variabile» (M. G. Ruberto, G. Ferrari, Neuroetica: una scienza nuova, in M. G. Ruberto, C. Barbieri, Il futuro tra noi, cit., p. 81). Tuttavia Sartori, scrivendo con Sammicheli, afferma: «La peculiarità della prova neuroscientifica.. sta nella maggiore dimostrabilità ed evidenziabilità (a livello biologico) dello stato di patologico funzionamento di funzioni mentali giuridicamente rilevanti» [L. Sammicheli, G. Sartori, Neuroscienze giuridiche: i diversi livelli di interazione fra diritto e neuroscienze, in A. Bianchi, G. Gullotta, G. Sartori, (a cura di) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, cit., p. 25]. Tutto questo rassicurerebbe se non si esponesse poi il fine delle ricerche e degli esperimenti: «Le neuroscienze criminologiche hanno come obiettivo quello di disegnare una geografia neuro-comportamentale del soggetto criminale» (op. ult. cit., p. 28). 19 Segnalo a titolo d’esempio M. T. Collica, Il riconoscimento del ruolo delle neuroscienze nel giudizio di imputabilità, in “Diritto penale contemporaneo”, 1/2012, pp. 1-26 e F. Casasole, Neuroscienze, genetica comportamentale e processo penale, in “Diritto penale e processo”, 1/2012, pp. 110-117. Altri essenziali strumenti per una comprensione delle riflessioni penalistiche su questo tema sono: A. Forza, Neuroscienze e diritto, in “Rivista penale”, 3/2009, pp. 247-255; A. Colorio, Diritto e cervello: verso le nuove frontiere del neurodiritto, in “I-Lex Scienze Giuridiche, Scienze Cognitive e Intelligenza artificiale” (on-line review), 2010; M. De Caro, M. Marraffa, Libertà, responsabilità e retributivismo, in “Sistemi intelligenti”, 2/2010, pp. 357-374; L. Capraro, V. Cuzzocrea, E. Picozza, D. Terracina (a cura di), Neurodiritto. Un’introduzione, Torino, Giappichelli Editore, 2011; F. Macioce, Le neuroscienze. Vecchie domande e nuove sfide per il diritto, in “Archivio giuridico Filippo Serafini”, 1/2012, pp. 25- 59; A. Nisco, Il confronto tra neuroscienze e diritto penale sulla libertà di volere, in “Diritto penale e processo”, 4/2012, pp. 499-508; F. G. Pizzetti, Neuroscienze forensi e diritti fondamentali: spunti costituzionali, Torino, Giappichelli, 2012; A. Santosuosso, Neuroscienze e diritto: un quadro delle opportunità, in “Rivista italiana di medicina legale”, 1/2012, pp. 83-103. 20 Sul razionalismo come malattia mortale della modernità occidentale cfr. F. Cavalla, La pena come riparazione. Oltre la concezione liberale dello stato: per una teoria radicale della pena, in F. Zanuso, S. Fuselli (a cura di), Ripensare la pena. Teorie e problemi nella riflessione moderna, Padova, Cedam, 2004, p. 30. 21 In questo la convinzione popolare è suffragata anche da una ingenua concezione della verificabilità empirica, ritenuta in grado di dimostrare esaustivamente la validità delle ipotesi adottate. Sul punto vale la tradizionale affermazione critica di due neo-positivisti logici per eccellenza:« Le ipotesi si provano facendo ricorso ai dati empirici, ai cosiddetti fatti; ma noi scegliamo, analizziamo ed interpretiamo i dati empirici in base ai principi assunti» (M. R. Cohen, E. Nagel, Introducion to Logic and Scientific Method, 1934, p. 596). Al riguardo opportunamente Mauro Ronco sottolinea: «La prova scientifica, presentata talora come oggettivamente inoppugnabile, è, più ancora della prova tradizionale, estremamente soggettiva nella sua origine, nella sua elaborazione e nella sua interpretazione, perché dipende quant’altra mai dalla precisione e dalla completezza con cui il perito osserva gli innumerevoli e spesso contraddittori elementi di fatto, nonché dal rigore metodologico e dall’oggettività con cui li elabora e li interpreta» (M. Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, cit., p. 858). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 331

In ambito penalistico, questo errore si è tradotto storicamente in una serie di pericolose pretese quali quella di distinguere in modo esauriente l’uomo in-nocente dall’a-normale, di proteggere di conseguenza la società da quest’ultimo, rafforzando così i valori dominanti e giungendo ad una non voluta ma radicata concezione statualistica del diritto penale22. Come dicevo, ritengo con fondate ragioni che la dottrina non sia caduta in questo errore. E allora? Tutto a posto? Temo di no! Infatti, se scienziati e penalisti hanno “gettato acqua sul fuoco”, pur con secchi diversi e di diversa capienza, i mass media hanno bombardato l’opinione pubblica con articoli roboanti e risonanti, generando la convinzione che l’applicazione della genetica e delle neuroscienze al processo penale sia ormai cosa fatta, priva di risvolti negativi. Ma troppo spesso i mass media rendono pubblico ciò che il pubblico si attende da loro e allora un interrogativo inquietante si è insinuato in me: perché il pubblico vuole questo? Mi pare si possa rispondere affermando che l’opinione pubblica è stata costantemente affascinata da ogni tentativo di spiegare, ricorrendo ad un criterio presunto oggettivo, la per- sonalità del deviante, la genesi del delitto nella sua origine e nella sua probabile evoluzione. Pensiamo, a titolo di illustre esempio, al considerevole successo goduto all’inizio del secolo scorso dagli studi del Lombroso. Allora, non diversamente da quanto oggi accade, si è ma- nifestata la ricorrente illusione razionalistica di poter definire e, quindi, confinare il male in una ben individuabile categoria di soggetti, i c.d. anormali23; questa illusione si accompagna all’ingenua pretesa di distinguere nettamente questi ultimi dalla comunità dei c.d. innocenti, di coloro che paiono atti a ben integrarsi nel tessuto sociale24. Tale tendenza sociale, cullata dal razionalismo dogmatico, sorge dalla paura che mi pare di duplice natura e, quindi, da distinguersi. In primo luogo, il manifestarsi del Male, ad esempio nell’efferatezza di un delitto, ci inquieta. Vorrei dire che inquieta parimenti lo studioso e l’uomo comune. Ne siamo spaventati, ovviamente, poiché temiamo per la nostra stessa incolumità. Ma non solo! Il timore è accompagnato da una sottile angoscia che “sgorga”, sgradita e per questo contrastata, dalla coscienza della possibilità che il germe del male possa essere annidato in tutti noi, più o meno profondamente, nella carne o nello spirito25. Un capolavoro della letteratura ottocentesca ci è di monito. Mi riferisco al racconto di Robert Louis Stevenson, Il dottor Jekyll e Mister Hyde e soprattutto alla tesi di fondo dello scritto, che vuol essere un apologo della natura umana. Il moralista, il custode feroce della sua immagine pubblica e della rispettabilità borghese, si trasforma prima intenzionalmente e, poi, progressivamente, incolpevolmente e inconsapevolmente nel suo opposto, nel mostro

22 F. Cavalla, La pena come riparazione, cit., pp. 33-36. 23 Il tema è ampiamente trattato in D. Velo Dalbrenta, La scienza inquieta. Saggio sull’antropologia criminale di Cesare Lombroso, Cedam, Padova, 2004; dello stesso autore cfr. Id., Lombroso, in I. Birocchi, E. Cortese, A. Mattone, M. N. Miletti (a cura di), Dizionario Biografico dei Giuristi Italiani (XII-XX secolo), II, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013, pp.1189-1192. 24 D’altro canto gli stessi scienziati che pur negano il rischio di una deriva neuro-riduzionistica indulgono in qualche pericoloso cedimento; a titolo d’esempio intitolano un paragrafo “Il cervello criminale: differenze morfologiche e funzionali tra soggetti sani e criminali” P. Pietrini, V. Bambini, Homo ferox: il contributo delle neuroscienze alla comprensione dei comportamenti aggressivi e criminali, in A. Bianchi, G. Gullotta, G. Sartori, (a cura di) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, Milano, Giuffrè, 2009, p. 54. 25 L’alternativa non è pleonastica ma intenzionale, riferita alle varie tesi neuro-scientifiche. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

332 Alla ricerca di Mister Hyde nascosto, laido e repellente in cui ogni malvagità si manifesta26. Eppure, la scissione del doppio – notate bene! all’inizio volontariamente e tenacemente programmata dal sapere scientifico dell’homo faber dottor Jekyll- si radica nell’immaginario collettivo poiché paventiamo Mister Hyde ma siamo, purtroppo, consapevoli che in ogni dottor Jekyll alberga, in modo più o meno durevolmente nascosto, un potenziale deviante. Non a caso, il mostro evoca nel suo nome quanto deve essere nascosto poiché oscuro (to hide); dal suo canto, lo scienziato, l’uomo più rispettabile e benemerito per i suoi tempi, porta nel suo nome una assonanza con il più feroce dei crimini (to kill). Non possiamo, dunque, esser sorpresi dal fatto che fin dall’antichità l’uomo abbia cercato di “esorcizzare” questo male, di cui si teme la connaturalità, confinandolo all’interno di schemi precisi, definibili e, quindi, prevedibili. In altre parole, abbiamo sempre cercato di difenderci dal male che è fuori di noi, ma che può anche essere in noi. Per difendercene dobbiamo conoscerlo e quindi, secondo la mentalità moderna, renderlo un dato oggettivo e perciò controllabile: l’altro ieri questo dato era ravvisato in una particolare morfologia, studiata dalla fisiognomica, ieri è stato identificato nella presenza della fossetta occipitale o di una difformità cromosomica27. Oggi, l’eterna tentazione di “confinare” il male, definendolo con una accurata e verificabile descrizione, è più viva che mai e si ammanta ancora una volta delle vesti della scientificità; ricorre, per l’esattezza, alle vesti più à la page, ossia a quelle offerte dalle neuroscienze e dalla genetica molecolare. Confida nella possibilità di entrare, in modo indolore nelle pieghe del cervello e lì, nella loro regolarità e nella loro connessione, poter rintracciare l’origine della vo- lontà28 o, meglio, del deficit del sorgere del divieto che impedisce alla volontà di manifestarsi nella sua troppo frequente anti-socialità29. Ne deriva la tentazione di spiegare, grazie all’indagine sui neuroni cerebrali e alla schedatura genetica, l’inclinazione al delitto o, almeno, l’incapacità di conformarsi alla regolarità sociale30. In verità, come già dicevo, la più attenta dottrina ritiene che alcune alterazioni della morfologia e, quindi, del funzionamento della regione frontale e delle strutture da essa interessate (che si presumono deputate a governare la modulazione del comportamento aggressivo e anti-sociale) al pari delle alterazioni della composizione genetica possano costituire fattori non strettamente necessitanti ma sicuramente fortemente preminenti nel determinare con

26 Per una ricostruzione della vicenda narrata da Stevenson e dei suoi legami con la nascente psicanalisi cfr. M. Trevi, Introduzione a R. L. Stevenson, Il dottor Jekyll e Mr. Hyde, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1991, pp. 5-16. 27 Sul tema cfr. F. Zanuso, L’emergente attualità di Lombroso, in L. Picotti, F. Zanuso (a cura di), L’antropologia criminale, cit., pp. 5-9. La Di Giovine sottolinea come l’idea che la mente sia il cervello e che la coscienza abbia natura biologica ricorda le regole dell’evoluzionismo darwiniano ed evoca “spettri” di riduzionismo biologico che richiamano età lombrosiana” cfr. O. Di Giovine, Chi ha paura delle neuroscienze? , in “Archivio penale”, 3/2011, pp. 838-840. 28 A mero titolo d’esempio di questi studi che aderiscono ad una visione deterministica e neurofisiologica dell’agire umano segnalo D. Dennet, L’evoluzione della libertà, Milano, Cortina, 2004; per le ricadute in ambito giuridico cfr. S. Morse, Addiction, Genetics and Criminale Responsibility, in Aa.Vv., Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 69, 2006, p. 165 ss. 29 Al riguardo rinvio agli studi contenuti in M.Gazzaniga, La mente etica, Torino, Codice, 2006. 30 Non a caso una delle principali sfide della neuroetica è costituita dalla riflessione sul concetto di normalità; cfr. M. G. Ruberto, G. Ferrari, Neuroetica: una scienza nuova, cit., p. 114. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 333 buon tasso di probabilità il comportamento criminale deviante31. Ma l’opinione pubblica sorvola, ben guidata da abili giornalisti, sulla dimensione della probabilità trasformandola illusoriamente in necessità32. Questo accade per una ulteriore dimensione della paura, che mi pare interessi veramente da vicino la politica criminale33. Oggi, ben più che ieri e l’altro ieri, temiamo il diverso che è in noi ma anche che è vicino a noi34. Nella nostra società multirazziale e multiculturale, il diverso ci allarma. Soprattutto paventiamo che il diverso si trasformi nell’avverso. Vi sono ovviamente ragioni psicologiche e sociologiche che possono spiegare questo ti- more35. Ma ve ne è una di carattere radicalmente culturale su cui la filosofia del diritto qualcosa di importante ha da dire. L’Occidente, nutrito di spirito giacobino e incurante della lezione dialettica della classici- tà, è indotto a pensare che il diverso sia l’avverso e che l’avverso sia necessariamente l’alieno, ossia colui che è incomprensibile, colui con il quale non vi può essere né condivisione, né comunicazione. La mentalità più diffusa teme il diverso, l’opposto poiché è stata moderna- mente educata a “congelare” la conflittualità, a negarne l’aspetto costitutivo dell’ex-sistenza36. Nel contempo, il multiculturalismo avanza in una società relativista, stanca, sfibrata, sfiduciata, nella quale non pare più aver senso il chieder ragioni, il dare ragioni37. Come fondare, allora, l’ottica della responsabilità? Come chiedere a qualcuno di rispondere dei suoi gesti? Come accertare la stessa responsabilità di un crimine? È ovviamente più allettante pensare che vi sia una nuova, irrinunciabile scoperta che ci mostri un “sembiante del delitto”38, in grado di erigere il confine: di qua i buoni, di là i malvagi. In altre parole, una società che non può capire il diverso, soprattutto quando si mostra avverso, poiché non sa chiamare a rispondere accoglie di buon grado la possibilità di “confinare” il male, il pericolo in un ben definito dato, ad esempio in un allele difettoso.

31 Analoghe tesi, centrate però sul ruolo del c.d. marcatore somatico, sono contenute nell’ormai classico A. Damasio, L’errore di Cartesio, Milano, Adelphi, 1995, pp. 245-6. 32 Si parla di “flagello dell’esposizione mediatica” inA. Bianchi, Psicodiagnostica forense: utilità e limiti, in A. Bianchi, G. Gullotta, G. Sartori, (a cura di) Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, cit., p. 91. Questa deriva dei mass-media è stata immediatamente denunciata; a mero titolo d’esempio posso segnalare le dichiarazioni contenute in E. Feresin, BadLighter sentence for murderer with bad genes, in “Naturenews” (30.10.2009). 33 Su questo funzionale rapporto fra scienze empiriche e diritto penale cfr. G. Forti, L’immane concretezza, Metamorfosi del crimine e controllo penale, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2000. 34 Cfr. sul tema F. Bilancia, F.M. Di Sciullo, F. Rimoli (a cura di), Paura dell’Altro. Identità occidentale e cittadinanza, Roma, Carocci, 2008. 35 Sul tema cfr. I. Merzagora Betsos, Colpevoli si nasce? Criminologia, determinismo, neuroscienze, Milano, Cortina, 2012. 36 Sul tema cfr. F. Zanuso, Conflitto e controllo sociale nel pensiero giuridico-politico della modernità, Padova, Cleup, 1993, p. 19. 37 Cfr. sul tema i vari saggi dedicati al tema del multiculturalismo e delle sue ricadute in ambito giuridico pubblicati in “Ragion Pratica” 1/2013; segnalo in particolare F. Basile, Il diritto penale nelle società multiculturali: i reati culturalmente motivati, in “Ragion Pratica”, 1/2013, pp. 9-48; F. Santoni De Sio, Responsabilità fondamentale e differenze culturali, in “Ragion Pratica”, 1/2013, pp. 49-70; B. Pastore, Reati culturalmente motivati e valutazione probatoria, in “Ragion Pratica”, 1/2013, pp. 97- 105. 38 Sul tema cfr. D. Velo Dal Brenta, La scienza inquieta, cit., p. 95 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

334 Alla ricerca di Mister Hyde

Tuttavia, questa tendenza è, mi sia consentito il bisticcio di parole, estremamente pericolosa, poiché porta ad una deriva prevenzionistica. In effetti, se posso prevedere il compimento del male con una efficace mappatura genetica, perché non dovrei prevenirlo39? Il vecchio sogno positivistico mai realizzatosi (alla fine tutti hanno dovuto ammettere di non disporre di un criterio indubitabile per decretare l’inclinazione al delitto prima del suo stesso manifestarsi in un atto criminale40) oggi potrebbe essere facilitato da apparenti morbidi cuscini! Come difendersi da tutto questo fermento dell’opinione pubblica che potrebbe portare ad un esito anti-garantistico, laddove ad esempio venga richiesto che l’utilizzo delle indagini genetiche non sia adoperato solo in bonam partem ma altresì in malam partem41? Non solo, quindi, per punire più adeguatamente ma, soprattutto, per prevenire più efficacemente il reato? Ci si può difendere, innanzitutto, richiamandosi con fermezza alla solida tradizione pata- vina che riallacciandosi al magistero di Giuseppe Bettiol42 ed ora di Mauro Ronco43, di Silvio Riondato44, di Enrico Ambrosetti45 e dei loro allievi non cessa di metterci in guardia nei confronti delle tentazioni special-prevenzionistiche e di ricordarci la dimensione personalistica del diritto penale. Inoltre, un valido presidio può essere offerto da una ulteriore consapevolezza: quella del riconoscimento della natura bi-fronte del diritto penale che deve difendere la società dal reato ma, contemporaneamente, non può rinunciare a difendere il reo dalla “ragione fattasi”46. A tal fine, il tema dell’accertamento della colpevolezza e della responsabilità individuale risulta fondamentale per promuovere una penalità che favorisca la riparazione della frattura creatasi con il reato e, soprattutto, la riconciliazione del tessuto sociale, capace di rispondere ma altresì di chiedere risposte, in una dimensione costitutivamente dialogica47.

39 Sul tema cfr. O. Di Giovine, La sanzione penale nella prospettiva delle neuroscienze, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 2/2013, pp. 626-642. 40 Cfr. F. Cavalla, La pena come problema. Il superamento della concezione razionalistica della difesa sociale, Padova, Cedam, 1979, pp. 66-67. 41 Fino ad oggi sembra che la prova neuroscientifica venga utilizzata solo in chiave mitigatrice della responsabilità ma si deve temere anche un suo utilizzo in malam partem a fini preventivi; così facendo “la tanto giustamente aborrita categoria del diritto penale di autore, cacciata dalla porta, rientrerebbe dalla finestra” M.( Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, cit., p. 861). 42 Del Maestro padovano sarebbe da ricordarsi l’intera produzione, orientata costantemente alla difesa del personalismo retribuzionistico contro ogni deriva prevenzionistica; cfr. a titolo d’esempio G. Bettiol, Scritti giuridici (1966-1980), Padova, Cedam, 1980. 43 Oltre agli scritti già ricordati, puntualmente concernenti il nostro tema, cfr. M. Ronco, Il problema della pena. Alcuni profili relativi allo sviluppo della riflessione sulla pena, Torino, Giappichelli, 1996. 44 Segnalo fra i tanti S. Riondato, Un diritto penale detto ragionevole. Ricordando Giuseppe Bettiol, Padova, Cedam, 2006. 45 Il rischio prevenzionistico è stato affrontato inE. Ambrosetti, Recidiva e recidivismo, Padova, Cedam, 1997. 46 Il richiamo è a L. Ferrajoli, Diritto e ragione: teoria del garantismo penale, Roma, Laterza, 1989, p. 507. 47 Sul tema rinvio a F. Cavalla, La pena come riparazione, cit., passim, a F. Zanuso, Giustizia riparativa e mediazione: un modello classico, in G. Mannozzi, F. Ruggieri (a cura di), Pena, riparazione, riconciliazione, Como, Insubria Press, 2007, pp. 35-59; F. Reggio, Giustizia Dialogica. Luci e ombre della Restorative Justice, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2010. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Zanuso 335

Concludendo, mi pare fondamentale chiedersi come utilizzare queste straordinarie sco- perte48e questi pregevoli accertamenti senza provocare le ire di Dioniso (il dio della diversità, dell’altrove) e quindi la nostra inconsapevole pazzia49, efficace metafora della dogmatica di- menticanza che quanto ci costituisce in relazione è la diversità. Come utilizzarle per ripensare la responsabilità, come significativa e costitutiva dimensione della socialità50, senza cadere nell’errore giacobino di pretendere di realizzare una comunità di uguali, semplicemente igno- rando, espellendo, neutralizzando le differenze51? Questa è la sfida che ci viene proposta.

48 Bianchi sostiene che le neuroscienze rinviano ad una antropologia così innovativa da imporre una radicale ripensamento dell’architettura concettuale del sapere giuridico (A. Bianchi, Neuroscienze e diritto, cit., p. XI). Di diverso orientamento è Di Giovine che scrive: «Le neuroscienze, per lo meno in astratto, non sembrano fare altro che fornir riscontri probatori ad adiuvandum, lasciando per il resto le categorie concettuali immutate… La prova scientifica, il cui ingresso nel procedimento penale è stato inizialmente salutato con favore per le presunte capacità semplificatrici che ad essa venivano attribuite, lungi dal conseguire una maggior certezza, si sia in alcuni casi rivelata un paradossale fattore di complicazione e di precarizzazione della prova» (O. Di Giovine, Chi ha paura delle neuroscienze?, in “Archivio penale”, cit., pp. 841-843). 49 Sul tema rinvio alle suggestive considerazioni su questo mito contenute in F. Cavalla, Alle origini, cit., pp. 99-102. 50 La proposta di un prudente accostamento delle neuroscienze all’universo del diritto può esser fatta «in vista della costruzione di una penalità rispettosa della dignità umana, ivi compresa quella del colpevole di gravi crimini» (M. Ronco, Sulla prova neuroscientifica, cit., p. 856). 51 Si è chiamati a rispondere penalmente per quanto si presume si sia compiuto ma la risposta non può essere intesa come una accettazione, un piegarsi ai dettami sociali ma piuttosto come una disponibilità a riconoscere le ragioni della socialità; cfr. F. Zanuso, A ciascuno il suo. Da Immanuel Kant a Norval Morris: oltre la visione moderna della retribuzione, Padova, Cedam, 2000, pp. 182-188. Per non cadere nell’errore del razionalismo penale non bisogna piegarsi a valori dominanti scontati ma riconoscere la innegabile dimensione della socialità; cfr. F. Cavalla, La pena come riparazione, cit., pp. 88-100. Ecco che la pena dovrà consistere in limitazioni di beni altrimenti tutelati al fine promuovere la responsabilità, cioè l’attitudine a riconoscere in sé la differenza e il bisogno di relazione, di comunanza. Per questo la pena nel suo concetto è riparatoria, non solo per la sua finalità ma anche nelle sue modalità. Non mi pare pertanto che accettare questi apporti delle neuroscienze e della genetica forense implichi necessariamente il dover “inventare qualcosa di diverso dall’attuale diritto penale”( S. Larizza, Sui limiti posti dal sistema penale, cit., p. 38). Semmai è opportuno ricordare la saggezza degli antichi; cfr. F. Zanuso, Les promesses de la justice réparatrice et la Sagesse du Tribunal de l’Héliée, in “Essais de Philosophie Pènale et de Criminologie”, vol. 8/2009, Paris, ed. Dalloz, 2009, pp. 331-357. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Genetics, neurosciences and criminal trial: short sparse considerations1

Roberto E. Kostoris

1. Luckily I am a professor of criminal procedure and not a judge! Having to decide through a concrete application of new sciences that are raising such insidious, complex and partly unresolved problems, which in turn disclose such profound questions that recall – as Francesca Zanuso said – the anguishes and doubts of our own existence, is a task that – when carried out with conscience – really becomes almost superhuman. However, in order to try to find our own way in such delicate matters, criminal procedural lawyers cannot but rely on a few general «indicators of direction», that is, on a few basic principles of the legal order, although in the awareness that there might be gray zones where the track gets more uncertain and solutions get more debatable.

2. First of all, we must say that the topic places itself within the general framework of the perennial conflict between authority and liberty that connotes the whole dynamics of criminal trial. Genetics and neurosciences are in the service of the authority, that is the State, as they concern the penal fact-finding in several ways. Opposed to them is the private sphere of the individual, both under the aspect of the protection of privacy and under the aspect of the protection of one’s own essence of person, which is exposed to the aggressions of genetics and neurosciences; with the risk of transforming the person into a «thing». The very short time and space allow me to merely sketch a very general and substantially assertive discourse, trying to individuate some fundamental points, but especially suggesting some open problems.

3. Let us start from a few considerations on questions that appear to be more easily framed. I refer to the issue – which is however extremely «sensitive» – of genetic data. Here the problems focus, on the one hand, on the side of coercive biological sample-taking for purposes of personal identification of investigation and evidence in the criminal trial, and, on the other hand, on the side of the preservation and

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

338 Genetics, neurosciences and criminal trial access to the DNA information: basically, questions concerning the «genetic database». With regard to coercive sample-taking, our code’s regulation as a whole appears to be quite respectful of personal liberty (which is limited, let us not forget it, in a modest part), of the protection of health and of personal dignity (which are also interested, although in a marginal way), at least with regard to the findings collected by the prosecutor or to performing a forensic survey; some doubt of constitutional orthodoxy may concern the regulation of the taking of samples by judicial police (art. 349 c.p.p.), since in this case the validation of a judge, as demanded by art. 13.2 Const. for each act interfering with personal liberty, is not required, as such sample- taking is merely subjected to the prosecutor’s preventive authorisation, which may even be issued in oral form. Also largely unsolved is the problem of the protection of privacy with regard to «sensitive» data that should enter the national DNA database. Indeed, even long after l. n. 85 of 2009 established the «bank» of such data, no implementing decree entrusted with the specific regulation of the guarantees to be respected in the selection, the custody, the management and the conservation and the access to such data has been issued. A legislative intervention, therefore, is required.

4. Genetics and, above all, neurosciences lend themselves to further and not less delicate employments in the criminal trial: just think to the role they may play with regard to the assessment of imputability, to that of the conscious participation of the defendant to trial, and to that of the true or false character of the declarations rendered by those heard or examined through the proceedings (person under investigation, defendant, witness), on which, in particular, we would better linger. Here the problem of safeguarding the protection of untouchable values of the legal order, which represent just as many limits in the penal fact-finding, joins the more general problem – all along, at the centre of an unceasing debate – of the position of the judge before the contribution of science and, in particular, of the so- called «new sciences». In this regard, our criminal procedure code forbids the use, even with the concerned person’s consent, of «methods or techniques which may influence the freedom of self-determination, or alter the capacity to recall and evaluate facts» (art. 188 c.p.p. and 64.2 c.p.p., with specific reference to the questioning of the person under investigation). Moreover, and more generally, also the respect of «human dignity», as a fundamental principle that the European Court of Human Rights deduced from art. 3 ECHR, which prohibits inhuman and degrading treatments (Eur. court 18/12/1996 Aksoy vs. Turkey) and which is now set by art. 1 of the Nice Charter as an autonomous right irradiating its efficacy on the whole system of European safeguards, deserves consideration. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. E. Kostoris 339

5. Lowering ourselves into the concrete, as one of the new frontiers of neurosciences is represented by functional magnetic resonance imaging, which some would employ as an instrument to measure truth or lie, we have to ask ourselves whether such a technique would comply with the above limits; whether it might influence on the freedom of self-determination and on intellectual abilities. And, moreover, how much reliable could it be. Under the first aspect, scientists tend to exclude prejudices to or interferences with intellectual abilities, maintaining that neuroimaging techniques would limit themselves to «monitor» thought as it takes form, without interfering with its development. Nevertheless, such an answer cannot put an end to every discourse. First, there is reason to maintain that such techniques could be never applied to the person under investigation during his/her questioning. This subject’s position is made quite particular by virtue of the right to silence set forth by art. 64.3 b c.p.p. As he/she does not have any «duty to collaborate», in respect to the right of self-defence, whenever he/she would decide to answer, he/she could not be subjected to any form of introspection on his/her own mind, even if it would not determine any obstacle to self-determination. A doubt might remain for the case in which it was the person under investigation himself/herself to ask such an experiment: such a will could be considered an expression precisely of that right to self-defence that it is to be protected. In this regard, the evocative warning on the prohibition for the defendant to undergo the truth serum given by Francesco Carnelutti several years ago is still resounding: there is a paradox, he said, in the fact that such a subject is denied this possibility of protecting his moral freedom, by exposing, in turn, the defendant to the risk of a conviction. Now, art. 64.2 c.p.p. rightfully considers moral freedom as a non- disposable good – and this is, incidentally, the best means to protect it indeed – but of course, if we were really sure that there is not the minimum risk of affecting it – and we will shortly see if this is really possible in the case of functional magnetic resonance imaging – the possibility for the defendant to «ask to be believed» also through the application of introspective scientific techniques, as such, would not appear forbidden. It would be, instead, whenever, upon the defendant’s request to employ it to declare his/her non-imputability or partial imputability, because the presence of the alleged insanity, which supposedly persists at the time of the trial, would not allow to ascribe such a request to a fully conscious and voluntary act of self-defence (while the defence counsel, as such, could not possibly dispose of a personal right of the defendant). A different position from that of the defendant and the person under investigation is that of the witness, who is, instead, obliged to give true answers and does not benefit of a right to personal defence. Here we are at the heart of the problem: we File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

340 Genetics, neurosciences and criminal trial need to verify whether the functional magnetic resonance, even though not causing any perceptive or mnemonic alterations, could however influence the moral freedom of the person. Under this aspect, offering a totally reassuring answer is not easy. The dynamic of the operation itself seems to entail somehow coercive forms: the person shall be introduced in a machine represented by a closed cylinder and examined while he/she is inside. It is difficult to maintain that this would not influence the mind-set – and perhaps also the physical state – of the examined person, the anxiety that such a form of examination may engender in him/her. Could he/she who finds himself/herself in a state, albeit transitory, of substantial containment be considered really free from any conditioning? Moreover, and more generally, may the penally sanctioned prohibition of lying for the witness – or also the right of the State to know the truth, of which such a prohibition is expression – assume the forms of a right to «know», we might say «forcefully» that truth by «entering» directly the mind of those who should reveal it? Facing the State’s right to truth, is there a right of the subject to the reserved dominion of his/her interna corporis? Of course, also needs of different nature shall be taken into account. Let us consider a borderline case. Let us imagine that a terrorist attack has been prepared; that the bomb is already in the place where it is meant to explode; that a person knows its location and that the truth of the information is essential to avoid a mass killing. In the United States some hypothesised even the lawfulness of torture (a «legal torture») whenever it could be useful to prevent, as in this case, the death of many persons. Against such a cruel expedient – certainly prohibited – the coactivity and the influence on the personal sphere of the resonance could appear of little significance compared with the interests at stake. This is a peculiar example, but one that makes us reflect. A unidirectional protection of the moral freedom of the person may clash with the need for protecting not less important values. We should ask ourselves whether we should apply also to this field the principle of proportionality, tolerating partial attenuations of the former protection in particular and however exceptional and circumscribed cases in which at least the life of other persons is at stake.

6. The other unsolved aspect is the problem of the reliability of such neuroscientific techniques. We should not forget that neuroimaging still belongs to the experimental studies, even if some courts has already started applying it (quite discussed is, in particular, the «Albertani case»). Most of all, we should not forget that, however, it measures a phenomenon from an objective point of view: it merely detects the presence of certain reactions at the File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. E. Kostoris 341 blood and brain level, which, on the one hand, can depend also by factors different than lie, and, on the other hand, do not say anything at all on the reasons of the alteration; similarly, the individuation of alleles in a person’s DNA seems to offer only an abstract degree of probability of abnormal behaviours, but does not ensure that in the concrete case the homicidal raptus is due to that specific cause. There is always an all but linear and not abstractly measureable interrelation between genetic factors and environmental factors. We are, therefore, before techniques that offer elements of knowledge – as the previous presentations by the scientists have demonstrated – that present however margins of imprecision and fallibility and that may be subject to also significantly different readings. They certainly unveil the limits of classic psychiatry, but they are far from being self-sufficient. In no case, however, they could be considered autonomously, detached from the other findings of the trial (the traditional psychiatric, medical forensic, criminological acquisitions, but also the results of testimonies and documents). The decision of the judge – who is the expert of the experts, not because he/she is given with a superior knowledge than the expert’s, which he/she needs precisely due to the intrinsic limits of his/her notions of common man, but because he/she is called to assess the expert survey in the light of the other findings of the trial – shall always derive from an integrated consideration of all the evidences, which might also mitigate or contradict the value of the single scientific data – even when «validated» through experimentation and consent within the relevant scientific community – in the framework of the specific context considered. All this, without forgetting that in order to take a decision of conviction the judge shall be able to exclude culpability «beyond any reasonable doubt». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Genetica, neuroscienze e processo penale: brevi considerazioni sparse

Roberto E. Kostoris

1. Per mia fortuna faccio il professore di procedura penale e non il giudice! Dover decidere facendo concreta applicazione di nuove scienze che sollevano problemi così insidiosi, così complessi, in parte irrisolti, che aprono questioni così profonde, che rimandano – come diceva Francesca Zanuso – alle angosce e ai dubbi della nostra stessa esistenza, è un compito che – se assolto con coscienza – diventa davvero quasi sovraumano. In ogni caso, per cercare di orientarsi in materie tanto delicate il processualpenalista non può che affidarsi ad alcuni “indicatori di direzione” generali, cioè ad alcuni principi di fondo dell’ordinamento, pur sapendo che si possono presentare zone grigie dove la traccia si fa più incerta e le soluzioni diventano più opinabili.

2. Anzitutto va detto che la tematica si colloca nella generale cornice del perenne conflitto tra autorità e libertà che connota tutta la dinamica del processo penale. Genetica e neuroscienze sono al servizio dell’autorità, cioè dello Stato, perché interessano in vario modo l’accertamento penale. Ad esse si oppone la sfera riservata dell’individuo, sia sotto il profilo della tutela della privacy, sia sotto il profilo della difesa della sua stessa essenza di persona, che è esposta ad essere aggredita dalle prime; con il rischio di trasformare la persona in “cosa”. Il tempo e lo spazio ristrettissimi consentono di fare in questa sede solo un discorso appena abbozzato, molto generale e di tono sostanzialmente assertivo, cercando di individuare alcuni punti fermi, ma soprattutto prospettando alcuni problemi aperti.

3. Iniziamo da qualche considerazione su questioni che sembrano di più agevole inquadramento. Mi riferisco al tema – comunque estremamente “sensibile” - dei dati genetici. Qui i problemi si concentrano, per un verso, sul versante del prelievo coattivo dei campioni biologici a fini di identificazione della persona e di indagine e prova nel processo penale, e, per l’altro, su quello della conservazione e dell’accesso alle informazioni del DNA: in sostanza, le questioni che riguardano la “banca dati genetica”. In ordine al prelievo coattivo, la disciplina del nostro codice risulta nel complesso abbastanza rispettosa della libertà personale (la cui limitazione appare comunque, non dimen- tichiamolo, di modesta entità), della tutela della salute e del rispetto della dignità della persona (pure esse interessate in misura, tutto sommato, marginale), almeno con riguardo agli accertamenti compiuti dal pubblico ministero o in relazione al compimento di una perizia; qualche dubbio di ortodossia costituzionale può residuare invece rispetto alla disciplina del prelievo effettuato dalla polizia giudiziaria (art. 349 c.p.p.), dato che relativamente ad essa non è prevista la convalida di un giudice, come richiesto dall’art.13.2 Cost. per gli atti che File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

344 Genetica, neuroscienze e processo penale incidano sulla libertà personale, ma solo un’autorizzazione, per giunta preventiva, e che può addirittura essere data in forma orale, da parte del pubblico ministero. Ancora largamente irrisolto è invece il problema della tutela della riservatezza rispetto ai dati genetici “sensibili” che dovrebbero affluire nella banca dati nazionale del DNA. Infatti, alla l. n.85 del 2009 che ha istituito la “banca”, pur a distanza di tanto tempo, non hanno ancora fatto seguito i decreti attuativi che avrebbero dovuto disciplinare specificamente le garanzia da rispettare nella selezione, nella custodia, nella gestione e conservazione e nell’ accesso ai dati. Qui urge, dunque, un intervento del legislatore.

4. Genetica e soprattutto neuroscienze si prestano però a ulteriori e non meno delicati impieghi nel processo penale: basti pensare al ruolo che esse possono giocare in ordine all’accertamento dell’imputabilità, a quello della cosciente partecipazione al processo dell’imputa- to, e a quello del carattere veridico o menzognero delle dichiarazioni rese dalle persone sen- tite o esaminate nel procedimento (indagato, imputato, testimone), sul quale, in particolare, converrà soffermarsi. Al più generale problema – da sempre al centro di un incessante dibattito – della posizione del giudice di fronte all’apporto della scienza, e, in particolare, delle cosiddette “nuove scienze”, qui si aggiunge quello di far salva la tutela di valori intangibili dell’ordinamento, che rappresentano altrettanti limiti all’accertamento penale. A tale riguardo, viene anzitutto in gioco il divieto che compare nel nostro codice di rito di utilizzare, anche con il consenso dell’interessato, «metodi o tecniche idonei a influire sulla libertà di autodeterminazione, o ad alterare la capacità di ricordare e valutare i fatti» (art.188 c.p.p. e 64.2 c.p.p., con riferimento specifico all’interrogatorio dell’indagato). Inoltre, e più in generale, deve essere considerato anche il rispetto della “dignità umana”, come principio di fondo che la Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo ha ricavato dall’art. 3 CEDU, che pone il divieto di trattamenti inumani e degradanti (C. eur. 18/12/1996 Aksoy c. Turchia) e che ora figura come diritto autonomo, di efficacia irradiante sull’intero sistema delle garanzie europee, nell’art. 1 della Carta di Nizza.

5. Scendendo nel concreto, poiché una delle nuove frontiere delle neuroscienze è rappre- sentata dalla risonanza magnetica funzionale per immagini, che si vorrebbe impiegare come strumento per misurare la verità o la menzogna, c’è da domandarsi se una tecnica di questo tipo sarebbe rispettosa di simili limiti; se potrebbe incidere sulla libertà di autodeterminazione e sulle capacità volitive. Ed, inoltre, quanto potrebbe essere attendibile. Sotto il primo profilo, gli scienziati tendono ad escludere compromissioni o interferenze sulle capacità volitive, sostenendo che le tecniche di neuroimaging avrebbero la caratteristica di limitarsi a “monitorare” il pensiero mentre esso si forma, senza interferire con il suo sviluppo. Sennonché, una tale risposta non vale a chiudere ogni discorso. Anzitutto, è da ritenere che tecniche simili non potrebbero in ogni caso essere applicate nei confronti dell’indagato durante il suo interrogatorio. La posizione di questo soggetto è infatti resa del tutto particolare per effetto del diritto al silenzio che gli attribuisce l’art. 64.3 b c.p.p. Non avendo un “dovere di collaborare”, in omaggio al diritto all’autodifesa, quand’anche si risolvesse a rispondere, egli non potrebbe comunque essere assoggettato ad File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. E. Kostoris 345 alcuna forma di introspezione nella sua mente, anche qualora essa non determinasse ostacoli all’autodeterminazione. Un dubbio potrebbe residuare per il caso in cui fosse egli stesso a richiedere tale esperimento: una tale volontà si potrebbe ritenere, infatti, espressiva proprio di quel diritto di autodifesa che si vuole tutelare. Risuona ancora vivo in proposito il suggestivo monito lanciato in anni lontani da Francesco Carnelutti in rapporto al divieto per l’imputato di sottoporsi al siero della verità: c’è un paradosso – egli diceva – nel fatto che a tale soggetto venga negata questa possibilità per tutelare la sua libertà morale, esponendolo però in cambio al rischio di una condanna. Ora, la libertà morale è oggi giustamente considerata dall’art. 64.2 c.p.p. un bene indisponibile − e questo, sia detto per inciso, è il miglior mezzo per tutelarla davvero − ma certo, se realmente si fosse sicuri che non esista il minimo rischio di intaccarla − e verificheremo tra un attimo se davvero ciò sia possibile nel caso di risonanza magnetica funzionale per immagini - la possibilità per l’imputato di “chiedere di essere creduto” anche facendo applicazioni di tecniche scientifiche introspettive non sembrerebbe, di per sé, vietata. Lo sarebbe, invece, in ogni caso, se questo soggetto chiedesse il suo impiego in funzione di una declaratoria di non imputabilità o parziale imputabilità, perché la presenza del preteso vizio di mente, che si deve supporre persistente al tempo del processo non consentirebbe di ascrivere ad un atto pienamente cosciente e volontario di autodifesa la sua richiesta (mentre il difensore, in quanto tale, non potrebbe disporre di un diritto personalissimo dell’imputato). Diversa rispetto a quella dell’imputato e dell’indagato la posizione del testimone, che è invece obbligato a rendere risposte veridiche e non fruisce di un diritto di difesa personale. Qui ci si trova al cuore del problema: occorre verificare se la risonanza magnetica funzionale, pur non determinando alterazioni percettive o mnestiche, possa comunque incidere sulla libertà morale della persona. Sotto questo profilo, non sembra facile dare una risposta del tutto tranquillizzante. Che tale tecnica implichi forme in qualche misura costrittive sembrerebbe discendere, infatti, dalla stessa dinamica dell’operazione: la persona deve essere introdotta in un macchinario rappresentato da un cilindro chiuso ed esaminata mentre si trova al suo interno. Difficile sostenere che ciò sia ininfluente sullo stato d’animo – e forse sullo stesso stato fisico – dell’esaminato, sull’ansia che in lui quella forma di escussione può generare. Potrebbe dirsi realmente libero da condizionamenti chi si trovi in uno stato, sia pur transitorio, di sostanziale contenzione? Inoltre, e più in generale, il divieto penalmente sanzionato di mentire per il testimone – o, se si preferisce, il diritto dello Stato di conoscere la verità da parte sua, di cui quel divieto è espressione – possono assumere le forme di un diritto ad “apprendere”, si potrebbe dire “for- zosamente” quella verità “entrando” direttamente nella mente di chi dovrebbe rivelarla? Di fronte al diritto alla verità da parte dello Stato esiste o no un diritto del soggetto al riservato dominio dei suoi interna corporis? Naturalmente, occorre anche farsi carico di istanze di diversa natura. Consideriamo un caso limite. Immaginiamo che sia stato preparato un attentato; che la bomba si trovi già nel luogo dove dovrà esplodere; che una persona ne conosca l’ubicazione e che la veridicità dell’informazione sia essenziale per evitare una strage. Negli Stati Uniti si è addirittura ipotiz- zata la liceità della tortura (di una “tortura legale”) quando possa servire a prevenire, come in questo caso, la morte di molte persone. Rispetto ad un espediente così cruento – sicuramente vietato – la costrittività e l’incidenza nella sfera personale della risonanza potrebbero appa- File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

346 Genetica, neuroscienze e processo penale rire ben poca cosa in rapporto alla posta in gioco. È un esempio particolare, ma fa riflettere. Una tutela unidirezionale della libertà morale della persona si può scontrare con l’esigenza di tutelare valori non meno importanti. Ci sarebbe dunque da chiedersi se anche in questo campo non si debba fare applicazione del principio di proporzionalità, tollerando parziali attenuazioni della prima tutela in casi particolari e comunque eccezionali e circoscritti in cui sia in gioco almeno il bene della vita di altre persone.

6. L’altro versante, che resta aperto, è rappresentato dal problema dell’ attendibilità di simili tecniche neuroscientifiche. Non si deve infatti dimenticare che la neuroimaging appartiene ancora agli studi sperimentali, anche se ne è stata fatta già qualche applicazione in giurisprudenza (molto scalpore ha suscitato, in particolare, il “caso Albertani”). Ma soprattutto non va dimenticato che essa misura comunque un fenomeno dal punto di vista oggettivo: individua solo la presenza di certe reazioni a livello sanguigno e cerebrale, che, per un verso, possono dipendere anche da fattori diversi dalla menzogna, e, per altro verso, nulla comunque dicono sui motivi che hanno portato all’alterazione; come, del resto, l’individuazione di alleli nel DNA di una persona sembra fornire solo un tasso astratto di probabilità di comportamenti anomali, ma non assicura che nel caso concreto il raptus omicida sia dovuto a quella causa. C’è sempre un’interrelazione tutt’altro che lineare e non astrattamente misurabile tra fattori genetici e fattori ambientali. Siamo perciò di fronte a tecniche che forniscono elementi conoscitivi – come ci hanno dimostrato gli scienziati nelle relazioni precedenti – che presentano comunque margini di imprecisione e di fallibilità e che possono essere soggetti a letture anche sensibilmente diverse. Svelano certo i limiti della psichiatria classica, ma sono tutt’altro che autosufficienti. In ogni caso, non potrebbero mai essere considerati in modo autonomo, avulso dagli altri dati di causa (le tradizionali acquisizioni psichiatriche, medico-legali, criminologiche, ma anche le emergenze testimoniali e documentali). La decisione del giudice – che è perito dei periti, non in quanto possa vantare conoscenze superiori a quelle del perito, delle quali ha invece bisogno proprio per i limiti intrinseci delle sue nozioni di uomo comune, ma in quanto è chiamato a valutare la perizia alla luce degli altri dati di causa – deve sempre discendere da una considerazione integrata di tutte le risultanze probatorie, che potrebbe anche attenuare o smentire il valore del singolo dato scientifico – quand’anche “validato” da sperimentazioni e consenso nella comunità scientifica di riferimento - nel quadro del contesto specifico preso in considerazione. Non dimenticando mai che il giudice per emettere una decisione di condanna deve essere in grado di escludere la colpevolezza “al di là di ogni ragionevole dubbio”. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Neurosciences, genetics and criminal law. Rhapsodic reflections1

Riccardo Borsari

One might maintain, with reason, that the questions raised by the controversial acquisitions of neurosciences and genetics on law, especially, for what matters here, criminal law, «come from afar»2 and yet constitute an empirical challenge to legal and philosophical reflection, stimulated to rethink ancient problems (the brain/mind relation) and traditional categories (liberty/responsibility). Without bothering Cesare Lombroso3, a news story dating back almost fifty years ago contributes, with the evocative force of reality, to concretely found this statement. In 1966 Charles Whitman climbed the tower of the University of Texas with a bag full of weapons and ammunitions, killed the clerk at the entrance and shoot at two families that were climbing the stairs; from the balcony he started shooting on all the people he could see moving. Before being shot down, he killed 14 persons and wounded 32. At his home, the police found his mother and his wife dead and a note by him: «I don’t really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I can’t recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts. (…) I talked with a Doctor once for about two hours and tried to convey to him my fears that I felt come overwhelming violent impulses. After one session I never saw the Doctor again, and since then I have been fighting my mental turmoil alone, and seemingly to no avail. (…) It was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight after I pick her up from work at the telephone company. I love her dearly, and she has been as fine a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have. I cannot rationally pinpoint any specific reason for doing this». Whitman was 25 years old, had an IQ 2% higher than the average population, was a former marine, had studied engineering and worked for a bank and had been Scout Instructor. During the autopsy a tumour, a

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. 2 See, also with regard to the different paradigms of analysis of mental insanity, A. annaM , Diritto penale e neuroscienze: un’introduzione, in O. Di Giovine (ed.), Diritto penale e neuroetica, Atti del Convegno 21-22 maggio 2012, Università degli Studi di Foggia, Padova, 2013, p. 3 ff. For a first framework see, for the moment, L. Sammicheli, G. Sartori, Neuroscienze giuridiche: i diversi livelli di interazione tra diritto e neuroscienze, in A. Bianchi, G. Gulotta, G. Sartori (eds.), Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, Milano, 2009, p. 15 ff. 3 Cf. S. Montaldo (ed.), Cesare Lombroso. Gli scienziati e la nuova Italia, Bologna, 2010. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

348 Neurosciences, genetics and criminal law glioblastoma, big as a five cents dollar coin, developed deep in the encephalon under the thalamus, which leaned against the hypothalamus and compressed the amygdala, the structure regulating emotions – according to many neurologists of that time, that was the cause of his behaviour. Recently, in the United States4, but also in Italy (see the decisions of the Corte Assise Appello Trieste5 and the Giudice per l’udienza preliminare at the Tribunale di Como6), within a, so to say, global debate7, there is an increasingly frequent request for functional magnetic resonances or positron emission tomographies aimed at assessing the functionalities of specific brain sectors of defendants; the objective is to point at neurological injuries or faults capable to annul voluntary control8: it is like they wanted to maintain «I did not do it, my brain did it»9. The incapability of distinguishing good from evil and of controlling one’s own actions, with obvious reflections on the judgement of responsibility and on the punishment, can be configured by pathologies seriously compromising the functionality of the central nervous system10. Precisely with regard to the problems of the impact of genetics and neurosciences11 on criminal law, today under the focus of speculative and practical attention, the thought of the Master Giuseppe Bettiol sounds very topical, other than primarily important. With extreme synthesis12, indeed, we might remember how the type of man, so to say, presupposed by Bettiol is represented as a being responsible for his own actions, capable of moving the course of things and arbiter of his own destiny; the capability of understanding and of willing is the man’s capability of perceiving,

4 On which A. Santosuosso, B. Bottalico, Neuroscienze e diritto: una prima mappa, in A. Santosuosso (ed.), Le neuroscienze e il diritto, Pavia, 2009, p. 33 ff.; M. reemanF , O.R. Goodenough (eds.), Law, Mind and brain, Ashgate, 2009, p. 5 ff. 5 Decision of October 1st, 2009. 6 Decision of May 20th, 2011. See. F. Casasole, Neuroscienze, genetica comportamentale e processo penale, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2012, p. 110 ff. 7 In German literature, see, for all, S. Schleim, T.M. Spranger, H. Walter (hrsg.), Von der Neuroethik zum Neurorecht?, Göttingen, 2009. 8 M. Ronco, Gli sviluppi della neurobiologia e la libertà personale, in “Iustitia”, 2011, p. 439 emphasises that the rapid development of neurobiology «induced some lawyers to draw undue and hurried conclusions on the eclipse of the liberty of will, of culpability and of responsibility» (our transl.). 9 Which would be the «true culpable»: see J. Greene, J. Cohen, For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London - Series B: Biological Sciences, 2001, p. 1775 ff. 10 S. Larizza, Sui limiti posti dal sistema penale alla recezione degli esiti conoscitivi della “neuroimaging”, in M.G. Ruberto, C. Barbieri (ed.), Il futuro tra noi. Aspetti etici, giuridici e medico-legali della neuroetica, Milano, 2011, p. 35 highlights how the question of criminal behaviour’s aetiology is being reprised. 11 For an overall outline, see P. Pietrini, G. Rota, Il comportamento umano tra geni e cervello: alcune considerazioni sullo stato attuale delle conoscenze neuroscientifiche, in O. Di Giovine (ed.), Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., p. 11 ff.; L. Eusebi (ed.), Dinamiche della volizione e libertà, Milano, 2008. A broad picture in A. Lavazza, L. Sammicheli, Il delitto del cervello. La mente tra scienza e diritto, Torino, 2012. 12 I owe these cues to the volume of professor S. Riondato, Un diritto penale detto «ragionevole». Raccontando Giuseppe Bettiol, Padova, 2005, passim. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. Borsari 349 individuating and comprehending the consequences of his own acting within the ethical-social meaning that they present in the historical situation they happen to affect; it implies the conscience of the objective, the reasonableness of the motive, the congruity of the action. All this laid down in concrete life, because criminal law is made «for man in general, who has his own concrete life of joy and of pain in the framework of the concrete values of life». In the prescriptive perspective assumed by Bettiol, he poses first of all the value of theman given with free will – «man is saved only when he is considered as a value, as an end, as a being of reason»; his main aim is to safeguard the moral, legal and political liberty of man; Bettiol says that «man, while being no angel nor fragment of nature, has always been able to distinguish what is bad from what is good not on the basis of an als ob (as if), as in that case life would be a fiction, but on the basis of an ontological criterion that brings us close to being and, thus, to truth … having the power to act differently than how one has acted is not a mystery, as our own conscience is source of knowledge and truth» (our transl.). Coherently, according to the Master, culpability is a concept of value that presupposes a judgement of disapproval for what has been done, it is a wilfulness that should not be, it is not much the intentionality of the unlawful act, but rather the unlawful intention, that is, a wilfulness determined to action whereas it should and could have been otherwise determined. Inasmuch as «judgement of personal condemnation for the perpetration of a fact harming a protected interest», it is made of the capability of understanding and willing, of the voluntariness of the fact within the respective limits of intent and negligence and of the possibility of a normal motivation of will («esigibilità»). The principle of culpability is therefore necessary in order to grant privates the certainty of free choices of action13. This is not enough. Bettiol adheres to the Gesinnungstrafrecht, thus maintaining – we apologize for a certain simplification and simplism – that this contributes to and founds an authentically personalistic imputation. Gesinnung is mentality, is conscious interior orientation of a subject who determines himself with reference to certain values of the social community, it is conscious disposition of the acting subject before certain values. While intentions and (psychical) motives14 imply and end up into a finding of fact, the Gesinnung implies an ethical-legal assessment on an analogous finding and permits the construction of the moral personality of the acting subject. Criminal law of interior attitude suits, therefore, the ethicality of the human person that manifests itself in the attitudes of conscience and in the choice of the motivations to action. The personalisation-ethicisation brings to the humanisation of penal responsibility

13 Cf. G. Fiandaca, Considerazioni su colpevolezza e prevenzione, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1987, p. 865 ff. 14 See. P. Veneziani, Motivi e colpevolezza, Torino, 2000. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

350 Neurosciences, genetics and criminal law

(although in the persistence of a criminal law characterised by the harm to a legal good) 15. Giuseppe Bettiol’s conceptions, especially when it comes to the centrality of free will and of moral judgement16, stimulate reflection with peculiar profundity, considering the fact that in the last years genetic research applied to the study of human behaviour and neurosciences brought and keep bringing a significant impulse to the knowledge concerning the increase of the risk of anti-social behaviours by subjects carrying particular genes or characterised by particular cerebral configurations17. Brain imaging techniques allow us to know the modalities of the brain in action, while it thinks, while it feels emotions etc. On the one hand, it would appear therefore illogical not to employ these new techniques that have enriched the «toolbox»18 and that permitted to ascertain, for instance, that cerebral maturity is not reached until the age of 21; on the other hand, we ask ourselves whether the contributions of neurosciences and their impact on law

15 It is worth remembering that the Italian Constitutional Court in judgement n. 322 of 2007 (concerning the issue of the error on the age of the victim in sex crimes) stated that: «The principle of culpability cannot be sacrificed by ordinary legislator in the name of a more effective penal protection of other values, even when they have constitutional nature… The principle of culpability is guarantee of free choices of action based on an anticipated assessment (calculability) of the legal-penal consequences of one’s own behaviour … it has a founding role with respect to the re-educative function of punishment … The legislator may well grade, within the different forms of culpability, the psychological coefficient of participation of the author to the fact having regard to the nature of the offence and of the interests that ought to be preserved… but in no case can the legislator totally discount such coefficient: otherwise, establishing the occurrence of repressive needs capable of justifying a renunciation to the requirement of culpability – in view of the protection of other constitutional interests, such as normally those protected by criminal law – would be an appreciation left to mere legislative discretion, with the following emptying of the function of guarantee and foundation of the principle of culpability» (our transl.). 16 See, ex multis, M. De Caro, A. Lavazza, G. Sartori, Siamo davvero liberi? Le neuroscienze e il mistero del libero arbitrio, Torino, 2010; M. Gazzaniga, Chi comanda? Scienza, mente e libero arbitrio, Torino, 2012; R. Kane (ed.), Free Will, Oxford, 2009. 17 M. Bertolino, Il breve cammino del vizio di mente. Un ritorno al paradigma organicistico?, in A. Santosuosso (ed.), Le neuroscienze e il diritto, cit., p. 121 ff., who, with regard to the needs of humanisation and personalisation of responsibility, highlights how «too often substantive premises are bound to evidentiary logics that bring to privilege the fact impersonally intended … without any doubt, also neurosciences, whose scientific conquers are not ignored by law, contribute to enrich the catalogue of such schemes …in particular, when neurosciences are applied to the judgement of imputability, also the problems of the author risk to become victim of a process of objectivisation and standardisation, which is charming in its component of guarantee of certainty of the judicial finding … but all of this also entails the risk of a “proceduralisation” of dogmatic substantive categories, in the sense of the substitution of the constitutive elements of crime with evidentiary canons, which engenders a confusion between the object of finding and the instrument of finding. In other words, coming back to the constitutive element of the capability of understanding and willing, it ends up in being forged and absorbed by the relative evidentiary question, the resolution of which nowadays is increasingly entrusted to neurosciences» (our transl.). 18 I. Merzagora Betsos, Colpevoli si nasce?, in O. Di Giovine (ed.), Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., p. 28 who deems «absurd not to keep into account the new neuroscientific techniques» (our transl.). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. Borsari 351 are effectively exceptional in nature or not and, consequently, whether they predicate totally new concepts and solutions or not19. Also the Corte di Cassazione seems to adopt, at least in part, this perspective, when it affirms, in its decision n. 867 of 2011, that the revision of the trial can be based on issues, such as imputability, that, while having been already considered by the judge, can be evaluated according to the employment of new techniques; the Court maintains, in particular, that the «novelty of the scientific evidence can be related to the object to be ascertained or to the method discovered or experimented after the trial by now defined, as long as capable in itself to produce new factual elements» (our transl.); in other words, after the «European revision», the «scientific revision», given that, according to the Court, the previous decisions denying revision in case of already appreciated scientific evidences, «were based especially on a positivistic conception of science intended as a set of complete, certain and unique knowledge. It refuses the idea that the notion of science comprises the concept of fallibility, of relativity, of evolution, it rejects the method of refutation and falsifiability, as well as the research and the evaluation of other different reconstructions of the historical fact aimed at demonstrating that no alternative can be reasonably configured, it does not accept the perspective that the use of a different method, albeit applied to the same elements, can produce completely different results … It goes together with the concern of a logical incompatibility between the need of certainty and stability typical of the fact-finding carried out in the criminal trial and ensured by the final judgement and the gnoseological ends of science, which, by its own nature, is characterised by the incompleteness and temporariness of the cognitive acquisitions that have been obtained»20. Many questions arise, one of the most relevant of which concerns – as highlighted in many studies by Professor Ronco – the so-called explicative capability of such studies on the behaviour of the specific acting subject on a specific criminal fact; the possible influence that can be connected to a certain gene shall be examined in the light of a plurality of factors, such as other genes and environmental factors. Each factor of biological risk should be therefore verified in the interaction with each specific factor of environmental risk, according to increasingly complex and interdisciplinary models in which genetic data integrate with those of psychophysiology, of neuropsychology, of brain imaging, of neurology, of hormonal functioning, of neurotransmitters and of the environmental influences. The complex interaction between biological and environmental data predicates the necessity of an accurate personalisation of the explicative model, also in the light of possible employments

19 In this sense, A. Santosuosso, Il dilemma del diritto di fronte alle neuroscienze, in Id. (ed.), Le neuroscienze e il diritto, Pavia, 2009, p. 11. 20 On these topics, also with regard to the famous Daubert judgement, see S. Fuselli, Apparenze. Accertamento giudiziale e prova scientifica, Milano, 2008. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

352 Neurosciences, genetics and criminal law in malam partem of such evidences and of the related risks of transforming the judgement on the fact in judgement on the person and on his/her predisposition to commit crimes of the kind of that being judged, aggravated by the circumstances that certain anomalies could be present at the moment of the trial but not at the moment of the fact – not to mention the doubts on the reliability of certain evidences and the risk of breaches to privacy and human dignity. It is no coincidence that some scholars highlighted the descriptive and non-explicative nature of the model offered by neurosciences, which limits itself to discover the correlations between brain functions and behaviour and risks to trigger circular, and to this purpose tautological, reasoning: he has cerebral anomalies and he has committed a crime, becomes: he has cerebral anomalies to the extent that he committed a crime; and finally: he has committed a crime because of cerebral anomalies21. The rediscovery of and the great attention paid to the Phineas Gage’s case (Damasio, in the famous book Descartes’ Error has reconstructed by computer the areas of brain damaged by the bar, noticing that some zones of the prefrontal cortex had been struck and that this had determined a frontal syndrome characterised also by the lack of control of primary impulses) embodies the conviction, supported by the precision of ever more powerful and refined (but also dynamic, easily manipulated and often difficult to decipher also for the experts) techniques22, that idiosyncratic, asocial, violent or self-destructive behaviours are due to – traumatic, pathological, congenital or environmental23 – modifications of the cerebral structure and/or functioning of a specific individual compared to the average population. In such a perspective, the distinction between organic pathologies and psychological diseases, being the aetiology of any psycho-behavioural affection rooted in a material cerebral basis. The so-called neuro-law24 appears, which implies four theses: 1) cerebralism, according to which the brain or genes are often the most important or fundamental level in order to understand the behaviour which is the subject of law, especially criminal law (however, there is the problem of the explanation level); 2) localisationism, according to which criminal violence phenomena arise casually from dysfunctions within specific cerebral areas – moreover, also other typologies of behaviour may find their own peculiarity in the functioning of structures of the nervous system (however, there are problems concerning the strong neuronal plasticity and the interconnections between different areas); 3) revisionism, according to which the

21 I. Merzagora Betsos, Colpevoli si nasce?, cit., p. 31. 22 For an informed and critical framework see M. Bertolino, Prove neuro-psicologiche di verità penale, in www.penalecontemporaneo.it. 23 See O. Di Giovine, Chi ha paura delle neuroscienze?, in “Archivio penale”, 2011, p. 838 ff. 24 See E. Picozza, L. Capraro, V. Cuzzocrea, D. Terracina, Neurodiritto. Una introduzione, Torino, 2011; S. Zeki, O.R. Goodenough (eds.), Law & the Brain, London, 2006. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. Borsari 353 presumption of liberty and the other classical institutes/notions today cannot be regarded at without considering the developments of science (however, there is the problem of the normative character of legal orders); 4) alterization, according to which, as a considerable part of violence arises from cerebral diseases, the authors of such acts are biologically different from normal persons (the risks of discrimination are evident). The framework that unfolds under the observer’s eyes, therefore, intertwines neurosciences, cognitive sciences, behavioural genetics, evolutionistic theory, philosophy of law, moral philosophy, case law and philosophical anthropology. The resulting image of man appears at first sight quite different from how we are accustomed to think of ourselves25, mainly because we reason and act in ways that are generally unknown to ourselves; and we should ask us if we are equal amongst each other in the way we state to be equal before the law. It could be the case that, although certainly equal as members of the homo sapiens sapiens species, we are irreparably different as for our natural, especially genetic, equipment and, consequently, in the structure and functioning of the brain26; the idea that some character traits are written in our genes and are able to influence complex social behaviours opens the door to legal consequences, concerning equality, of contrasting tenor: from the risk of discriminations to the idea that «the bad guys» are simply «sick persons». Apart from the specific procedural27 and substantive issues raised by the named scientific acquisitions, we want to highlight here their potential impact on the foundation of law, in particular criminal law, on the foundation of imputation, of punishment and of the idea of responsibility, in dialogue with philosophy and human sciences; genetic and neuroscientific discoveries, starting from the most famous experiment by Benjamin Libet, would put in discussion the idea of free will, which would turn out to be a mere illusion (a useless illusion, according to some), engendered by our cognitive structures, with every reflection on punishment and its functions28. According to a reconstruction, at the time 0 a motorbike crosses my way; after 50-60 milliseconds my brain «see» the scene; after 100-150 milliseconds my foot, instructed by my brain, brakes; after 500 milliseconds I realize what just happened and after 650 I can comment it; almost half a second elapses from the visual perception of the episode and my awareness of it, despite, in the meanwhile, I have braked. That

25 Cf. D. Eagleman, Incognito. The secret Lives of the Brain, New York, 2011. 26 Cf. P.S. Churchland, L’io come cervello, Milano, 2014. 27 See M. Ronco, Sulla “prova” neuroscientifica, in “Archivio penale”, 2011, p. 855 ff. 28 On the relation between liberty of will and the penal norms’ function of «cultural orientation» of citizens see, for all, E. Musco, Le misure di sicurezza detentive. Profili storici e costituzionali, Milano, 1978. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

354 Neurosciences, genetics and criminal law half a second separates my awareness of a fact from the fact itself, the happening of its conscious perception, that is, the brain (cerebral activity without specification) from the mind (conscious cerebral activity). Let us remember Benjamin Libet’s experiment, or its outcomes29. A volunteer is asked to press, from time to time, a button, at his own will; before him there is a clock ticking time away in hundredths of a second. A broad series of experiment showed that 200 milliseconds pass from the moment in which the subject decides to press the button and the moment in which he actually presses it. Nothing strange. But if we recorded each time the so-called readiness potential engendered in the supplemental motor cortex in the imminence and in preparation of each action, we would ascertain that it precedes action of 550 milliseconds and therefore our decision to press the button of 350 milliseconds. My brain seems to know that I want to press the button with an advance of 350 milliseconds. Holmes, famous American lawyer of the second half of the Nineteenth century and member of the Supreme Court, wrote: «If I were having a philosophical talk with a man I was going to have hanged (or electrocuted), I should say, I don’t doubt that your act was inevitable for you, but to make it more avoidable by others we propose to sacrifice you for the common good. You may regard yourself as a soldier dying for your country, if you like. But the law must keep its promises». What are the impact and the scope of sciences’ progresses in the comprehension of the human being, especially through the analysis of his brain? Can we speak of crime not in terms of missed adaptation in a sociological key but as cerebral malfunctioning in a neuroscientific key? A certain train of thought would promote the idea of a sort of «prejudice» in favour of a scientific perspective that places law in an ancillary position; how Jasanoff writes, neurolaw proposes itself as a cultural turn towards the conviction that science may bring to error-proof legal results, therefore just, where law, itself, may fail. In the socio-technological imaginary law is epistemologically subordinated to science, neurosciences must and can strengthen legal institutions and enter the trials inasmuch as science itself is conceptualized as given with intrinsic normativity; the basic assumption is that the anthropology of human sciences has changed under the pressure of scientific naturalism. A (pretended) new image of man emerges, under certain aspects contradictorily30, not any more as divided between body and soul, free, rational, but rather as a product

29 B. Libet, Mind Time. Il fattore temporale nella coscienza, Milano, 2007. Recently the experiment has been refined by J.-D. Haynes: see J.-D. Haynes, Posso prevedere quello che farai, in M. De Caro, A. Lavazza, G. Sartori, Siamo davvero liberi? Le neuroscienze e il mistero del libero arbitrio, cit. p. 5 ff. Critically, M. Ronco, Gli sviluppi della neurobiologia e la libertà personale, cit., p. 444 ff. 30 See L. Eusebi, Neuroscienze e diritto penale: un ruolo diverso del riferimento alla libertà, in L. Palazzani, R. Zannotti (eds.), Il diritto nelle neuroscienze. Non «siamo» i nostri cervelli, Torino, 2013, p. 123: «Nowadays, in fact, in many sectors, the role of individual autonomy is more than ever asserted. But at the same time, more than ever, we doubt that it really exists, at least in some way» (our. transl.). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. Borsari 355 of the evolution, irrational and dominated by passions, much less free of what is generally believed due to genetic-cerebral conditionings31. What neurosciences call for and impose is, thus, a reflection on free will and on the implied notion of personal responsibility32. The (legal) blame founded on the «power to act otherwise» - therefore the «essence» of culpability in a normative sense as acquired by the current penalistic reflection – is founded on the freedom of will; without freedom of will the norm would loose its necessary function of cultural orientation for the citizens. Free will – that is, the fact that the defendant was able to understand the nature and the consequences of his own acting and to choose freely to perform a criminal action while being it possible to do otherwise – is the foundation on which imputability and punishability lay33. There are, as we said, positions34 upholding that free will is an illusion, which law cannot ignore; and others that attribute to new positions a «collective» value, rather than an individualistic one, as they derive precisely from the collective interactions of many brains; other positions maintain that free will is a reality resulting, so to say, from a complex process of interaction between genetic components and environment operating both at a philogenic and at an ontogenic level35. A relevant aspect, predicating adequate valorisation also, or better, especially by criminal lawyers, consists in the fact that authoritative scholars – I think in primis of the mind scientist J. Searle – accept the idea of free will based on information on the structure and the functioning of the brain offered by neurobiology. If this is the case, if we propend for such a construction, then neuroscientific discoveries end up with strengthening the idea that freedom does not constitute a fiction useful to found imputation, but its ontological basis rationally founding and justifying the judgement of responsibility. On the contrary, there is the risk that the results of these evidences might be used against the liberty of the person and support a sort of a totally deterministic new criminological scientism. Recent empirical studies on liberty, determinism and responsibility seem to express what nowadays seems to be the preferable position, that is the «compatibilist»36 position, that is, choosing for liberty although in a context that can be defined as deterministic; indeed, modern compatibilistical theory allows to reconcile the

31 Cf. T. Metzinger, Il tunnel dell’io. Scienza della mente e mito del soggetto, Milano, 2010. 32 See, widely, D. Terracina, Problematiche del diritto penale, in E. Picozza, L. Capraro, V. Cuzzocrea, D. Terracina, Neurodiritto, cit., p. 187 ff. For an outline of the discussion and of the (also) German literature see the good work by A. Nisco, Il confronto tra neuroscienze e diritto penale sulla libertà di volere, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2012, p. 499 ff. 33 On this topic A. Nisco, La tutela penale dell’integrità psichica, Torino, 2012, passim. 34 For deeper insights, M. Ronco, Gli sviluppi della neurobiologia e la libertà personale, cit., p. 441 ff. 35 Cf. P.J. Richerson, R. Boyd, Non di solo geni. Come la cultura ha trasformato l’evoluzione umana, Torino, 2006. 36 See D. Dennet, L’evoluzione della libertà, Milano, 2004. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

356 Neurosciences, genetics and criminal law deterministic approach with the acknowledgement of spaces of liberty, intended as a free will not as much in terms of absolute lack of conditionings, but rather as a capacity of willing led by unavoidably present conditionings which the agent is capable of evaluating, since, otherwise, pure case would dominate. A lesser or higher degree of conditioning influences all our choices and therefore also the possible choice of offending, to which the definition of conditioned moral liberty could apply; no absolute liberty, then, in this vision, but a manoeuvring space limited by our own history, ours as in great part built by us. Man is free but his liberty is conditioned by the biological inheritance, by the social environment, by the concrete situations he happens to find himself in, which are the field of possibilities amongst which he can choose. In the discussion about free will responsibility is kind of a «stone guest». Those who worry about the erosion of liberty by determinism37 are often afraid especially of a loss of sense of the practices of responsibility attribution, so to say. The capacity of self-determination, that is, of acting based on motives that the subject considers prevailing on others that could have brought him to a different choice, embodies the empirical content of penal imputability; this fails whenever conditionings are such as to hinder a conscious, rational, reasoned choice. On the level of criminal liability, and especially of imputability, these considerations result into the idea that we cannot give up the latter, as expression of a punitive system informed to reasonability intended as practical wisdom, as axiological adequacy or coherence. In order to be reasonable, criminal liability shall reflect criteria that are legal, not moral, but it makes sense only inasmuch as compatible with criteria of attribution of an, also moral, responsibility38. However, in order to be reasonable, criminal liability, shall also face rationality issues strictly internal to the penal system, issues of truth of competence of the scientific knowledge, amongst which those concerning neuro-sciences and genetics when discussing about imputability. Now, the idea of a principle of criminal responsibility as responsibility of a subject capable of self-determining does not seem to have been set aside yet39: that the motivational processes guiding human behaviour are neural processes does not mean that they can be reduced to pure cerebral functions from which the acting of the subject would depend in an exclusive manner. Such neuroscientific reductionism40 poorly fits the complexity of man and his mind – which besides does not mean to deny the value of neurosciences as an «useful complement to the expert assessment»:

37 See M. Priarolo, Il determinismo. Storia di un’idea, Roma, 2011, especially p. 99 ff. 38 See D. Pulitanò, Ragionevolezza e diritto penale, Napoli, 2012, p. 18 ff. 39 Cf. A. Oliverio, Cervello, Torino, 2012, p. 150: «As it can be seen, neuroscientists themselves, or at least the most aware ones, have some reservations about a simplifying determinism. Neurosciences tell us that we are human beings because we have the brain we have: a brain that has its own advantages and faults, its rules and conditionings but also its degrees of freedom» (our transl.). 40 A. Manna, Diritto penale e neuroscienze: un’introduzione, cit., p. 10 speaks of penal «neo-positivism». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. Borsari 357 neuroscientific data, intended as risk factors, of probability of mental illness and/ or social dangerousness, should be assumed as a neuroscientifically certain clue from which the judge can logically infer, on the basis of consolidated experiences, the demonstration of the fact to be proven, that is mental illness and/or the higher probability of a criminal behaviour41. Also the aspect concerning the research on the neuronal basis of moral judgement – the biological mechanisms in charge of the formation of morals and the taking of decisions before ethical dilemmas, which increasingly often touch criminal law (issues of the end of life and more) – is implied. The experiments of the railway trolley and of the fat man42 have demonstrated that the aggressive action personally involving the subject activates different areas of the brain (emotions and social cognition) from those activated by the utilitarian and rational decision to take an impersonal and mediated harmful action (abstract and rational thought). It follows, in extreme synthesis, that not merely rational factors are responsible for moral judgement, but also emotional factors have a role in it, with all the due consequences; it follows also that rational and conscious are not synonyms. Hauser, psychologist and developmental biologist, writes that « What blood flow provides, in the form of a snapshot of the brain, is an image of what happens when we detect a moral conflict. Brain imaging spits out a description of whether an individual perceives conflict in a dilemma, the sources of conflict, and the nature of the resolution». «Warning: This isn’t a prescriptive claim. Reading blood flow is no better than reading tarot cards when it comes to working out what one ought to do». A neuroscientist can explain the engagement in a crime of an individual in a certain way and an economist can explain it in another, without being one of the two explanations true or false; and the fact that there could be also another explanation, the fact that of the very same phenomenon there could be many «whys» does not exclude liberty, at the best it denies that liberty, absolute and lacking concreteness, that no one can seriously maintain. Explaining conscience or that part of conscience that is free choice through neurons and synapses could be a possibility, but not the only possibility, as it could be part of the explanation and not the whole explanation. In fact, in moral dilemmas, the developmental explanation seems to occupy a deeper and preceding level: neurology, indeed, illustrates what does happen in brain when we take one decision or the other, and thus tell us the how of a phenomenon; developmental theory tries to explain to us why that happens. But a trick hides also behind such statements: explaining the origins of a phenomenon is the same than explaining its causes?

41 Cf. L. De Cataldo Neuburger, Neuroscienze e diritto penale. La scienza come, quando e perché, in A. Santosuosso (ed.), Le neuroscienze e il diritto, cit., p. 141 ff. 42 On which, within a wider, deeper and innovative study, see O. Di Giovine, Un diritto penale empatico? Diritto penale, bioetica e neuroetica, Torino, 2009, p. 99 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

358 Neurosciences, genetics and criminal law

The discourse would bring us far, too far for this paper, maybe seeking to recuperate the sense of a whole knowledge43. One might, also provocatively, wonder whether, to this end, Pascal was right, when he stated that «the last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it».

43 O. Di Giovine, Chi ha paura delle neuroscienze?, cit., p. 853. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Neuroscienze, genetica e diritto penale. Considerazioni rapsodiche

Riccardo Borsari

Potrebbe con fondamento sostenersi che le questioni sollevate dalle acquisizioni, pur controverse, delle neuroscienze e della genetica sul diritto, in particolare, per quel che qui interessa, penale, «vengono da lontano»1 e tuttavia costituiscono una sfida empirica alla riflessione giuridica e filosofica, stimolata a ripensare problemi antichi (il rapporto cervello/mente) e categorie tradizionali (libertà/responsabilità). Senza scomodare Cesare Lombroso2, un episodio di cronaca risalente a quasi cin- quant’anni or sono contribuisce, con la forza suggestiva della realtà, a fondare concretamente questa affermazione. Nel 1966 Charles Whitman salì sulla torre dell’università del Texas con una borsa piena di armi e munizioni, uccise l’addetto all’ingresso e sparò a due famiglie che salivano le scale; dalla balconata cominciò a sparare su tuti quelli che vedeva muoversi. Prima di venire abbat- tuto, uccise 14 persone e ne ferì 32. A casa sua la polizia trovò madre e moglie morte e un suo biglietto: «Non riesco a comprendermi in questo periodo. Mi ritengo un giovane intelligente e ragionevole, tuttavia ultimamente sono vittima di pensieri irrazionali e insoliti. Dopo una lunga riflessione ho deciso di uccidere mia moglie Kathy, stanotte. La amo teneramente ed è stata la miglior moglie che un uomo potrebbe sperare di avere. Non sono capace di darmi una spiegazione razionale per quello che sto per fare … Ho parlato per due ore con un medico, cercando di esporgli le mie paure, gli ho detto che mi sentivo sopraffatto da impulsi violenti incontrollabili. Dopo quel colloquio, non sono tornato dal medico e ho cercato di domare il caos della mia mente, apparentemente senza successo». Whitman aveva 25 anni, un QI del 2% più intelligente della popolazione media, ex marine, aveva studiato ingegneria e lavorato in banca, era stato istruttore scout. Durante l’autopsia fu trovato un tumore, un glioblastoma, grande come una monetina da cinque centesimi di dollaro, sviluppatosi nella profondità dell’encefalo sotto il talamo, che s’appoggiava sull’ipotalamo e comprimeva l’amigdala, struttura che regola le emozioni – secondo molti neurologi dell’epoca, quella fu la causa del suo comportamento.

1 V., anche in relazione ai diversi paradigmi di analisi dell’infermità di mente, A. Manna, Diritto penale e neuroscienze: un’introduzione, in O. Di Giovine (a cura di), Diritto penale e neuroetica, Atti del Convegno 21-22 maggio 2012, Università degli Studi di Foggia, Padova, 2013, p. 3 ss. Per un primo inquadramento v., intanto, L. Sammicheli, G. Sartori, Neuroscienze giuridiche: i diversi livelli di interazione tra diritto e neuroscienze, in A. Bianchi, G. Gulotta, G. Sartori (a cura di), Manuale di neuroscienze forensi, Milano, 2009, p. 15 ss. 2 Cfr. S. Montaldo (a cura di), Cesare Lombroso. Gli scienziati e la nuova Italia, Bologna, 2010. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

360 Neuroscienze, genetica e diritto penale

Nei tempi recenti, negli Stati Uniti3, ma anche in Italia (sentenze Corte Assise Appello Trieste4 e Giudice per l’udienza preliminare presso il Tribunale di Como5), vengono, nell’a- bito di un dibattito per così dire globale6, con frequenza crescente richieste risonanze ma- gnetiche funzionali o tomografie a emissione di positroni al fine di valutare le funzionalità di specifiche aree cerebrali degli imputati; lo scopo è quello di evidenziare lesioni o difetti neurologici tali da annullare il controllo volontario7: è come se si volesse sostenere «non l’ho fatto io ma il mio cervello»8. L’incapacità di distinguere il bene e dal male e di controllare i propri atti sono le circostanze, con ovvii riflessi sul giudizio di responsabilità e sulla pena, che possono essere configurate dalle patologie che compromettono gravemente la funzionalità del sistema nervoso centrale9. E proprio in relazione alle problematiche, oggi al centro dell’attenzione speculativa e pratica, dell’impatto della genetica e delle neuroscienze10 sul diritto penale suona attualissi- mo, oltre che di primaria importanza, il pensiero del Maestro Giuseppe Bettiol. In estrema sintesi11, infatti, può ricordarsi come il tipo d’uomo per così dire presupposto da Bettiol è rappresentato da un essere responsabile delle proprie azioni, capace di muovere il corso delle cose e arbitro del proprio destino; la capacità di intendere e di volere è la capacità dell’uomo di percepire, individuare e comprendere le conseguenze del proprio agire nel significato etico- sociale che esse presentano nella situazione storica sulla quale vanno ad incidere; in essa sono implicate la consapevolezza del fine, la ragionevolezza del motivo, la congruità dell’azione. Il tutto calato nella vita concreta perché il diritto penale è fatto «per l’uomo in genere che ha una sua concreta vita di gioia e di dolore nel quadro dei concreti valori della vita». Nella prospettiva prescrittiva assunta da Bettiol, egli pone anzitutto il valore dell’uomo dotato di libero

3 Su cui A. Santosuosso, B. Bottalico, Neuroscienze e diritto: una prima mappa, in A. Santosuosso (a cura di), Le neuroscienze e il diritto, Pavia, 2009, p. 33 ss.; M. Freeman. O.R. Goodenough (eds.), Law, Mind and brain, Ashgate, 2009, p. 5 ss. 4 Sentenza del 1 ottobre 2009. 5 Sentenza del 20 maggio 2011. V. F. Casasole, Neuroscienze, genetica comportamentale e processo penale, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2012, p. 110 ss. 6 Nella letteratura tedesca, per tutti, S. Schleim, T.M. Spranger, H. Walter (hrsg.), Von der Neuroethik zum Neurorecht?, Göttingen, 2009. 7 Rimarca che il rapido sviluppo della neurobiologia abbia «indotto alcune giuristi a trarre indebite e affrettate conclusioni sull’eclisse della libertà del volere, della colpevolezza e della responsabilità», M. Ronco, Gli sviluppi della neurobiologia e la libertà personale, in “Iustitia”, 2011, p. 439. 8 Che sarebbe dunque il «vero colpevole»: v. J. Greene, J. Cohen, For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London - Series B: Biological Sciences, 2001, p. 1775 ss. 9 Evidenzia come si riproponga la questione dell’eziologia del comportamento criminale S. Larizza, Sui limiti posti dal sistema penale alla recezione degli esiti conoscitivi della “neuroimaging”, in M.G. Ruberto, C. Barbieri (a cura di), Il futuro tra noi. Aspetti etici, giuridici e medico-legali della neuroetica, Milano, 2011, p. 35. 10 Per un quadro d’insieme v. P. Pietrini, G. Rota, Il comportamento umano tra geni e cervello: alcune considerazioni sullo stato attuale delle conoscenze neuroscientifiche, in O. Di Giovine (a cura di), Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., p. 11 ss.; L. Eusebi (a cura di), Dinamiche della volizione e libertà, Milano, 2008. Un ampio affresco in A. avazzaL , L. Sammicheli, Il delitto del cervello. La mente tra scienza e diritto, Torino, 2012. 11 Sono debitore per questi spunti al volume del professore S. Riondato, Un diritto penale detto «ragionevole». Raccontando Giuseppe Bettiol, Padova, 2005, passim. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. Borsari 361 arbitrio – «l’uomo è salvato solo quando venga considerato come un valore, come fine, come essere di ragione»; la sua finalità principale risiede nella salvaguardia della libertà morale, giuridica e politica dell’uomo; dice Bettiol, «l’uomo, pur non essendo né angelo né frammento di natura, ha sempre saputo distinguere ciò che è male da ciò che è bene non sulla base di un als ob (come se), perché allora la vita sarebbe una finzione, ma sulla base di un criterio ontologico che ci avvicina all’essere e quindi alla verità … potere agire diversamente da come si è agito non è un mistero perché anche la nostra coscienza è fonte di conoscenza e verità». Coerentemente, la colpevolezza è per il Maestro un concetto di valore che presuppone un giudizio di disapprovazione per ciò che si è compiuto, è una volontà che non ci doveva essere, non è tanto volontarietà dell’illecito quanto volontà illecita, ossia volontà determinatasi all’azione mentre avrebbe dovuto e potuto determinarsi diversamente. In quanto «giudizio di riprovazione personale per la perpetrazione di un fatto lesivo di un interesse protetto», si compone di capacità di intendere e volere, volontarietà del fatto nei limiti rispettivi di dolo e colpa e possibilità di una normale motivazione della volontà (esigibilità). Il principio di colpevolezza è quindi necessario per garantire al privato la certezza di libere scelte d’azione12. Non basta. Bettiol aderisce al Gesinnungstrafrecht, con ciò ritenendo – si scuserà una certa semplificazione e semplicismo – che ciò contribuisca e fondi una imputazione autenticamente personalistica. Gesinnung è mentalità, è consapevole orientamento interiore di un soggetto che si determina con riferimento a taluni valori della comunità sociale, è consapevole disposizione del soggetto agente di fronte a certi valori. Mentre intenzioni e motivi(psichici)13 implicano e si esauriscono in un accertamento di fatto, la Gesinnung implica, su un analogo accertamen- to, una valutazione etico-giuridica e permette di costruire la personalità morale del soggetto agente. Il diritto penale dell’atteggiamento interiore si attaglia perciò all’eticità della persona umana che si manifesta negli atteggiamenti di coscienza e nella scelta delle motivazioni dell’a- zione. La personalizzazione-eticizzazione porta alla umanizzazione della responsabilità penale (pur nella persistenza di un diritto penale caratterizzato dalla lesione di un bene giuridico)14. Le concezioni di Giuseppe Bettiol, in particolare quanto a centralità del libero arbitrio e del giudizio morale15, sollecitano dunque con peculiare profondità la riflessione, in con-

12 Cfr. G. Fiandaca, Considerazioni su colpevolezza e prevenzione, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1987, p. 865 ss. 13 V. P. Veneziani, Motivi e colpevolezza, Torino, 2000. 14 Merita ricordare quanto affermato dalla Corte Costituzionale nella sent. n. 322 del 2007 (in tema di errore sull’età della persona offesa nei delitti sessuali): «Il principio di colpevolezza non può essere sacrificato dal legislatore ordinario in nome di una più efficace tutela penale di altri valori, ancorché essi pure di rango costituzionale … Il principio di colpevolezza è garanzia di libere scelte d’azione sulla base di una valutazione anticipata (calcolabilità) delle conseguenze giuridico-penali della propria condotta … ha un ruolo fondante rispetto alla funzione rieducativa della pena … Il legislatore ben può nell’ambito delle diverse forme di colpevolezza graduare il coefficiente psicologico di partecipazione dell’autore al fatto in rapporto alla natura della fattispecie e degli interessi che debbono essere preservati … ma in nessun caso gli è consentito prescindere in toto dal predetto coefficiente: altrimenti, stabilire quando ricorrano esigenze repressive atte a giustificare una rinuncia al requisito della colpevolezza – in vista della tutela di altri interessi di rango costituzionale, come, di norma, quelli protetti in sede penale – diverrebbe un apprezzamento rimesso alla mera discrezionalità legislativa, con conseguente svuotamento delle funzioni garantistica e fondante del principio di colpevolezza». 15 V., ex multis, M. De Caro, A. Lavazza, G. Sartori, Siamo davvero liberi? Le neuroscienze e il mistero File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

362 Neuroscienze, genetica e diritto penale siderazione del fatto che negli ultimi anni la ricerca genetica applicata allo studio del comportamento umano e le neuroscienze hanno apportato e vieppiù apportano un significativo impulso alle conoscenze circa l’aumento del rischio di comportamenti antisociali da parte di soggetti portatori di determinati geni o caratterizzati da particolari configurazioni cerebrali16. Le tecniche di brain imaging consentono di conoscere le modalità di funzionamento del cervello in azione, mentre pensa, prova emozioni etc. Per certi versi parrebbe dunque illogico non avvalersi di queste nuove tecniche che hanno ampliato «la scatola degli attrezzi»17 e hanno consentito di appurare, ad esempio, che la matu- rità cerebrale non sarebbe raggiunta prima dei 21 anni; per altri, ci si chiede se effettivamente gli apporti delle neuroscienze e il loro impatto sul diritto rivestano o meno carattere di ecce- zionalità e, conseguentemente, predichino o meno concetti e soluzioni totalmente nuove18. Sembra porsi almeno in parte in quest’ottica pure la Corte di Cassazione, laddove afferma, con la pronuncia n. 867 del 2011, che la revisione del processo può basarsi su questioni già prese in considerazione dal giudice, come l’imputabilità, delle quali tuttavia possa darsi una valutazione fondata sull’impiego di nuove tecniche; sostiene in particolare la Corte che «la novità della prova scientifica può essere correlata all’oggetto stesso dell’accertamento oppure al metodo scoperto o sperimentato successivamente a quello applicato nel processo oramai definito, di per sé idoneo a produrre nuovi elementi fattuali»; insomma, dopo la «revisione europea», la «revisione scientifica», posto che, reputa la Corte, la precedente giurisprudenza, che negava la revisione in caso di prove scientifiche già apprezzate, «si fonda(va) anzitutto su una concezione positivistica della scienza intesa come insieme di conoscenze complete, certe, uniche. Esso rifiuta l’idea che nella nozione di scienza sia insito il concetto di fallibilità, di relatività, di evoluzione, rifugge il metodo della smentita e della falsificabilità, nonché la ricerca e la valutazione di altre differenti ricostruzioni del fatto storico al fine di dimostrare che le alternative non sono ragionevolmente configurabili, non accetta la prospettiva che l’utilizzazione di un diverso metodo, pur se applicato agli stessi elementi, possa produrre esiti del libero arbitrio, Torino, 2010; M. Gazzaniga, Chi comanda? Scienza, mente e libero arbitrio, Torino, 2012; R. Kane (ed.), Free Will, Oxford, 2009. 16 M. Bertolino, Il breve cammino del vizio di mente. Un ritorno al paradigma organicistico?, in A. Santosuosso (a cura di), Le neuroscienze e il diritto, cit., p. 121 ss., la quale, in relazione alle esigenze di umanizzazione e personalizzazione della responsabilità, evidenzia come «troppo spesso le premesse sostanziali sono piegate a logiche probatorie che portano a privilegiare il fatto impersonalmente inteso … ad arricchire il catalogo di questi schemi contribuiscono senza ombra di dubbio anche le neuroscienze, le cui conquiste scientifiche non sono ignorate dal diritto … in particolare, quando le neuroscienze vengono applicate al giudizio sull’imputabilità, anche le problematiche dell’autore rischiano di diventare vittima di un processo di oggettivizzazione e di standardizzazione, che affascina nella sua componente di garanzia della certezza dell’accertamento giudiziale … ma tutto ciò implica anche il rischio di una “processualizzazione” delle categorie dommatiche sostanziali, nel senso della sostituzione degli elementi costitutivi del reato con canoni probatori, da cui consegue una confusione fra oggetto dell’accertamento e strumento dell’accertamento. In altri termini, per tornare all’elemento costitutivo della capacità di intendere e di volere, esso finisce con l’essere forgiato e assorbito dalla relativa questione probatoria, per la risoluzione della quale oggi si fa sempre più affidamento sulle neuroscienze». 17 I. Merzagora Betsos, Colpevoli si nasce?, in O. Di Giovine (a cura di), Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., p. 28 che reputa «assurdo non tenere in considerazione le nuove tecniche neuroscientifiche». 18 In questo senso A. Santosuosso, Il dilemma del diritto di fronte alle neuroscienze, in Id. (a cura di), Le neuroscienze e il diritto, Pavia, 2009, p. 11. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. Borsari 363 affatto diversi … Ad esso si accompagna la preoccupazione di una inconciliabilità logica tra le esigenze di certezza e di stabilità proprie dell’accertamento effettuato nel processo penale e assicurate dal giudicato e le finalità gnoseologiche della scienza contraddistinta, per sua stessa natura, dalla incompletezza e provvisorietà delle acquisizioni conoscitive raggiunte»19. Si affollano numerosi interrogativi, uno dei più rilevanti dei quali concerne – come evidenziato in vari studi dal professore Ronco – la per così dire capacità esplicativa di detti studi sul comportamento dello specifico soggetto agente su di uno specifico fatto criminoso; la possibile influenza ricollegabile a un determinato gene va infatti esaminata alla luce di una molteplicità di fattori, tra cui gli altri geni e fattori ambientali. Ciascun fattore di rischio biologico dovrebbe dunque venire verificato nell’interazione con ciascuno specifico fattore di rischio ambientale, secondo modelli sempre più complessi e interdisciplinari che vedano integrarsi i dati genetici con quelli della psicofisiologia, della neuropsicologia, dell’imaging cerebrale, della neurologia, del funzionamento ormonale, dei neurotrasmettitori e degli influssi dell’ambiente. La complessa interazione tra dati biologici e ambientali predica la necessità di una accurata personalizzazione del modello esplicativo, anche alla luce di possibili impieghi in malam partem di dette prove e di correlati rischi di trasformazione del giudizio sul fatto in un giudizio sulla persona e sulla sua predisposizione a commettere delitti del tipo di quello oggetto di giudizio, aggravati dalla circostanza che talune anomalie potrebbero essere presenti al momento dell’accertamento ma non esserlo state al momento del fatto – e ciò senza dire dei dubbi di attendibilità di talune prove e del rischio violazioni della privacy e della dignità umana. Non è un caso che taluni studiosi abbiano evidenziato la natura descrittiva e non esplicativa del modello offerto dalle neuroscienze, il quale si limita a scoprire le correlazioni tra funzioni cerebrali e comportamento e rischia di innescare ragionamenti circolari e al fine tautologici: presenta anomalie cerebrali e ha commesso un crimine, diventa: presenta anomalie cerebrali tant’è vero che ha commesso un crimine; e infine: ha commesso un criminea causa delle anomalie cerebrali20. La riscoperta e la grande attenzione riservata alla vicenda di Phineas Gage (Damasio, nel famoso libro L’errore di Cartesio ricostruì al computer le aree del cervello danneggiate dalla sbarra, riscontrando che erano state colpite alcune zone della corteccia prefrontale e che ciò aveva determinato una sindrome frontale caratterizzata anche dal mancato controllo degli impulsi primari) incarna la convinzione, supportata dalla precisione di tecniche sempre più potenti e raffinate (ma anche dinamiche, manipolabili e sovente difficili da decifrare persino per l’esperto)21, che comportamenti idiosincratici, asociali, violenti o autodistruttivi siano dovuti a modificazioni – traumatiche, patologiche, congenite o per effetto ambientale22 – della struttura e/o del funzionamento cerebrale di uno specifico individuo rispetto alla media della popolazione. In quest’ottica va sfumando la distinzione tra patologie organiche e disturbi psicologici, essendo l’eziologia di ogni affezione psichico-comportamentale radicata su base materiale cerebrale.

19 Su questi temi, anche in relazione alla notissima sentenza Daubert, v. S. Fuselli, Apparenze. Accertamento giudiziale e prova scientifica, Milano, 2008. 20 I. Merzagora Betsos, Colpevoli si nasce?, cit., p. 31. 21 Per un quadro informato e critico v. M. Bertolino, Prove neuro-psicologiche di verità penale, in www. penalecontemporaneo.it (21 ottobre 2014). 22 V. O. Di Giovine, Chi ha paura delle neuroscienze?, in “Archivio penale”, 2011, p. 838 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

364 Neuroscienze, genetica e diritto penale

Va affermandosi il cosiddetto neurodiritto23, il quale implica quattro tesi: 1) il cerebrali- smo, secondo cui il cervello o i geni costituiscono spesso il livello più importante o fondamentale per comprendere la condotta che è oggetto del diritto, specie penale (permane tuttavia il problema dei livelli di spiegazione); 2) il localizzazionismo, in base al quale i fenomeni di violenza criminale sorgono causalmente da disfunzioni all’interno di specifiche aree cerebrali – peraltro anche altre tipologie di condotta possono rinvenire la propria peculiarità nel funzionamento di strutture del sistema nervoso (rilevano tuttavia i problemi della forte plasticità neuronale e delle interconnessioni tra aree); 3) il revisionismo, secondo cui la presunzione di libertà e gli altri istituti/concetti classici non possono oggi venire riguardati senza considerare gli sviluppi della scienza (permane tuttavia il problema del carattere normativo degli ordinamenti); 4) l’alterizzazione, per cui, dato che una parte considerevole della violenza sorge da disfunzioni cerebrali, gli autori di tali atti sono biologicamente differenti dalle persone normali (si manifestano, all’evidenza, rischi di discriminazione). Il quadro che si spiega sotto gli occhi dell’osservatore intreccia dunque neuroscienze, scienze cognitive, genetica comportamentale, teoria evoluzionistica, filosofia del diritto, filosofia morale, giurisprudenza e antropologia filosofica. L’immagine di uomo che ne deriva pare di primo acchito piuttosto differente da come siamo soliti pensarci24, principalmente in quanto ragioniamo e agiamo in modi a noi stessi per lo più ignoti; e vien da chiedersi se siamo uguali tra noi al modo in cui ci diciamo uguali di fronte alla legge. Potrebbe darsi il caso che, pur certamente uguali in quanto membri della specie homo sapiens sapiens, siamo irrimediabilmente diversi in dotazioni naturali, in particolare genetiche e, a cascata, nella struttura e nel funzionamento del cervello25; l’idea che taluni tratti caratte- riali siano scritti nei nostri geni e siano capaci di influenzare comportamenti sociali complessi, apre potenzialmente la via a conseguenze giuridiche, in punto di uguaglianza, di tenore con- trastante: dal rischio di discriminazioni all’idea che «i cattivi» siano semplicemente «malati». Al di là delle specifiche questioni processuali26 e sostanziali che le acquisizioni scientifiche in parola suscitano, preme qui evidenziarne il potenziale impatto sul fondamento del diritto, in particolare penale, sul fondamento dell’imputazione, della pena e dell’idea di responsabi- lità, in dialogo con la filosofia e le scienze umane; le scoperte genetiche e neuroscientifiche, a partire dal notissimo esperimento di Benjamin Libet, metterebbero in discussione l’idea di libera volontà, la quale risulterebbe essere una mera illusione (un’inutile illusione, secondo taluni), generata dalle nostre strutture cognitive, con ogni riflesso sulla pena e le sue funzioni27. Secondo una ricostruzione, al tempo 0 il motorino mi attraversa la strada; dopo 50-60 millisecondi il mio cervello «vede» la scena; dopo 100-150 millisecondi il mio piede, istruito dal mio cervello, frena; dopo 500 millisecondi mi rendo conto dell’accaduto e dopo 650 posso

23 V. E. Picozza, L. Capraro, V. Cuzzocrea, D. Terracina, Neurodiritto. Una introduzione, Torino, 2011; S. Zeki, O.R. Goodenough (a cura di), Law & the Brain, London, 2006. 24 Cfr. D. Eagleman, Incognito. The secret Lives of the Brain, New York, 2011. 25 Cfr. P.S. Churchland, L’io come cervello, Milano, 2014. 26 V. M. Ronco, Sulla “prova” neuroscientifica, in “Archivio penale”, 2011, p. 855 ss. 27 Sulla relazione tra libertà del volere e funzione di «orientamento culturale» dei cittadini da parte della norma penale, v., per tutti, E. Musco, Le misure di sicurezza detentive. Profili storici e costituzionali, Milano, 1978. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. Borsari 365 commentarlo; fra la percezione visiva dell’episodio e la sua presa di coscienza da parte mia passa quasi mezzo secondo, nonostante nel frattempo io abbia frenato. Quel mezzo secondo separa la mia presa di coscienza di un fatto dal fatto stesso, l’accadimento dalla sua percezione cosciente, cioè il cervello (attività cerebrale senza specificazioni) dalla mente (attività cerebrale cosciente). Ricordiamo l’esperimento di Benjamin Libet, ovvero i relativi esiti28. Si chiede a un volontario di premere di tanto in tanto un pulsante, a suo piacimento; davanti a sé v’è un orologio che scandisce il tempo in centesimi di secondo. Una nutrita serie di esperimenti ha dimostrato che passano in media 200 millisecondi tra quando il soggetto decide di premere e quando effettivamente preme il pulsante. Nulla di strano. Ma, se si re- gistra ogni volta il cosiddetto potenziale di prontezza che si genera nella corteccia motoria supplementare nell’imminenza e in preparazione di ogni azione, si constata che questo prece- de l’azione di 550 millisecondi e quindi la nostra decisione di premere il pulsante di ben 350 millisecondi. Il mio cervello sembra quindi sapere che io voglio premere il pulsante con un anticipo di 350 millisecondi. Holmes, famoso giurista americano della seconda metà dell’800 e membro della Corte Suprema, scriveva: «Se mi capitasse di avere una discussione filosofica con un uomo destinato a essere impiccato o giustiziato sulla sedia elettrica per un mio verdetto, dovrei dire: “Non dubito che la tua condotta ti sia risultata ineluttabile, che tu non abbia potuto fare altrimenti, ma, affinché quella condotta diventi evitabile per altri, proponiamo di sacrificarti per il bene comune. Ti puoi considerare un soldato che muore per il proprio paese, se preferisci. Ma è necessario che la legge mantenga le sue promesse». Quali sono l’impatto e la portata dei progressi della scienza nella comprensione dell’essere umano specie attraverso l’esame del suo cervello? Possiamo parlare del delitto non in termini di mancato adattamento in chiave sociologica ma come malfunzionamento cerebrale in chiave neuroscientifica? Vorrebbe, secondo una certa corrente di pensiero, farsi strada l’idea di una sorta di «pregiudizio» a favore di una prospettiva scientifica che colloca il diritto in una posizione an- cillare; come scrive Jasanoff, il neurodiritto si propone come una svolta culturale verso la «convinzione che la scienza possa portare a esiti giuridici a prova di errore, quindi giusti, dove il diritto, di per sé, può fallire». Nell’immaginario sociotecnologico il diritto viene epi- stemologicamente subordinato alla scienza, le neuroscienze devono e possono potenziare le istituzioni legali ed entrare nei processi in quanto la scienza stessa è concettualizzata come dotata di intrinseca normatività; l’idea di base è che sia mutata l’antropologia delle scienze umane sotto la pressione del naturalismo scientifico. Emerge, per certi versi contraddittoriamente29, una (pretesa) nuova immagine dell’uo-

28 B. Libet, Mind Time. Il fattore temporale nella coscienza, Milano, 2007. Di recente, ha affinato l’esperimento J.-D. Haynes: v. J.-D. Haynes, Posso prevedere quello che farai, in M. De Caro, A. Lavazza, G. Sartori, Siamo davvero liberi? Le neuroscienze e il mistero del libero arbitrio, cit., p. 5 ss. Criticamente, M. Ronco, Gli sviluppi della neurobiologia e la libertà personale, cit., p. 444 ss. 29 V. L. Eusebi, Neuroscienze e diritto penale: un ruolo diverso del riferimento alla libertà, in L. Palazzani, R. Zannotti (a cura di), Il diritto nelle neuroscienze. Non «siamo» i nostri cervelli, Torino, 2013, p. 123: «Oggi, effettivamente, viene rivendicato come non mai, in molti settori, il ruolo dell’autonomia individuale. Ma come non mai si dubita, nel contempo, che essa, almeno in qualche modo, davvero File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

366 Neuroscienze, genetica e diritto penale mo, non più diviso tra anima e corpo, libero, razionale, bensì frutto dell’evoluzione, irrazio- nale e dominato dalle passioni, molto meno libero di quel che per lo più si crede in ragione dei condizionamenti genetico-cerebrali30. Quel che le neuroscienze sollecitano e impongono è allora una riflessione sul libero arbitrio e sull’implicato concetto di responsabilità personale31. Il rimprovero (giuridico) fondato sul «potere agire diversamente» – dunque «l’essenza» della colpevolezza in senso normativo come acquisita nell’odierna riflessione penalistica – si fonda sulla libertà del volere; senza libertà del volere la norma perderebbe la sua necessaria funzione di orientamento culturale dei cittadini. Il libero arbitrio – ovverosia il fatto che l’imputato sia stato in grado di comprendere la natura e le conseguenze del proprio agire e di scegliere liberamente di compiere un atto criminale pur potendo fare altrimenti – costituisce il fondamento si cui poggiano l’imputabilità e la punibilità32. Si spazia, come detto, da posizioni33 che sostengono essere il libero arbitrio un’illusione, cui il diritto non può rimanere indifferente; ad altre che attribuiscono alle nuove posizioni una valenza non individualistica bensì «collettiva», derivando esse appunto dalle interazioni collettive di molti cervelli; ad altre ancora che invece sostengono essere il libero arbitrio una realtà frutto, per così dire, di un processo complesso di interazione tra componenti genetiche e ambiente che opera sia a livello filogenetico sia ontogenetico34. Un aspetto rilevante, che predica adeguata valorizzazione anche, anzi soprattutto dagli studiosi del diritto penale, risiede nel fatto che autorevoli studiosi – penso in primis allo scienziato della mente J. Searle – accolgono l’idea del libero arbitrio sulla base di informazioni che la neurobiologia propone sulla struttura e il funzionamento del cervello. Se così fosse, se si propende per questa impostazione, le scoperte neuroscientifiche finiscono con il rafforzare l’idea che la libertà non costituisca una utile finzione per giustificare l’imputazione, bensì la sua base ontologica che fonda e giustifica razionalmente il giudizio di responsabilità. V’è al contrario il rischio che gli esiti di queste prove possano venire utilizzati in senso contrario alla libertà della persona e sorreggano una sorta di nuovo scientismo criminologico totalmente deterministico. Recenti studi empirici su libertà determinismo e responsabilità esprimerebbero quella che forse è la posizione oggi da preferire, ovverosia quella «compatibilista»35, nel senso di un’opzione a favore della libertà pur in un contesto definibile come deterministico; la moderna teoria compatibilistica infatti rende conciliabile l’impostazione deterministica con il riconoscimento di spazi di libertà, nel senso di una libertà del volere non tanto in termini di esista». 30 Cfr. T. Metzinger, Il tunnel dell’io. Scienza della mente e mito del soggetto, Milano, 2010. 31 V., ampiamente, D. Terracina, Problematiche del diritto penale, in E. Picozza, L. Capraro, V. Cuzzocrea, D. Terracina, Neurodiritto, cit., p. 187 ss. Per una panoramica della discussione e della dottrina (anche) tedesca si veda il bel contributo di A. Nisco, Il confronto tra neuroscienze e diritto penale sulla libertà di volere, in “Dir. pen. proc.”, 2012, p. 499 ss. 32 In argomento A. Nisco, La tutela penale dell’integrità psichica, Torino, 2012, passim. 33 Per approfondimenti si rinvia a M. Ronco, Gli sviluppi della neurobiologia e la libertà personale, cit., p. 441 ss. 34 Cfr. P.J. Richerson, R. Boyd, Non di solo geni. Come la cultura ha trasformato l’evoluzione umana, Torino, 2006. 35 V. D. Dennet, L’evoluzione della libertà, Milano, 2004. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

R. Borsari 367 assenza assoluta di condizionamenti quanto piuttosto in quelli di una capacità di agire guidata da condizionamenti, inevitabilmente presenti perché, altrimenti, dominerebbe il puro caso, nei confronti dei quali tuttavia l’agente possiede capacità di valutazione. Un maggiore o minore grado di condizionamento vale per tutte le nostre scelte e dunque pure per l’eventuale scelta di delinquere, per la quale potrebbe applicarsi la definizione di libertà morale condizionata; nessuna libertà assoluta, dunque, in questa visione, bensì uno spazio di manovra limitato dalla nostra storia, nostra in quanto in gran parte costruita da noi. L’uomo è libero ma la sua libertà è condizionata dalla eredità biologica, dall’ambiente sociale, dalle situazioni concrete in cui egli viene di volta in volta a trovarsi e che costituiscono il campo delle possi- bilità tra cui può scegliere. Nella discussione sul libero arbitrio la responsabilità è una sorta di convitato di pietra. Chi si preoccupa dell’erosione della libertà da parte del determinismo36 spesso teme soprattutto una per così dire perdita di senso delle pratiche di attribuzione della responsabilità. La capacità di autodeterminazione, di agire cioè in base a motivi che il soggetto agente considera prevalenti su altri che lo avrebbero portato a una scelta differente, incarna il contenuto empirico dell’imputabilità penale; questa viene meno quando i condizionamenti sono tali da impedire una scelta consapevole, razionale, ragionata. Sul piano della responsabilità penale, e dell’imputabilità in particolare, siffatte considerazioni si traducono nell’idea che di quest’ultima non si può fare a meno in quanto espressione di un sistema punitivo informato a ragionevolezza intesa come saggezza pratica, come adeguatezza o coerenza assiologica. La responsabilità penale per essere ragionevole deve ri- specchiare criteri che sono giuridici e non morali, ma essa ha un senso esclusivamente in un ambito di compatibilità con criteri di attribuzione di una responsabilità anche morale37. La responsabilità penale, tuttavia per essere ragionevole, deve confrontarsi anche con questioni di razionalità in senso stretto interne al sistema penale, questioni di verità di competenza del sapere scientifico, tra cui quelle che attingono le neuroscienze e la genetica quando si discorre di imputabilità. Orbene, sino ad ora l’idea di un principio di responsabilità penale come responsabilità di un soggetto capace di autodeterminarsi non pare accantonata38: che i processi motiva- zionali che guidano il comportamento umano siano processi neurali non significa che essi siano riducibili a pure funzioni cerebrali da cui in maniera esclusiva dipenderebbe l’agire del soggetto. Siffatto riduzionismo neuroscientifico39 mal si attaglia alla complessità dell’uomo e della sua mente – il che peraltro non significa disconoscere la valenza delle neuroscienze come «utile complemento alla valutazione peritale»: il dato neuroscientifico, nel senso di fattore di rischio, di probabilità di malattia mentale e/o di pericolosità sociale, andrebbe assunto come indizio, neuroscientificamente certo, dal quale il giudice può inferire logicamente, sulla base

36 V. M. Priarolo, Il determinismo. Storia di un’idea, Roma, 2011, specie p. 99 ss. 37 V. D. Pulitanò, Ragionevolezza e diritto penale, Napoli, 2012, p. 18 ss. 38 Cfr. A. Oliverio, Cervello, Torino, 2012, p. 150: «Come si vede, sono gli stessi neuroscienziati, o almeno quelli più consapevoli, ad avanzare riserve nei confronti di un determinismo semplificante. Le neuroscienze ci dicono infatti che siamo esseri umani perché abbiamo il cervello che abbiamo: un cervello che ha i suoi pregi e difetti, regole e condizionamenti, ma anche i suoi gradi di libertà». 39 Di «neo-positivismo» penale parla A. Manna, Diritto penale e neuroscienze: un’introduzione, cit., p. 10. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

368 Neuroscienze, genetica e diritto penale di esperienze consolidate, la dimostrazione del fatto da provare, ovverosia la malattia mentale e/o la maggiore probabilità di un comportamento criminale40. Implicato è altresì il profilo che tocca la ricerca sulle basi neuronali del giudizio morale, i meccanismi biologici preposti alla formazione della morale e all’assunzione di decisioni di fronte ai dilemmi etici, che sempre più toccano il diritto penale (questioni di fine vita e altro). Gli esperimenti del carrello ferroviario e dell’uomo grasso41 hanno dimostrato che l’azione aggressiva che coinvolge personalmente il soggetto attiva aree cerebrali diverse (emozioni e cognizione sociale) da quelle attivate dalla decisione utilitaristica e razionale di intraprendere un’azione lesiva impersonale e mediata (pensiero astratto e razionale). Se ne trae, in estrema sintesi, che non sono solo fattori razionali a dare conto del giudizio morale ma che in esso hanno un ruolo anche fattori emotivi, con ogni conseguenza; se ne trae ulteriormente che razionale e consapevole non sono sinonimi. Scrive Hauser, psicologo e biologo evolutivo: «Il flusso sanguigno ci permette di avere, sotto forma di istantanea del cervello, un’immagine di ciò che accade quando rileviamo un conflitto morale. Ilneuroimaging ci dice se l’individuo in un dilemma percepisce un conflitto, le fonti di un conflitto, la natura della sua risoluzione; ma, attenzione: questa non è un’affermazione prescrittiva. Quando si vuole scoprire che cosa bisognerebbe fare, l’interpretazione del flusso sanguigno non è molto più utile di quella dei tarocchi». Un neuroscienziato può spiegarci in un modo il ricorso al crimine di un individuo e un economista può spiegarcelo in un altro, senza che una delle due spiegazioni sia vera o falsa; e il fatto che ci possa essere anche un’altra spiegazione, che di uno stesso fenomeno possano essere dati plurimi «perché» non nega la libertà, al massimo nega quella libertà assoluta e priva di concretezza che nessuno può seriamente sostenere. Spiegare la coscienza, o quella parte della coscienza che è la libera scelta, attraverso neuroni e sinapsi potrebbe essere una possibilità, ma non l’unica possibilità, così come potrebbe essere una parte della spiegazione e non tutta la spiegazione. Anzi, nei dilemmi morali, la spiegazione evoluzionistica parrebbe porsi a un più profondo e antecedente livello: la neurologia, infatti, ci illustra cosa succede nel cervello quando prendiamo l’una o l’altra decisione, e quindi ci dice il come di un fenomeno; la teoria evoluzionista cerca di spiegarci il perché ciò avvenga. Però anche dietro a queste affermazioni si cela un tranello: spiegare le origini di un fenomeno è la stessa cosa che spiegarne le cause? Il discorso porterebbe lontano, troppo lontano per questa sede, in cerca, forse, di recuperare il senso di un sapere unitario42. Vien da chiedersi, volendo provocatoriamente, se, al fine, non fosse nel giusto Pascal, quando affermava che «il supremo passo della ragione sta nel riconoscere che c’è un’infinità di cose che la sorpassano».

40 Cfr. L. De Cataldo Neuburger, Neuroscienze e diritto penale. La scienza come, quando e perché, in A. Santosuosso (a cura di), Le neuroscienze e il diritto, cit., p. 141 ss. 41 Su cui, nell’ambito di un più ampio, profondo e innovatore studio, v. O. Di Giovine, Un diritto penale empatico? Diritto penale, bioetica e neuroetica, Torino, 2009, p. 99 ss. 42 O. Di Giovine, Chi ha paura delle neuroscienze?, cit., p. 853. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Genetics: overview of United States criminal law1

Deborah W. Denno

Table of contents: Introduction. − I. How does the gene-environment interaction work? − A. Balancing aggravating and mitigating factors. − B. Mitigation stories. − 1. The Stephen Mobley story. − 2. The Susan Smith story. − C. “Exotic” mitigation stories. − II. Behavioral genetics evidence cases: 2007-2011. − A. When and how evidence is introduced. − B. The types of evidence introduced. − C. Why evidence is introduced. − III. The state of behavioral genetics evidence now. − A. Are Courts still skeptical? − 1. The first study: 1994-2007. − 2. The second study: 2007-2011. − B. Is behavioral genetics evidence effective? − C. Are there new trends or arguments? − D. The potential impact of Cullen v. Pinholster. − 1. History and evidence. − 2. Behavioral genetics cases. – Conclusion.

Introduction In 2011, Jared Lee Loughner unleashed tragedy on a nation with a shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona. In a matter of minutes, Loughner killed six people, including a federal judge, and injured thirteen others, including a congresswoman. Following this scene of devastation, legal attention turned to who would represent Loughner and what Loughner’s defense would be. Evidence showed that the troubled Loughner had long planned his highly public acts, and he disclosed no remorse. Social outrage was huge, Loughner’s legal options limited. Yet, predictions for a defense surfaced: Loughner’s attorneys would likely scrutinize Loughner’s life and

1 This chapter was part of a talk I presented at the University of Padova’s conference on “Genetics, Robotics, Law, Punishment” held in Padova, Italy on 30 September − 1 October 2013. I thank Silvio Riondato and Debora Provolo for sponsoring the conference as well as all of the conference participants, especially Lorenzo Pasculli, for their insightful comments. This chapter derives in large part from this Author’s article originally published in 2011 Michigan State Law Review 967, which also contains all the references and citations upon which this chapter relies in addition to this chapter’s Appendix. I am indebted to three sources for research funding: Fordham Law School, the Fordham University Faculty Research Grant, and the Arthur and Charlotte Zitrin Foundation. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

370 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law lineage across generations in an effort to garner him an insanity defense or avoid the death penalty. Indeed, a few months later, Loughner’s lawyers filed subpoenas for the public health records of twenty-two of Loughner’s relatives on his mother’s side, making requests as far back as 1893, the year Loughner’s maternal great- grandmother was born. Presumably, if Loughner’s relatives revealed serious mental and behavioral disorders over the course of a century, such a legacy, along with a distressed environment, could help explain Loughner’s violent propensities and the need to mitigate his punishment. Defense efforts to examine behavioral genetics evidence in criminal cases are not new, of course. They can be effective but prone to sensationalism. News articles, for example, have greatly embellished the defense tactics in the trial and sentencing of murderer Bradley Waldroup, given Waldroup’s specific genetic make-up or “warrior gene,” as the media (but no scientist) has dubbed it. In 2006, Waldroup brutally killed his wife’s friend and attempted to kill his wife during what the State characterized as Waldroup’s intentional and premeditated actions spurred by a domestic dispute. In the end, Waldroup shot his wife’s friend eight times and slit open her head, then moved on to attack his wife repeatedly with a machete. Waldroup’s defense counsel requested that forensic psychiatrist William Bernet assess Waldroup, only for Bernet to discover that Waldroup possessed a particular variant of a very rare deficiency of monoamine oxidase A (MAOA). According to Bernet, this deficiency, when added to Waldroup’s history of severe child abuse, “‘created a vulnerability that [Waldroup] would be a violent adult.”’ Evidence of this gene-environment combination in Waldroup’s background also proved pivotal to jurors declining to sentence Waldroup to death. As one juror characterized some of the jury’s deliberations, “‘There was more to [Waldroup’s] whole life that led to that moment [of killing].”’ When asked if her assessment took into account Waldroup’s genetics, she responded, “‘Oh I’m sure . . . And his background − nature vs. nurture.”’ Press accounts of the Waldroup case, however, provided the public with little more than a dramatized narrative of Waldroup’s mitigating evidence. Writing about Waldroup, articles ran with a range of unfortunate headlines: “Can Your Genes Make You Murder?” or “Pity the Poor Murderer, His Genes Made Him Do It.” These depictions propelled the view that behavioral genetics evidence can get a defendant “off the hook” entirely for a crime; yet, the reality is that such evidence is mostly offered to mitigate punishment once a defendant’s guilt has been established. The distinction is important. There are vast differences in the way evidence is used between these two phases of a case. The press also fostered a level of cause-and- effect between genetics and behavior that Waldroup’s attorneys simply never argued, twisting the media’s glint nearly exclusively on Waldroup’s genetics. Not surprisingly, scientific advances and rising acceptance of genetics research have fueled a focus on the use of behavioral genetics evidence in criminal trials and File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 371 death penalty cases. At the same time, accurate accounts are lacking and questions remain on how United States courts view such evidence and how attorneys select and apply it in litigation. This chapter addresses those questions. The following pages provide a unique study of all criminal cases (totaling thirty- three) that addressed behavioral genetics evidence from June 1, 2007, to July 1, 2011. The Study builds upon this Author’s prior research on all criminal cases (totaling forty-eight) that used such evidence during the preceding thirteen years (1994-2007). This combined collection of eighty-one criminal cases employing behavioral genetics evidence offers a rich context for determining how the criminal justice system has handled genetics factors over nearly two decades, but also explains why the last four years reveal particularly important trends. In general, behavioral genetics researchers study both genetic and environmental sources of variation in human behavioral traits (for example, mental illness and risk taking) in an effort to measure the inheritance of particular characteristics. Therefore, the field of behavioral genetics is broadly interdisciplinary, incorporating findings from genetics, biology, psychology, sociology, and statistics, as well as other disciplines. While genes influence behavior, they do not govern nor determine it. Rather, “genes play a vital role in the body’s development and physiology, and it is through the body, acting in response to and upon surrounding environments, that behavior manifests itself.” Behavioral genetics evidence includes, but is not limited to, the study of the defendant’s family history as well as direct testing of the defendant’s physiological makeup by way of brain scans, for example. Both approaches are informative for explaining why a defendant engaged in criminally violent behavior. As one expert explained in the context of the Loughner case, for example, “Short of a brain scan that shows mental defect, a family history of mental illness is the most persuasive evidence that someone had significant mental problems at the time of the crime.” For decades, the concept of ties between genetics and crime has been haunted with controversy. As late as 1992, for example, the National Institutes of Health gained worldwide press for defunding a conference on genetics and crime due to claims that a genes-crime link stood for racism and eugenics. As one behavioral scientist recently exclaimed, for the past three or four decades ‘“most criminologists couldn’t say the word “genetics” without spitting.’” Yet presently, at least one hundred studies indicate a tie between genetics and criminality, and criminologists are slowly being encouraged to examine the association further in light of other research on behavioral problems (such as alcoholism and mental illness) that demonstrate some kind of genetic foundation. Most of these researchers are also quick to clarify their view on how genes and criminality intertwine. They debunk, for example, a wrong−but common − stereotype that an individual’s “genotype” or “genetic constitution” is static, as File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

372 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law though there is a “crime gene” that “hardwires” certain people to violate the law. This perspective, however entrenched in the public’s mind, has no scientific support. Rather, an overwhelming amount of evidence shows that genes are controlled by the environment and can either enhance or heighten the likelihood of a certain behavior, such as criminality, based on the surrounding circumstances. Thus, an individual’s genetic structure may act developmentally in the context of social variables by potentially predisposing an individual to behavioral tendencies, such as aggression, which may or may not result in law-breaking. For example, many people may share a genetic proclivity for aggression, but some may never act out their impulses in any physical way while others may become violent career criminals. This tight association between genetics and environment explains why Loughner’s attorneys would also look carefully at his immediate family, home, school, and peer relationships in addition to any genetic factors (such as mental illness) in order to better assess why he engaged in such violence. Part I of this chapter introduces the use of behavioral genetics evidence in criminal cases by comparing two earlier cases involving two substantially different defendants − Stephen Mobley (whose evidence was rejected) and Susan Smith (whose evidence was accepted). For example, much of the controversy surrounding Mobley’s case stemmed from the assumption that attorneys would abuse behavioral genetics evidence to support their positions and that courts would countenance the distortions. This chapter concludes that such predictions are, with rare exceptions, unfounded. Part II discusses the thirty-three behavioral genetics and crime cases that this Author studied between June 1, 2007, and July 1, 2011. These cases share two important characteristics. First, they all constitute murder convictions in which (with one exception) defendants attempted to use behavioral genetics evidence as a mitigating factor in a death penalty case (as Stephen Mobley and Susan Smith did). Second, the behavioral genetics evidence is introduced mostly to verify a condition (such as a type of mental illness) that is commonly acceptable for mitigation. Thus, the question now is not whether courts will accept behavioral genetics factors (they overwhelmingly do), but rather what role those factors will play in particular cases in the context of mitigation evidence. According to this Author’s Study, for example, there was no case in which behavioral genetics factors were introduced by the State, much less used as aggravating evidence or indications that a defendant would be a future danger to others. Compared to prior cases, attorneys are more likely to submit such evidence to demonstrate a defendant’s inheritance of substance or alcohol abuse. These results challenge arguments that such evidence will be legally detrimental to a defendant. Indeed, this Study’s results indicate that, at the very least, behavioral genetics evidence has no decipherable impact on a defendant’s case or, at most, it becomes an effective tool along with a range of other kinds of variables in File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 373 rendering a defendant ineligible for the death penalty. Courts also appear willing to accept behavioral genetics evidence as part of a defendant’s mitigation story, even if genetics renders that story a more troubling one in terms of the defendant’s purported propensities. Part III compares this Study of thirty-three cases to the Author’s prior study of forty-eight cases in order to examine whether courts have changed their use of behavioral genetics evidence in the last four years relative to the preceding thirteen years. Overall, courts today appear far less skeptical about accepting behavioral genetics evidence, and they do so in the majority of cases in which defense attorneys attempt to offer it. In contrast to past years when courts often questioned the applicability or relevance of such information, recent findings indicate that their focus has turned to whether the evidence, when used with other factors in mitigation, can outweigh the aggravating factors that support a death sentence. It remains to be seen whether or how such trends will be affected byCullen v. Pinholster (2011), the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision restricting prisoners’ efforts to seek federal habeas relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). Two of the cases in this chapter’s Study have already been impacted by Pinholster. Regardless, behavioral genetics evidence seems, on the surface, to have reached a status commensurate with other kinds of evidence without the baggage of abuse with which it has typically been associated. This chapter has a number of caveats, of course, particularly given the subject matter. Because nearly all of the eighty-one cases in this Author’s studies involve death sentences, comparisons across time can be a challenge. Litigation and appeals can go on for many years, and outcomes may be continually shifting, hence the potential effect of Pinholster. Any assessment of trends, therefore, must be taken in context because it may reflect in part outcomes in cases originating in different years or even decades. Nonetheless, clear changes within this chapter’s sample are evident, and the focus is on those that are real rather than potentially random. This chapter acknowledges another concern. Cases involving behavioral genetics evidence incorporate many other variables about the defendant − biological, sociological, and environmental − in addition to the nature of the crime and the defendant’s criminal history. The jury’s weighing of these aggravating and mitigating factors in a death penalty case is an intricate process. Therefore, this Study’s results do not purport to suggest that the inclusion of behavioral genetics evidence was the sole cause of any particular case outcome; this kind of causal mechanism is as impossible to isolate or measure for behavioral genetics evidence as it would be for any other kind of variable. That said, this Study’s case comparisons can help steer conclusions in one direction or another about whether behavioral genetics evidence can make a contribution, irrespective of other potential influences. Overall, most courts seem to focus on screened and scientifically acceptable File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

374 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law studies or information on behavioral genetics. Their primary emphasis also concerns how a defendant’s genetic makeup and environment might bear on that defendant’s punishment. Within the next decade or so, as this interactive gene-environment research becomes even more scientifically sound, courts will find it ever more useful. After all, as the following pages demonstrate, a gene is not just a gene. It is only one part of a defendant’s story.

I. How does the gene-environment interaction work? Behavioral geneticists generally classify the link between genetics and the environment in three primary ways. “Passive gene-environment correlation” occurs when parents, the source of their children’s genes, are also one key source for the content of their children’s environment. For example, parents of superior intellect may transmit to their children not only strong cognitive capabilities, but also mentally stimulating surroundings. “Evocative gene-environment correlation” exists when individuals with different genotypes evoke different responses from people and therefore change their environment. Thus, a cooperative child may elicit substantially different reactions from parents and teachers than an aggressive child in part because of the differences in how the two children behave. “[A]ctive gene-environment correlation” arises when individuals seek experiences consistent with their genetically transmitted abilities and behaviors so that they can create a complementary environment. Thrill-seekers, for example, may select jobs or hobbies that reinforce their inherited proclivities, such as parachuting, mountain climbing, etc. Substantial research also shows that as individuals develop from childhood to adulthood, genetic influences on their behavior strengthen while shared environmental factors wane. This pronounced impact of genetic makeup is unsurprising given that individuals acquire greater control over their choices and surroundings as they become more independent from their parents and families. In essence, then, aging is accompanied by increases in active gene-environmental correlational processes and decreases in passive gene-environmental correlational processes. In criminal cases, evidence concerning behavioral genetics covers all three types of gene-environment classifications. It includes, for example, the study of a defendant’s physiological makeup as well as family history for potential associations with a range of disorders including violence, mental illness, depression, mental retardation, alcoholism, and substance abuse. The presence of such disorders in a defendant’s family can indicate that they were genetically transmitted to the defendant.

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D. W. Denno 375

A. Balancing aggravating and mitigating factors In a capital case, behavioral genetics evidence can be used in one of two ways: first, during the guilt-or-innocence phase in which the State must prove a defendant committed an alleged crime beyond a reasonable doubt; and/or second, during the penalty phase when the jury has found the defendant guilty of the capital crime and then hears evidence of aggravation from the State and mitigation from the defense when determining whether a defendant should be sentenced to death. There is a critical distinction between the ways evidence is used in these two phases. The guilt-or-innocence phase involves a factual determination of whether a defendant committed the crime. In contrast, the penalty phase concerns “the moral and normative choice” of whether a defendant “deserve[s] to die”. In order to ensure consistency in comparing cases, this chapter focuses on the use of behavioral genetics evidence during the penalty phase irrespective of whether some cases also raised such evidence during the guilt-or-innocence phase. The penalty phase of a capital case is typically far better documented than the guilt-or-innocence phase, which may have occurred years before and may not have been fully explicated either in a court case or some other accessible format. It is within this death penalty context that most of the cases analyzed in the Author’s Study also raised ineffective assistance of counsel claims. In order to assess the validity of these kinds of challenges, the Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington (1984) established a two-pronged test: first, counsel’s performance must actually be “deficient,” and second, this deficient performance must have “prejudiced” the defendant. Of course this Strickland test and its interpretations are far more intricate than what is presented here for the purpose of establishing basic guidelines. In addition to rules attempting to ensure the quality of a defendant’s representation, the great majority of death penalty states require that a fact-finder consider and weigh both aggravating and mitigating circumstances in the case. This balancing is important. In most jurisdictions, aggravating circumstances must outweigh mitigating circumstances for a defendant to be sentenced to death. However, the Supreme Court has also upheld a Kansas death penalty statute that allowed jurors to impose the death penalty when aggravating circumstances were not required to outweigh mitigating circumstances, including when aggravating and mitigating circumstances were equally distributed. Regardless, if a defendant challenges a death sentence, a reviewing court must reweigh the aggravating evidence against the totality of available mitigating evidence. Under Strickland, an ineffective assistance of counsel claim has merit only if “counsel’s conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial [including the sentencing phase] cannot be relied on as having produced a just result.” To succeed on such a claim, the defendant must show that File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

376 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law his trial counsel’s conduct was unreasonable under the circumstances and resulted in prejudice against him. The sentence will be disturbed only if a reviewing court finds a “reasonable probability” that, absent counsel’s errors, the verdict or sentence would have been different. A court must therefore determine whether there is a reasonable probability that if trial counsel had presented the omitted mitigating evidence, the fact-finder would have concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not warrant the death penalty. Mitigating evidence usually includes information about a capital defendant’s background and life prior to his crime. In contrast, the prosecution’s presentation of aggravating evidence includes those circumstances surrounding a crime and a defendant’s prior criminal record. Death penalty jurisdictions vary with respect to the types of aggravating and mitigating circumstances they enable a fact-finder to consider. Common statutory aggravating factors include the following: commission of an offense in an “[e]specially heinous, cruel or depraved manner,” “[u]se, threatened use or possession of a deadly weapon,” or commission of an offense expecting to receive something of “pecuniary value.” Statutory mitigating factors can include the “age of the defendant” or the “defendant’s capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the defendant’s conduct.” According to the Supreme Court, defendants can also present mitigating evidence relevant to “any aspect of [the] defendant’s character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death.” This is a highly open-ended standard that allows a defendant to introduce a full range of factors. Guidelines for how to weigh or balance these factors are similarly flexible. In an effort to structure what could be a substantial amount of information − including many different types of scientific tests and theories − attorneys often attempt to combine it all into a compelling “story.”

B. Mitigation stories A defendant’s “mitigation story” can be critical to determining whether a defendant will be executed. Mitigating factors are far-reaching and subjective; they can prompt jurors to feel empathy and connection with a defendant who jurors have just convicted of committing horrendous acts. The evidence can also profile and detail a defendant’s damaged and disabled brain so that jurors can comprehend how distorted a defendant’s thought processes may have been throughout that defendant’s life, including the seconds immediately preceding the defendant’s crime. Statutory and non-statutory mitigating factors can likewise pertain to circumstances at the scene of the crime, for example, if “the defendant was under unusual or substantial duress.” The purpose of expert testimony, if it is offered, can further assist jurors in experiencing the defendant’s particular worldview. In essence, mitigation − as well File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 377 as the Court’s “any aspect of the defendant’s character or record” standard − can present the defendant’s biography in a way that can attempt to tip the scale toward life rather than death. Such guidelines are also remarkably flexible. The trial judge in Jeffrey Landrigan’s sentencing hearing, for example, concluded that one of the two non-statutory mitigating circumstances operating on Landrigan’s behalf was “that Landrigan’s family loved him,” evidence that would be irrelevant for Landrigan as a defense against a murder conviction. Such elasticity enables defendants to submit as mitigation behavioral genetics evidence that goes back generations. Regardless, over the years, some courts have viewed behavioral genetics factors skeptically, even when deciding capital cases. One example of this attitude is the 1994 appeal of Stephen Mobley, a watershed moment in the modern use of behavioral genetics evidence and a comparison case for this chapter’s Study. Indeed, Mobley marks the start of this Author’s seventeen- year analysis of the application of such evidence in criminal cases; the case’s facts and defense strategy seemed to strike a modern nerve, both socially and legally. Mobley’s mitigation story is also complex.

1. The Stephen Mobley story Mobley’s 1991 crime − the attempted robbery of a Domino’s Pizza store that ended with the needless murder of the store’s manager − prompted particular challenges for his court-appointed attorneys. Mobley’s “numerous” confessions and the dearth of “‘traditional mitigation evidence”’ did not make for a sympathetic story. As a white adult of twenty-five years, Mobley was economically privileged, had no history of physical or sexual abuse, and also demonstrated an early and continuous history of severe personal and behavioral disorders that were pronounced even when he was awaiting trial. Prospects for any defense appeared slight. Yet, in the course of analyzing Mobley’s family, a relative testified that four generations of Mobleys − including Mobley’s uncles, aunts, and a grandfather − engaged in acts of violence, aggression, and behavioral disorder. Such behavior ranged from serious crimes (murder and rape) to extreme spousal abuse, alcoholism, explosive temperaments, and antisocial conduct. In order to further probe this lead, Mobley’s attorneys made two moves. First, they requested experts and financial support so that scientific tests could be conducted to determine if Mobley showed any kind of genetic or neurochemical imbalance. Second, they introduced into evidence a then-recent article published in the prestigious journal Science, reporting the results of genetic testing of a Dutch kindred of four generations. The kindred comprised a number of males affected by a syndrome characterized by borderline mental retardation and serious behavioral dysfunction such as impulsivity, verbal and physical aggression, and violence. The File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

378 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law acts of violence included rape, sexual abuse, attempted murder, and arson. Tests on these males showed evidence of MAOA deficiency, which was passed from mother to son and linked to regulating aggression. Mobley’s attorneys wanted to investigate whether Mobley was also afflicted by the MAOA deficiency or by a comparable kind of disability because it was likely that Mobley had inherited a propensity for criminality. In their mind, the trial court should have enabled Mobley to be so tested. Certainly such testing was allowed in the Bradley Waldroup case that would arise over a decade later. Yet, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected that reasoning and affirmed the trial court’s holding, relying on the lack of a showing of any causal link between Mobley’s genetics and his violence. As the court explained, the genetics theory involved in Mobley’s case “will not have reached a scientific stage of verifiable certainty in the near future and Mobley could not show that such a stage will ever be reached.” After further legal wrangling over such “an unorthodox mitigating defense that attempted to show a possible genetic basis for Mobley’s conduct,” the Georgia Supreme Court again denied genetic testing for Mobley, but for a somewhat different reason than it had expressed three years earlier. In the court’s view, Mobley had in fact been “able to present the genetics theory” through a relative’s testimony about the family’s generations of behavioral problems. Further, even if the court had allowed genetic testing, “there ha[d] been no showing that a geneticist would have offered additional significant evidence.” Ultimately, however, family history evidence alone failed to mitigate in Mobley’s case. In 2005, after additional appeals, he was executed. Mobley’s request for genetic testing − in addition to other events at the time − invited pervasive national and international debate on the political and scientific acceptability of behavioral genetics evidence of criminality. The debate invoked earlier controversies: the historical association of genetics evidence with the Holocaust, the chilling of free will, the stigmatization of disordered populations, the absolution from social responsibility, and the fear that juries would be unduly swayed by the seemingly more objective and precise nature of genetic studies. These concerns also played into the 1992 conference at the University of Maryland regarding the potential racial bias of such evidence. After Mobley, predictions were also made that attorneys would increasingly attempt to introduce behavioral genetics evidence in criminal cases during the guilt- or-innocence phase or as mitigation during the penalty phase. While such predictions are difficult to measure, this Author’s study of cases from 1994-2007 suggested that the strategy grew in use, especially for the defense. Not only were behavioral genetics studies becoming more sophisticated, but so were defense attorneys, especially in their willingness to rely on interdisciplinary research. Likewise, the particularly strong reaction against Mobley’s case seems, in retrospect, an outlier because other cases at the time were also introducing behavioral genetics evidence. The highly File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 379 publicized case of Susan Smith, for example, appeared to use such evidence far more successfully.

2. The Susan Smith story Susan Smith’s 1995 trial in South Carolina took place one year after Mobley’s controversial appeal. Smith was convicted of murdering her two young sons by causing her car to roll into a lake with her sons strapped inside. She ultimately avoided a death sentence seemingly in part because her defense team introduced mitigating evidence that she had suffered from depression since childhood. According to Smith’s defense, she was on the verge of committing suicide and taking her two children with her when she changed her mind at the last minute and leaped from the car, all the while watching while the car submerged. Testimony indicated that Smith’s state of mind was so distressed at the time that she was not able to think about her drowning children. In an effort to support its case, the defense presented expert witness testimony of Smith’s family history and upbringing. According to defense witness and psychiatrist Seymour Halleck, M.D., there was a high incidence of depression and mental illness in Susan Smith’s family. Her older brother Michael, her grandmother, and her aunt had all attempted suicide; this pattern indicated that it was likely that Smith herself was genetically predisposed to depression (such high levels of mental illness in the family “increases [a person’s] chances threefold” for depression). Defense witness and social worker Dr. Arlene Andrews created a “genogram,” shown in Figure 1, which illustrated the family’s history of behavioral disorder across three generations. The genogram contained details of each relative who had experienced one or more of a number of serious conditions: depression, a suicide attempt or suicide success (Smith’s father), alcohol abuse, mental retardation, or other disability. In addition to the genetics evidence, testimony revealed that Smith’s early childhood upbringing was characterized by family tension and instability due to her parents’ separation, followed by her father’s suicide when Smith was six years old. Dr. Andrews testified that these events led to the development of Smith’s dependent depressive disorder, in which she constantly needed love and attention from those around her and was frequently distraught over losing this emotional support. Drawing on this history, the defense brought up Smith’s first suicide attempt at age thirteen to demonstrate how Smith’s upbringing had affected her mental health. During her later teenage years, Smith’s stepfather sexually abused her. Dr. Andrews testified that this trauma further exacerbated Smith’s depression, as she was afraid to lose her stepfather, but at the same time felt that she was violating her own moral code. Smith’s second suicide attempt came at the age of eighteen, Dr. Andrews testified, most likely because Smith was afraid of losing the relationships with her File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

380 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law forty year-old supervisor and thirty-year-old co-worker, both of whom she had been involved with sexually. Smith’s marriage to David Smith, the father of their two children, was rocky and characterized by repeated intervals of separation and reconciliation. During one of these separation periods, Smith had intimate affairs with Tom Findlay as well as Findlay’s father, Cary, who owned Conso Products, where Smith was employed. David Smith found a letter Smith had written to Tom Findlay and pressed Smith into giving him the details of the affair, including Smith’s relationship with Cary Findlay. The prosecution argued that Smith killed her children because Tom Findlay did not want to be burdened by someone who had a “readymade” family. The defense, on the other hand, argued that Smith was driven to commit suicide because her husband’s threat to disclose her affairs would have left her jobless, disgraced, and alone. These kinds of fears, in the past, had aggravated Smith’s depressive disorder and had prompted her suicidal attempts. The situation was no different here. However, the defense argued, at the last minute, that Smith, perhaps in a moment of unconscious self-preservation, jumped out of the car without thinking and did not realize that she had left her two children in the car to die. Since her depression prevented her from possessing the necessary mental state for premeditated murder, the defense argued, Smith should not be given a death sentence. Closing arguments reiterated this theme of lifelong disorder. The strategy also explained why the defense “presented the evidence about Susan Smith’s entire life, going all the way back generations to show her bloodline and her genetic inheritance and her susceptibility to pressure, and coming all the way forward.” Media interviews with some of the members of Smith’s jury indicated that such biographical evidence appeared to be persuasive in their decision to reject the death penalty. Smith received a life term with the opportunity to be paroled in 2024. According to some jurors, particular aspects of Smith’s life circumstances appeared to explain the reasons for her behavior − the suicide of her biological father followed by molestation and sexual abuse by her stepfather, as well as Smith’s own suicide attempts at ages thirteen and eighteen and her troubling sexual relationships while she was an adult. In the eyes of one juror, for example, such family tragedies were “not dealt with properly, and that led up to what [Smith] did” and “the irrational decisions that she made.” In the eyes of another juror, the actions of Smith’s stepfather were partly responsible, and he “‘should be locked up with her.”’ Yet another juror expressed concern over Smith’s mental illness and the hope that Smith would get the appropriate help for it in prison. At the same time, Smith’s jury still found her guilty of murder because they were convinced that she had understood the difference between right and wrong; she had also made a conscious decision to drown her sons, and she could have decided otherwise. Compared to the Stephen Mobley case, however, there was no evidence File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 381 in Smith’s case of a strong legal or public outcry against the use of behavioral genetics evidence. Nor do news stories about the Smith case appear to associate her with a kind of behavioral genetics defense.

C. “Exotic” mitigation stories There is no mystery about why Susan Smith avoided a death sentence. Reasons include Smith’s lack of past violent conduct, her history of family abuse, her depression and mental health challenges, her remorse, as well as her attorneys’ efforts to offer uncontroversial genetics evidence. However, this chapter’s message is not based on an attempt to substantively compare Smith’s case with that of Stephen Mobley. Instead, what Smith’s case shows is the importance of behavioral genetics evidence to telling a defendant’s story, whether or not that evidence successfully outweighs the aggravating factors in that story or is even particularly compelling. In Smith’s case the evidence appeared persuasive, perhaps in part because behavioral genetics factors also reveal as much about environmental influences on a defendant as they do about a defendant’s heritable traits. Indeed, modern research continues to emphasize the importance of environmental effects on behavior, thereby dashing the common myth that an individual’s genetic structure is unchanging. During the past decade in particular, criminological investigations have increasingly incorporated genetic, biological, and social measures as vehicles for understanding crime. When these studies employ many different kinds of variables, their results show that genetics and biology continually accentuate the significance of social factors on behavior − so much so that the three interactive categories (“genetic,” “biological,” and “social”) are often difficult to separate and decipher. Recent federally-funded meetings on genetics and crime emphasize this very interactive aspect, and the meetings have ceased to draw the negative publicity that they have in the past. Irrespective of how researchers are handling this evidence, different courts can still have varying perspectives. The Mobley court, for example, viewed the theory of a link between behavioral genetics and violence as “unorthodox.” In 2001, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Landrigan v. Stewart (2001) still considered such evidence “exotic” and ineffectual as mitigation. As recently as 2007, in Schriro v. Landrigan (2007), the United States Supreme Court validated the Ninth Circuit panel’s assessment by directly quoting part of the panel’s conclusions. At the same time, a fuller account of the Landrigan case shows twists and turns in how the evidence was treated because the Ninth Circuit was, at one point, more accepting of it. Jeffrey Landrigan was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1993, one year before Stephen Mobley. After the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

382 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law

Landrigan’s conviction and sentence and the district court rejected Landrigan’s petition for habeas corpus relief, Landrigan appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Landrigan’s numerous post conviction appeals and petitions were based in part on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, arguing that his counsel did not investigate and introduce a sufficient amount of acceptable mitigating evidence. The three-judge appellate panel denied Landrigan’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim and affirmed the district court’s decision. CitingMobley v. Head and Turpin v. Mobley, the panel emphasized that the “rather exotic genetic violence theory” pinpointing the impact of Landrigan’s “biological background” would not have affected the outcome of Landrigan’s trial, even if the theory had been introduced. As the panel explained, “although Landrigan’s new evidence can be called mitigating in some slight sense, it would also have shown the court that it could anticipate that he would continue to be violent.” Given Landrigan’s reluctance to express remorse or provide the reasons for his crimes, his behavioral genetics would not have been persuasive. After further petitions, in 2005, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that Landrigan’s case be reheard en banc. On rehearing, the Court of Appeals affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded the case. In so doing, the Ninth Circuit’s opinion indicated a considerable amount of openness and receptivity concerning Landrigan’s efforts to introduce mitigating genetic and family history evidence. Such receptivity was short-lived, however. In 2007, on grant of certiorari, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded, forcefully supporting a number of the concerns about Landrigan’s dangerousness that were articulated by the Ninth Circuit’s initial decision. Addressing Landrigan’s alleged genetic predisposition to violence, for example, the Court found it “difficult to improve upon the initial Court of Appeals panel’s conclusion” that Landrigan “‘not only failed to show remorse or offer mitigating evidence, but he flaunted his menacing behavior”’; therefore, “‘assuring the court that genetics made him the way he is could not have been very helpful.”’ Describing Landrigan’s mitigation evidence as “weak,” and noting that “the postconviction court was well acquainted with Landrigan’s exceedingly violent past and had seen first hand his belligerent behavior,” the Court concluded that the district court did not abuse “its discretion in declining to grant Landrigan an evidentiary hearing.” Presumably, Landrigan, like Mobley, would have implications for other kinds of behavioral genetics evidence cases, irrespective of the types of factors those other cases may try to introduce. Both Landrigan and Mobley questioned the value, relevance, and significance of such evidence in the context of a defendant’s appeal for mitigation. At the same time, the Supreme Court has in no way dismissed the potential applicability of behavioral genetics evidence in cases where the Court may perceive the evidence as more acceptable and the defendant as more remorseful. The Court did not provide a test or standard suggesting how it may weigh such File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 383 information in the future; yet it did accentuate particularly negative aspects of Landrigan’s attitude and demeanor that other defendants may lack. This Author’s Study of behavioral genetics evidence in criminal court cases is an effort to determine how courts have treated such evidence following the Landrigan Court’s conclusions. As Part II shows, there is no court that has been so dismissive of the evidence, quite the contrary. Instead, courts seem to take the evidence in stride with what a defendant has to offer, whether or not that perspective changes the outcome of the defendant’s case.

II. Behavioral genetics evidence cases: 2007-2011 This Part analyzes thirty-three criminal cases that have referred to behavioral genetics evidence over the past four years, that is, since June 1, 2007, when this Author’s last study of behavioral genetics evidence ended, to July 1, 2011. These thirty-three cases, which are listed in this chapter’s Appendix and examined in Charts 1-5, were compiled using legal research databases only. Other cases may exist in which behavioral genetics evidence was at issue or could have been at issue; however, such cases were not available in legal databases and likewise were not made known publicly in a way that made them readily verifiable (for example, there were only news articles written about them). This selection strategy promotes consistency across cases and accountability across time periods, not only within this particular Study, but also with the Author’s earlier study of forty-eight behavioral genetics evidence cases (1994-2007). Of course, there are vastly different types of behavioral genetics evidence, as this chapter discusses. It is somewhat artificial to aggregate all the research under one heading. This type of lumping can also potentially confuse debates about when and where such evidence should be appropriately applied. The umbrella heading of “behavioral genetics evidence” is used here, however, to make general points, while recognizing that the conclusions could differ in their accuracy and relevancy depending on the type and quality of evidence at issue (for example, MAOA deficiency compared to a family history). The next Section examines the behavioral genetics evidence uncovered in this Study by answering a series of questions about when and how courts apply it.

A. When and how evidence is introduced All but one of the thirty-three cases began as a capital case in which the defendant was initially sentenced to death by a judge or jury, as Chart I shows. The single exception is Morris v. Malf (2011), which started as a life-in-prison case in which File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

384 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law the defendant challenged his sentence claiming he was tried and adjudicated while incompetent. It is striking, then, that behavioral genetics evidence is of significance nearly exclusively in death penalty cases, and it is applied in no case involving less than a life sentence. Thus, discussions of the effects of such evidence in the guilt-or- innocence phase of a trial, while conceptually important, are not directly applicable to situations where genetics factors are instead used as mitigation evidence in the penalty phase of a capital trial. Attempts to exclude such evidence therefore affect most strongly a pocket of individuals facing the possibility of execution. The implications can be powerful for those defendants’ fates. In ten of this Study’s thirty-three cases, defendants originally sentenced to death had their death sentence vacated on appeal. In seven of those ten cases, a counsel’s failure to adequately investigate or present behavioral genetics evidence (mostly along with other factors) was grounds for vacating a death sentence and remanding for imposition of a sentence of life in prison. In yet another case, the court granted an evidentiary hearing where the petitioner claimed that his counsel’s failure to find witnesses and records on his background constituted ineffective assistance. According to the petitioner, an adequate investigation would have revealed a range of disorders: a genetic predisposition to alcoholism and mental illness; a childhood filled with “physical abuse, neglect, abandonment, and poverty”; as well as mental illnesses that were never treated, “including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (‘PTSD’), attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, and polysubstance abuse.” Because alcoholism and violence were prevalent in the petitioner’s family, the mitigating evidence that counsel ignored “would have shown that petitioner was born ‘into a family marked by extreme pathology and dysfunction over multiple generations.”’ This Author’s prior analysis of forty-eight behavioral genetics evidence cases (from 1994-2007) showed that attorneys employed three basic rationales for presenting this evidence: (1) to support a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel; (2) to provide proof and diagnosis of a defendant’s mitigating condition; and (3) to indicate some likelihood of the defendant’s future dangerousness. As Chart 2 shows, however, in this chapter’s examination of thirty-three cases during the last four years, attorneys used only the first two of these three rationales (thereby eliminating the rationale of future dangerousness). The great majority of cases (twenty-six cases or seventy-nine percent) involved petitions and appeals by defendants based on claims of ineffective assistance of counsel due to counsel’s failure to present behavioral genetics evidence adequately. In addition to applying behavioral genetics evidence to prove ineffective assistance of counsel, some defendants also incorporated the evidence to prove the existence of a mitigating factor. Indeed, nearly half of the cases (fifteen cases or forty- five percent) used behavioral genetics evidence to prove or support a diagnosis of a defendant’s mitigating condition. Of course, some of the thirty-three cases relied File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 385 on both rationales (ineffective assistance and proof of diagnosis), thereby creating an overlap between the categories. Strikingly, no case utilized behavioral genetics evidence to indicate the likelihood of a defendant’s future dangerousness; indeed, only three of the forty-eight cases in this Author’s prior study appeared to incorporate behavioral genetics evidence for this purpose. This finding is significant in light of prior concerns (expressed by Landrigan, for example) that such evidence would be used to predict defendants’ future dangerousness (or some variant of that theme). In fact, there is little-to-no indication that such an application would pose a real legal threat. Chart 3 considers the purpose that attorneys have for relying on behavioral genetics evidence in the death penalty context. Notably, in all but four of the thirty- three cases, the evidence is used to mitigate a death sentence. In an additional three cases, behavioral genetics evidence was raised to support a claim under Atkins v. Virginia (2002). In Atkins, the Supreme Court held that executing mentally retarded individuals violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, until 2002, Atkins was not an available vehicle in which to incorporate behavioral genetics evidence although it is a particularly apt place for it now. Lastly, in Morris v. Malfi (2011), as mentioned, the only non-death penalty case, behavioral genetics evidence was interjected to support arguments that the defendant was not competent to stand trial, the only case in this survey that raised a competency argument. Most surprisingly, in no case in this Study did the State introduce behavioral genetics evidence in any capacity, much less as an aggravating factor. As mentioned, this Author’s pre-2007 study did find three cases in which behavioral genetics evidence appeared to be used to indicate a defendant’s future dangerousness. Yet, such a rare occurrence within a pool of eighty-one cases examined during a seventeen-year period stunts prior expectations that such evidence would be manipulated to justify the death penalty. This outcome may also be explained in part by the increasing quality of the admitted experts and evidence, which could preclude extreme characterizations or conclusions that a defendant may be “hard-wired” into dangerousness. While behavioral genetics evidence is viewed as a double-edged sword, each side of that sword is not the direct flip of the other. The hurdles for the State are substantially different from those for the defense and their evidence and arguments may not be comparably compelling.

B. The types of evidence introduced This Section covers a wide span of information under the title, “types of evidence introduced.” The discussion starts with an overview of the four overlapping categories File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

386 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law of types of evidence, and then also considers what kinds of expert witnesses are needed to present it. Included is an examination of courts’ perceptions of the experts and the substance of their testimony, especially in the context of defendants’ claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Overall, the analysis illustrates the wide variety of factors that come into play in capital cases and the need for a case-by-case perspective. Chart 4 shows specifically the nature of the behavioral genetics evidence sought to be admitted in these cases. This evidence breaks down into four overlapping categories (signifying that some cases have multiple types of evidence): (1) expert testimony, (2) family history, (3) behavioral history, and (4) medical history. Behavioral histories could consist of school records or other testimony regarding childhood behavior relevant to genetic disorder diagnoses. Medical records could comprise any documented medical history be it physical or psychological. As would be expected, most of the information in Chart 4 derives from some kind of expert evaluation or family history (twenty-four and eighteen cases, respectively), rather than a behavioral or medical history (four and three cases, respectively). However, there is overlap between these two categories given that in several of the cases, experts testified to some extent about the defendants’ family histories. In general, all four groups are directed toward similar types of information even if its source varies or it is characterized in different ways. Family history evidence is especially diverse and has been used to show genetic predispositions towards many different conditions. It is often introduced through the testimony of the defendant’s relatives and also through expert testimony. While in some cases, the behavioral genetics evidence presented consisted almost wholly of the defendant’s family history, in other cases, defendants had requested experts to assess the mitigation value of establishing a genetic predisposition towards a condition or behavior. For instance, in Rhoades v. Henry (2011), the defendant submitted a 1000-page proffer on appeal, which contained declarations from a variety of sources: a neuropsychologist; an expert who was both a psychiatrist and neurologist; police officers; the defendant’s family and friends; medical and criminal records for both the defendant and his family members; the defendant’s elementary school transcript; as well as “a family tree depicting drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, intelligence, mental health, and criminal convictions.” According to the neuropsychologist, “‘The alcoholism and suicides seen in past generations of [the defendant’s] family very likely played a genetic role in the mental and emotional health of [the defendant] and his siblings.”’ Nonetheless, it was the family context of physical and sexual abuse, as well as medical problems and the defendant’s chronic use of methamphetamine, that “may well have damaged [the defendant’s] brain in areas critical to impulse control and the ability to think clearly in high pressured situations.” Even so, the court found that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors, and the defendant’s sentence and convictions were affirmed. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 387

The defendant in Hawkins v. Wong (2010) had a more favorable outcome. He claimed that his counsel was ineffective for, among other things, failing to hire a social historian who could have explained how the defendant’s background influenced his behavior. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the defendant that his counsel was ineffective. The mitigating evidence would have shown that Hawkins was genetically predisposed to alcoholism and mental illness. A social historian could have also testified about Hawkins’s family tree, which included many alcoholics and indicated a family genetic predisposition to alcoholism, as well as included a range of violent, abusive, and mentally ill or handicapped persons. The court allowed an evidentiary hearing on the ineffective assistance of counsel claim. As with other kinds of evidence, courts vary on whether behavioral genetics information need be presented by experts. Some courts have said that an expert is not necessary to testify about behavioral genetics factors because the court or the jury is capable of inferring that a defendant’s disposition is inherited. For example, in Hodges v. Bell (2008), the defendant wanted a mitigation expert to testify about the genetic transmission of drug and alcohol dependency. The trial court’s decision to deny expert services was upheld because counsel was deemed capable of presenting to the court information about the defendant’s substance addictions and the court was able to process that information without the need for an expert. In Woodall v. Simpson (2009), the failure to present a genetic defect defense was also not ineffective assistance of counsel because the court found that the jury could have inferred that, genetically, the defendant’s family had a history of mental problems. In Darling v. Secretary (2010), the court determined that since there was contradictory evidence concerning whether the defendant actually suffered from frontal lobe brain damage, counsel was not ineffective in failing to obtain an evaluation and relying instead on a defense witness’s testimony. Likewise, the court in Wood v. Schriro (2007) denied defense counsel’s request for a neurometric brainmapping technician for the purpose of diagnosing organic brain damage and/or psychopathology in the defendant, finding that “there appear[ed] to be no support for this type of examination.” Despite the lack of complete deference to mental health experts, at least one court has acknowledged the tension between the legal field and medical field. In Jones v. Ryan (2009), the district court dismissed each ineffective assistance of counsel claim on finding that the failure to hire a mental health expert (among other claims) was not prejudicial to the defendant because there was not enough evidence presented to show that the defendant suffered from neurological damage caused by head trauma or other factors. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, agreed with the defendant that his counsel was ineffective. By allowing a court- appointed expert to testify about the defendant’s mental health at sentencing, instead of hiring a mitigation expert or psychiatrist, defense counsel violated the American Bar Association guidelines, Supreme Court precedent, and Ninth Circuit law. The File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

388 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law court found that the district court acted improperly in weighing the testimony of the experts in order to determine who was the most credible and whether the defendant had presented evidence confirming that he had neurological damage. In essence, it was not the proper role of the district court to find a “definitive diagnosis” or to evaluate the credibility of the experts. For any one of a number of reasons, other courts seem to be more comfortable drawing conclusions about behavioral genetics evidence presented by experts. In Hall v. Quarterman (2009), for example, the district court noted testimony presented by and against the defendant on the issue of mental retardation and stated some of the genetic conditions the defendant might have. Rather than frame mental health findings strictly in terms of the expert’s direct testimony, the district court took the expert’s findings and drew its own conclusions with respect to the possibilities. According to the court: In addition to [the expert, Dr. Sally Church’s] diagnosis that Applicant is mentally retarded, Dr. Church note[d] that Applicant’s physical appearance is typical of a person who suffers from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or Fetal Alcohol Effect. It is entirely possible that Applicant suffers from one of these conditions as there is evidence that Applicant’s mother was an alcoholic. Either of these conditions would be a correlate of Applicant’s mental retardation. Also, Applicant exhibits characteristics consistent with genetic disorders such as XXY, Kleinfelter Syndrome, YYX, Extra Y Chromosome, or Fragile X Syndrome. All of these disorders are usually related to mental retardation and are present at the time of birth.

C. Why evidence is introduced Regardless of how behavioral genetics evidence is presented, Chart 5 indicates that most of the evidence is applied to validate the existence of a serious condition, typically a mental illness or addiction. A defendant could introduce this evidence as mitigation during the penalty phase or at trial during the guilt-or-innocence phase, irrespective of whether that evidence was accompanied by genetic associations. Therefore, most of the factors listed in Chart 5 constitute traditional kinds of defenses and mitigating evidence that courts have long admitted into court for a wide range of reasons. Chart 5 also depicts the different reasons defendants have offered for submitting behavioral genetics information and how receptive courts have been to it. Chart 5’s label, Genetics Evidence Offered by Defendant, refers to instances where defendants presented evidence to show they were genetically predisposed toward a particular condition or behavioral pattern. In comparison, the label Genetics Evidence Rejected by Court, refers to the few instances where courts refused to admit behavioral genetics evidence either at trial or in post-trial proceedings or they were simply silent on the File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 389 issue. Overall, Chart 5’s statistics indicate that in almost all cases where a defendant presented behavioral genetics evidence, the court admitted the evidence at trial or analyzed the evidence in post-trial proceedings. This response was consistent among all of Chart 5’s eleven categories: substance dependency, alcohol dependency, mental illness, depression, mental retardation, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, predisposition toward violence, propensity toward criminal behavior, sexual sadism, and family dysfunction. It is striking that behavioral genetics evidence is primarily used to validate the existence of a substance or alcohol dependency, followed by either unspecified or specified (e.g., depression) mental illness, then some kind of propensity for criminality or violence, and lastly, family dysfunction. Relative to these other conditions, however, the substance/alcohol dependency association is especially pronounced. In twenty of the thirty-three cases examined − or well over half (sixty-one percent) of all the cases − courts found a link between alcohol and/ or substance abuse and behavioral genetics evidence. In sharp contrast, courts linked behavioral genetics evidence solely to other conditions in only thirteen cases (thirty- nine percent). It is important to note that in most cases where a defendant presented evidence of a genetic predisposition to alcohol or substance dependency, that defendant also presented evidence of a genetic predisposition to other conditions. Regardless, the alcohol/substance abuse claim is pervasive and far more substantial when compared to this Author’s study of pre-2007 cases. It appears attorneys are more willing to submit such evidence, perhaps because the science of addiction has progressed so rapidly. Apart from the particular type of behavioral genetics evidence, however, there are varying ways defendants offer such evidence and courts either accept or reject it. For example, Schurz v. Schriro (2007) concerned evidence involving three of Chart 5’s categories: substance dependency, alcohol dependency, and family dysfunction. In Schurz, the defendant offered evidence that his counsel should have investigated and presented the following areas of mitigation: a genetic predisposition toward addiction and mental illness; possible fetal alcohol syndrome; a history of alcoholism among family members, including his mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, and aunts and uncles; serious and ongoing parental neglect, chronic alcohol and substance abuse, and physical neglect. In its evaluation of the merits of the defendant’s claim, the court conceded to the dysfunctionality of the defendant’s “home environment”; it noted that as a youth the defendant was forced to experience “his family’s alcoholism, verbal and physical abuse, which was at times severe, lack of nurturing from his parents, and family fights and violence.” Yet the district court still denied habeas relief, predicting that “the sentencing court would have assigned minimal significance to the new declarations providing additional detail about Petitioner’s dysfunctional family history.” File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

390 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law

Whether courts treat evidence of a defendant’s mental retardation any differently remains to be fully seen until a larger sample of cases evolves. Regardless, as mentioned previously, there were three cases in this Study where counsel introduced genetics evidence for the purpose of contending that the defendant was mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for the death penalty under Atkins v. Virginia (2002). One of the three courts agreed with that argument. Overall, most courts accepted the evidence that defendants offered, even when that evidence could be viewed as controversial or potentially stigmatizing. In Morales v. Mitchell (2007), for example, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding that the defendant’s counsel was ineffective because the counsel had failed to conduct an adequate investigation of potentially mitigating evidence. That search would have revealed the defendant’s extensive family history of alcoholism, the defendant’s own alcoholism and how it affected him (such as being prone to blackouts), his upbringing (alcoholic and absent parents, and a mentally retarded brother), as well as “[t]he role of alcohol in the Native American Indian culture in which he was raised.” The defendant’s parents, grandparents, uncle, and aunts were alcoholics, and several relatives died from cirrhosis of the liver. All of this information was positively influential in terms of mitigation. The defendant was entitled to a writ of habeas corpus, and his death sentence was vacated. Chart 5 also lists categories that could potentially be considered as aggravating at first glance but, within a proper context, could serve as mitigation. InCreech v. Hardison (2010), for example, the defendant, Creech, claimed ineffective assistance of counsel at his resentencing hearing due to his counsel’s inadequate research on mitigation evidence. According to a psychologist who testified at Creech’s resentencing hearing, Creech “probably had a genetic or biological predisposition for violence” based on the psychologist’s examination of records, mental health reports, an interview with Creech, and the results of various psychological tests. The psychologist also concluded “that Creech had an antisocial personality and scored in the 96th percentile of the prison population for psychopathy.” This information was used as mitigating evidence during the sentencing hearing for Creech’s murder of his fellow inmate. On appeal, Creech also introduced new evidence from a 2005 neurological examination, showing that he had “‘bilateral brain damage that affected [his] insight, judgment and capacity to exercise social inhibitions.”’ After reviewing the record, however, the court found that “the state district court expressly considered the various mitigating circumstances.” While “[a] neurologist’s opinion that Creech has brain damage may be more specific than [the psychologist’s] testimony,” it offered “only a modest counterweight” to the aggravating factors involved in Creech’s case; these factors included Creech’s long criminal record as well as the “brutal manner” in which he killed a more vulnerable fellow inmate “over a petty dispute.” Brant v. State (2009) is notable both because it is the only case that concerned File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 391 sexual sadism and because behavioral genetics evidence was mentioned in passing during the trial. According to a forensic psychiatrist for the defense, Brant suffered from sexual sadism which “in most cases arises out of a genetic predisposition and unhealthy childhood environment.” Concerning the sexual battery involved in the case, the psychiatrist stated that Brant possessed “‘a substantial impairment in his ability to conform his conduct with the requirements of the law”’ because of both his sexual sadism and the effects of methamphetamine. The underlying sexual disorder which hindered Brant’s ability to control his sexual impulses was exacerbated when he ingested drugs. In addition, a PET scan of Brant’s brain indicated “underactivity” in the areas associated with impulse control and good judgment. Nevertheless, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed Brant’s death sentence, unconvinced that the mitigating evidence outweighed the aggravating evidence. At the same time, the court did not throw doubt on the validity of the behavioral genetics evidence, nor turn it into a vehicle for aggravation.

III. The state of behavioral genetics evidence now This Part has two goals: it discusses this Author’ Study of thirty-three behavioral genetics evidence cases in more depth and it compares the Study to the results of this Author’s prior research on forty-eight behavioral genetics evidence cases decided between 1994-2007. This comparison is made by way of addressing a series of questions about the findings and then the overall impact of behavioral genetics evidence.

A. Are Courts still skeptical? 1. The first study: 1994-2007 In 1994, defense preparations for Mobley v. State (1995) drew world-wide publicity because of Mobley’s counsel’s unprecedented efforts to gather behavioral genetics evidence to prevent Stephen Mobley’s execution. According to some commentators at the time, the availability of such testing would prompt political and moral abuses of highly controversial information. Yet this Author’s earlier survey of the forty-eight cases that had used behavioral genetics evidence during the thirteen years following Mobley (1994-2007) showed no apparent basis for these concerns. There were no abuses of the ilk that had been predicted and most courts still questioned the relevance of such evidence when attorneys attempted to introduce it at the penalty phase, a tactic consistent with the Supreme Court’s 2007 conclusions in Schriro v. Landrigan (2007). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

392 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law

In essence, during the thirteen years between Mobley and Landrigan, there had been seemingly few changes in social and legal attitudes toward behavioral genetics. The topic remained controversial for many of the same reasons espoused at the 1992 University of Maryland conference. Moreover, the applicability of behavioral genetics evidence as mitigation in death penalty cases still seemed to baffle the press and public, thereby accentuating the controversy. There were exceptions, of course, as the Susan Smith case illustrated. InVon Dohlen v. State (2004), for example, which was decided a decade after Mobley, the court remanded the defendant’s case for resentencing in light of the mitigating evidence that attorneys presented, which had included behavioral genetics factors. Notably, such evidence was sufficiently compelling even without a testifying expert documenting the defendant’s genetic proclivity for mental disorder or other troublesome conditions. The passage of time may have been a positive influence on Von Dohlen’s outcome, although such an explanation is speculative. Regardless, the case remains unusual when compared to a larger group of opinions that have viewed behavioral genetics evidence either as inconsequential or, on a far lesser scale, potentially predictive of a defendant’s future violent tendencies. Consistent with Mobley and Landrigan, this Author’s earlier study showed that courts articulated five major reasons for rejecting a defendant’s submission of behavioral genetics evidence: (1) The mitigation evidence the defense had already submitted was sufficient and further information concerning the defendant’s genetic attributes would most likely not have influenced the defendant’s sentence; (2) behavioral genetics evidence is not as valid and reliable relative to other evidence introduced at trial, especially when there is conflicting testimony among the experts; (3) an association between a defendant’s behavioral genetics and criminal behavior is “unorthodox” or “exotic”; (4) even if behavioral genetics evidence is accepted at trial, it can be detrimental to a defendant’s case because it indicates that the defendant will commit further acts of violence and be a danger to society; and (5) behavioral genetics evidence collides with some courts’ views of criminal responsibility, which may favor safeguarding the community rather than rehabilitation. This Author’s studies provide little support for any of these five rationales. For example, both studies have shown that behavioral genetics evidence can have a beneficial impact for some defendants in some cases, particularly when it bolsters or interacts with other kinds of mitigating evidence. There are also compelling arguments that behavioral genetics evidence is relevant and useful if applied in a limited way, such as to buttress other mitigating conditions, or to verify the existence of a condition that a court may question. Likewise, courts’ rendering of behavioral genetic factors as “unorthodox” or “exotic” ignores the reality that such information has a long history in legal cases, even if that past was controversial or seemingly forgotten by more recent decisions, such as Mobley and Landrigan. Indeed, this File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 393

Author’s research uncovered eighty-one such cases over the past seventeen years. The remaining rationales also lack support. While courts and commentators have long-stressed the double-edged-sword aspect of behavioral genetics evidence, this characteristic is inherent to many other mitigating factors. The Supreme Court’s reliance on certain kinds of neuroscientific findings inRoper v. Simmons (2005) is an apt illustration. In Roper, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibited the execution of persons under age eighteen at the time their crimes were committed. The Court reasoned that relative to adults, juveniles are more immature and irresponsible, vulnerable to negative pressures from their peers and environment, and fragile and unstable in their identities. Although these disparities explained why juveniles may be less culpable, they also heightened the likelihood that juveniles would engage in impulsive thinking and criminality. The very factors that argued against juveniles’ eligibility for the death penalty also made them more prone to misconduct − truly a double-edged sword. Likewise, the argument that behavioral genetics evidence conflicts with some courts’ theories of criminal responsibility again reveals the confusion concerning the disparate standards relevant for the guilt-or-innocence phase of a trial as opposed to the penalty phase of a trial. The standard for mitigation evidence is far broader given the purpose that it serves. Another aspect complicating these already difficult cases involves the apparent ignorance of some courts in dealing with the interactions among social, biological, and genetic variables. As this chapter has shown, however, such variables are so intertwined it would be an artificial and misleading process to attempt to separate them for purposes of sentencing. Yet, the latest discoveries in behavioral genetics have not fallen on courts’ deaf ears in more recent times. Indeed, the next Section’s discussion of cases using behavioral genetics evidence during the last four years suggests that much of this judicial skepticism has ebbed if not disappeared entirely.

2. The second study: 2007-2011 Courts during 2007-2011 seemingly quelled questioning whether sound behavioral genetics evidence should be admitted as mitigation at all during the penalty phase. Rather, the question now is whether sufficient evidence has been presented and, if so, how much weight it should be given. In all thirty-three of the decisions this Author examined, for example, courts appeared to at least consider behavioral genetics evidence in their analysis of mitigating factors and whether an attorney has rendered ineffective assistance. Likewise, none of the courts squarely rejected the introduction of behavioral genetics evidence nor referred to it as “exotic” or “unorthodox.” Courts’ views of the weight such evidence should have take a variety of forms and, unsurprisingly, rely on case specific facts. Even when courts did not find that File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

394 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law behavioral genetics evidence was likely to affect the outcome of the case or was outweighed by aggravating factors, they still addressed and acknowledged family history. Particularly striking over the last four years were arguments concerning defendants’ genetic proclivities to alcohol and substance abuse − a far larger percentage than had previously been found. Again, regardless of whether such evidence positively affected the outcome of the defendant’s sentence, courts did take it into account in the same way they would other kinds of mitigating evidence. According to the court in Rhoades v. Henry (2011), for example, the evaluations of two experts indicating that Rhoades likely has a genetic predisposition to serious disorders were not sufficiently strong to shed light on Rhoades’s mental and emotional states of mind at the time he committed the murders. One expert stated that alcoholism and suicides in Rhoades’s family “very likely” indicated a genetic factor in his mental health. Another expert concluded that Rhoades “inherited the diseases of alcoholism and drug abuse” and that he was “born into a family that suffered from major mental illness and neuropsychological impairment.” Yet the court viewed the reports of both experts to be “speculative” and “indeterminate,” concluding that the aggravating factors in Rhoades’s case outweighed the mitigating factors. The district court and the Ninth Circuit also considered the reports of the experts in their analysis of Rhoades’s claim, and both courts viewed the information in the same way. As such evidence becomes more sophisticated, the analytical tilt may change. These kinds of balances are perhaps most intricately assessed in cases (previously discussed) where defendants have a proclivity for criminal conduct in unsympathetic circumstances. In Creech v. Hardison (2010), for example, the defendant, while serving a life sentence for murder, murdered another prisoner by hitting him with a battery- filled sock and stomping on his head and neck. The state court considered both aggravating and mitigating factors, such as the defendant’s young age (mitigating), genetic or biological predisposition for violence (mitigating), and the nature of the crime (highly aggravating) − holding that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors, a conclusion the district court endorsed. The court found that the sentence would have been the same even with (among other factors) the “possibility of a biological predisposition listed as a mitigating factor.” Likewise, in Schurz v. Schriro (2007), the defendant − facing the death sentence for murder after splashing the victim with gasoline and setting him on fire − claimed on appeal that several mitigation factors should have been presented at his sentencing hearing. These mitigators included a genetic predisposition toward addiction and mental illness, exposure to neurotoxins, as well as a family life of violence and crime. TheSchurz court acknowledged all these influences; yet, it concluded, like the court in Creech, that the defendant did not show these factors affected his ability to control, comprehend, or perceive his actions at the time of the murder and that the outcome in the sentencing court would have been the same. The court in Brant v. State (2009) similarly affirmed File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 395 the defendant’s death sentence, unconvinced that the mitigating evidence (genetic predisposition to sexual sadism, unhealthy childhood environment, family history of depression, and drug use) outweighed the aggravating evidence (premeditation and attempts to cover up the crime, and calm demeanor after the crime). Brant’s impairment due to abnormal brain functioning and drug use, while mitigating, was “not so mitigating as to make his death sentence disproportionate.” Even in cases where defendants’ propensities for violence are not as marked, many courts remain unpersuaded by behavioral genetics evidence of substance abuse. Yet, again, the important point here is that the courts accept the validity of the evidence irrespective of whether it affects their decision about the sentence. In Keough v. State (2010), for example, the defendant introduced evidence at his post- conviction hearing regarding a family history of alcoholism. However, the defendant’s convictions and death sentence were affirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeals on the basis that further investigation into his chronic alcoholism would have done little to change the outcome of the case; the jury had already heard testimony about the defendant’s alcohol use on the night of the murder and had already rejected a defense theory of voluntary intoxication. In Commonwealth v. Gibson (2011), the court similarly concluded that the new mitigation evidence presented by the defendant, which included a family history of alcohol abuse spanning at least three generations, was not reasonably likely to have swayed a juror to alter his or her vote. Thus, the court denied the defendant’s petition for post-conviction relief. Other courts in the last four years have tended to give behavioral genetics evidence (including alcohol or substance abuse) more weight − some to the point of considering it an error not to have a pretrial hearing on a defendant’s genetic predisposition; others have made it grounds for vacating a death sentence. In Hawkins v. Wong (2010), for instance, the court allowed an evidentiary hearing on the defendant’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim, part of which concerned the failure to investigate and present mitigating evidence, including the defendant’s genetic predisposition to alcoholism and mental illness. According to the defendant, the mitigating evidence omitted by counsel would have shown that the defendant was born “into a family marked by extreme pathology and dysfunction over multiple generations.” In Morales v. Mitchell (2007), the court conclusively held that defense counsel rendered ineffective assistance for failing to conduct an investigation into mitigating evidence − information that primarily consisted of alcoholism in Morales’s family, Morales’s own alcoholism and its effects on him, as well as his family upbringing. The district court inAllison v. Cullen (2010) also vacated the defendant’s death sentence and granted relief on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for his counsel’s failure to present mitigating evidence. This evidence included expert statements that the defendant might have a genetic predisposition to alcoholism, substance abuse, and mental illness. Lastly, in Hall v. McPherson (2008), File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

396 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld the habeas court’s vacation of McPherson’s death sentence. According to the court, the defendant’s trial counsel should have investigated further into McPherson’s background, which included a family tree showing a genetic predisposition to substance abuse disorder; failure to do so was due to inattention, rather than to a strategic decision.

B. Is behavioral genetics evidence effective? One way to try to measure the potential effectiveness of behavioral genetics evidence in criminal cases is to provide a thorough sense of how the evidence is being used. In most of the thirty-three cases in this Author’s Study, at least one of the defendants’ claims alleged ineffective assistance of counsel for counsel’s failure to adequately investigate or present mitigating evidence of behavioral genetic factors. Morales v. Mitchell (2007) is one case where counsel’s failure to present this evidence was on strong ground. Morales was a Native American man with a family history of alcoholism. During the penalty phase of his case, the only evidence presented was the defendant’s unsworn statement. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit found that counsel’s failure to present any mitigation evidence constituted deficient performance. Among the points that the court agreed should have been raised by trial counsel during the penalty phase was the defendant’s “chaotic and dysfunctional family environment” and “[t]he role of alcohol in the Native American Indian culture” in which the defendant lived. The court found persuasive the “volume and compelling nature” of the evidence of Morales’s “tumultuous life, continued and uncontrolled alcohol and drug abuse, dysfunctional family history, potential mental health problems, and detailed cultural background”; thus, there was a “reasonable probability that effective counsel could have achieved a different outcome.” In Hamilton v. Ayers (2009), the Ninth Circuit also seemed to suggest that counsel’s failure to include behavioral genetics evidence was an influential argument for claiming ineffective assistance. Hamilton was facing the death penalty and petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus based on his claim that he was incompetent to stand trial and that his counsel had not thoroughly investigated his mental state. The district court rejected Hamilton’s petition despite expert testimony that Hamilton had a family history of genetic disorders and a traumatic upbringing. In a 2009 appeal to the Ninth Circuit, the court remanded the case, with instructions to reduce Hamilton’s death sentence to life imprisonment without parole. The court found that Hamilton’s counsel was deficient for failing to investigate and present mitigating evidence, such as documentation of Hamilton’s mental health history. Among the mitigation information that should have been submitted was a family history of depression and mental health issues, including indications that Hamilton’s File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 397 parents and extended family suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts, and his paternal great-grandmother and cousin committed suicide. In addition, one expert who testified at Hamilton’s habeas hearing stated that Hamilton “was raised in an environment of intergenerational alcoholism.” Given the new evidence, the court concluded that Hamilton’s trial counsel’s investigation “fell far below the constitutional floor” and was prejudicial. Success in this arena depends on a wide range of factors. In other recent appeals, courts have not given behavioral genetics evidence as much weight. In 2010, the same court of appeals that vacated Hamilton’s death sentence, affirmed a denial of habeas for another defendant’s guilt phase and reversed the district court’s grant of habeas relief as to the penalty phase. In Mickey v. Ayers (2010), the district court agreed that the defendant’s counsel could have made a successful mitigation case with evidence that the defendant’s genetic propensities, when combined with his family upbringing and mental illness, caused him to be predisposed to alcohol and drug dependency. On appeal, however, the Ninth Circuit found that the second penalty phase expert’s research into genetic links of certain diseases was in a nascent stage at the time of trial; therefore, the defendant’s counsel was not deficient in failing to provide the expert with the defendant’s family history of substance abuse. In general, both of this Author’s studies show that, as would be expected, counsel’s failure to present behavioral genetics evidence alone was often not enough to constitute ineffective assistance. But, when coupled with other factors, courts were less reluctant to grant evidentiary hearings or to vacate death sentences altogether for ineffective assistance.

C. Are there new trends or arguments? This chapter reports a number of new trends and arguments since 2007. The first trend concerns the changed role of behavioral genetics evidence in criminal cases. In this Author’s original study of forty-eight cases, most cases employed behavioral genetics evidence in three primary ways: (1) to support a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, (2) to provide proof and diagnosis of a defendant’s mitigating condition, and/or (3) to indicate some likelihood of the defendant’s future dangerousness. This Author’s most recent study of thirty-three cases showed, however, that there was no third category and that no case applied behavioral genetics evidence to predict the defendant’s dangerousness. Nor was the evidence ever used by the prosecution, much less as an aggravating factor. While this Author’s original study did not report many cases in which the evidence was implemented detrimentally, the discovery that it has never been so used in the last four years is startling. After all, this finding contradicts the Supreme Court’s view in Landrigan that such evidence could be submitted to File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

398 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law enhance the perception of a defendant’s level of dangerousness. Second, in light of the Court’s 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), behavioral genetics evidence now may play a larger role in defendants claiming a genetic predisposition to mental retardation and mental incompetence. In Ex parte Smith (2010), for example, Smith tried to argue that he was mentally retarded and not eligible for the death penalty. Smith stated that he had a genetic predisposition to mental retardation and that five of his family members suffered from the same mental infirmity. However, in an Atkins hearing, the court determined that Smith was not mentally retarded because he had failed to demonstrate substantial or significant deficits in adaptive behavior, either at the time of the murders or before the hearing. There was a different outcome inCommonwealth v. Williams (2010). In Williams, the issue also was whether the defendant was mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. An expert stated that the defendant was born with “some genetic predisposition to mental retardation,” and he had closed-head injuries as a child due to abuse. The court evaluated the expert opinions and determined that Williams was mentally retarded and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. In Morris v. Malfi (2011), the defendant claimed that his due process rights were violated because he was tried and adjudicated while mentally incompetent. During the penalty phase of his trial, Morris submitted evidence of head injuries, including two in the frontal part of his brain, the area that controls emotions, impulses, and inhibition of behavior. Morris also submitted a 2009 evaluation and report by Dr. Natasha Khazanov, a clinical psychologist. Dr. Khazanov reviewed and evaluated psychological and medical records pertaining to Morris’s head traumas, criminal cases, and family medical and psychiatric history, as well as conducted neuropsychological testing on him. In her report, Dr. Khazanov stated, among other things, that Morris had a genetic predisposition to chronic psychopathology, specifically paranoid schizophrenia. As this chapter previously mentioned, the Author’s 2007-2011 Study also revealed more cases in which courts incorporated behavioral genetics evidence to support defendants’ claims of the inheritance of alcohol and drug dependency. This trend was particularly pronounced relative to other kinds of factors. Regardless, as these results make clear, courts seemingly no longer view any type of scientifically accepted behavioral genetics evidence as “exotic” in the same way that Landrigan did. Nor is there any overt indication that behavioral genetics evidence has reinforced concerns expressed in the context of Mobley, most particularly worries that actors in the criminal justice system would increasingly and irresponsibly rely on distorted information in their decision making. Indeed, as this Author has previously contended, concerns over behavioral genetics evidence in criminal cases can be a red herring, deflecting attention from the realization that courts can genetically stereotype defendants irrespective of any File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 399 attempt made by those defendants to submit genetics arguments. While no such case was found in this Author’s most recent Study, the Author did find such a case in the prior study. In State v. Madey (2002), the defendant, who pled guilty to misdemeanor assault after two police officers tried to take her into protective custody for public intoxication, challenged the court’s probation requirements, one of which mandated that she write an essay on “alcoholism and the American Indians.” The requirements were also made in the context of the court’s numerous and unsubstantiated comments about Madey’s ethnic proclivity for alcoholism. These comments included asking Madey’s mother whether “she knew ‘anything about genetic predisposition to alcoholism?”’ or “if she had ‘ever been on an Indian Reservation?’ and if she had ever seen ‘the Scotch or Irish drinking?”’ The court even asked the mother whether she “had a concern that her daughter would become ‘a flaming alcoholic’ because, with such an ethnic background, ‘there [was] nothing she can do about it.”’ In turn, the court continually speculated about the degree of the defendant’s future dangerousness, even characterizing the defendant’s potential state of being a murder victim as a danger to others: “[I]f you start drinking like this, you’re a danger. You will go out and get yourself attacked, or murdered, or something, and every time somebody is killed or raped in society, that diminishes the public safety overall.” In vacating the defendant’s sentence and remanding, the appellate court noted that not only were the trial court’s comments completely unrelated “to an interest in doing justice,” but that the defendant did not “attempt[] to use her family background to excuse her behavior.” In Madey, the genetic stereotyping was in the court’s eyes only, a potential cause for concern in any case, no matter the defense or evidentiary circumstances. Yet some courts have not needed a cultural stereotype to use genetics wrongly. In 2011, for example, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned a federal district court’s decision to sentence a defendant to six-and-a-half years in a child pornography case because the court had made inappropriate conclusions about genetic proclivities. In the district court’s eyes, the defendant would recidivate and continue viewing child pornography “because of an as-of-yet undiscovered gene.” Such a marker is “‘a gene you were born with,”’ the court stated to the defendant, “‘[a]nd it’s not a gene you can get rid of.”’ Rejecting as “‘virtually worthless”’ the two psychological evaluations that demonstrated the defendant was “at a low to moderate risk to re-offend,” the court reiterated to the defendant a genetic prediction: “‘You are what you’re born with. And that’s the only explanation for what I see here.”’ The Second Circuit panel made clear its stance about such an “unsupported theory of genetics,” emphasizing the district court’s lack of fairness and integrity and ordering the defendant to be sentenced by a different judge. Such cases emphasize all the more the enhanced need for a measured judiciary.

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400 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law

D. The potential impact ofCullen v. Pinholster After Schriro v. Landrigan (2007), Cullen v. Pinholster (2011) is the only Supreme Court case that has addressed behavioral genetics evidence. Yet, unlike Landrigan, Pinholster does not focus so much on the type of evidence at issue, but rather on how and when such evidence can be evaluated. It is seemingly irrelevant that the evidence happened to include behavioral genetics factors. Thus, whilePinholster is a significant and complicated case, this Section’s overview is confined specifically to the issues at hand. Pinholster is pertinent to this chapter’s discussion for two reasons. First, the case’s complex procedural history is an all-too-classic example of a prisoner’s extraordinary challenges with an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Second, thePinholster Court’s holding could substantially impact currently-pending behavioral genetics cases (including those examined in this chapter), as well as future cases involving behavioral genetics evidence. Before Pinholster, for example, federal habeas courts could hold hearings and evaluate new evidence when they reviewed how state courts construed federal law under AEDPA. State prisoners who had been unable to adequately present their claims in state court could seek habeas relief in federal court. As a result of Pinholster, however, such federal review has been severely limited, thus hindering state prisoners’ efforts to garner federal habeas relief. As Professor Samuel Wiseman has shown, Pinholster substantially changes the foundation in which federal courts can review state records in habeas cases, thereby magnifying the need for prisoners to adequately develop their records and claims in state court. Petitioners have begun to create strategies to circumvent Pinholster; yet it remains unclear how effective these strategies will be. To provide context for such modifications, the next part of this Section examines the procedural history and evidence that frames Pinholster. The discussion then considers howPinholster may affect currently pending and future behavioral genetics evidence cases.

1. History and evidence In 1984, Scott Lynn Pinholster was convicted in state court of murder. After accepting and rejecting several attorneys and even representing himself at one point, Pinholster later reconsidered and accepted the two attorneys the court appointed. In a hasty effort to prepare Pinholster’s mitigation case, Pinholster’s counsel consulted with an expert whose conclusions were not in Pinholster’s favor. According to the expert, Pinholster “did not manifest any significant signs or symptoms of mental disorder or defect other than his antisocial personality disorder by history.” In addition, the expert considered Pinholster “cognitively functional, without brain damage.” Pinholster’s counsel did not contact the expert again, nor any other expert. Indeed, Pinholster’s attorneys billed a total of 6.5 hours in preparation for the penalty File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 401 phase; Pinholster’s mother was the only defense witness at the proceeding. After the jury sentenced Pinholster to death, Pinholster twice sought habeas relief in the California Supreme Court. He alleged that his trial counsel had failed to adequately investigate and present mitigating evidence during the penalty phase. In an effort to bolster his claim, Pinholster introduced additional evidence: school, medical, and legal records; as well as declarations from family members, one of his trial attorneys, and a psychiatrist. While arguing to the state court that his counsel performed deficiently, Pinholster also contended that his attorneys should have pursued and presented information about the following three matters: Pinholster’s family members and their criminal, mental, and substance abuse problems; Pinholster’s schooling; and Pinholster’s medical and mental health history, including his epileptic disorder. The California Supreme Court summarily denied relief. Pinholster subsequently filed a habeas petition claiming that his counsel should have provided one of his key experts, Dr. John M. Stalberg, with his family history, particularly as related to mental disorders; as a result, Dr. Stalberg “would have made further inquiry ‘before concluding that [Pinholster] had merely a personality disorder.”’ The district court held Pinholster’s petition in abeyance, and the California Supreme Court ultimately denied his second habeas petition because it lacked merit. After the case was sent back to federal court, Pinholster next requested an evidentiary hearing, which, while denied for the guilt phase, was granted for the penalty phase. This time, Pinholster had two experts present new mitigation evidence, including testimony that his childhood was much worse than his mother had described. The revelations about Pinholster’s family were striking: his biological father was a drunk, “had mood swings and fits of anger, and was eventually diagnosed as paranoid with narcissistic personality disorder.” Pinholster’s older brother Alvin, while charged with the rape and sodomy of a young teen, was found incompetent to stand trial and diagnosed with schizophrenia. Alvin later committed suicide. Pinholster’s other siblings were similarly troubled. His younger brother Terry evidenced mild depression and heavily used drugs. His half-sister Tammy, by age eleven, began abusing alcohol and, by age seventeen, was arrested with her boyfriend for the sexual assault of a young teenage girl. Pinholster’s half-brother Guy evidenced manic depression, and another half-brother Gary was characterized as “an alcoholic with severe mood swings.” Pinholster’s own disorders fit the family pattern but also indicated that accidents and injuries appeared to be part of the source. According to Pinholster’s experts, for example, Pinholster “had suffered brain damage that explained his aggressive, impulsive, and antisocial behavior.” One of the experts, a pediatric neurologist, also testified that Pinholster “sustained frontal-lobe injuries” as a result of two car accidents, occurring during childhood. This expert derived this conclusion from two findings: Pinholster’s diagnosis of epilepsy and documentation that, at age nine, he File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

402 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law had an abnormal electroencephalogram (EEG). According to the Ninth Circuit, all of this evidence demonstrated that Pinholster’s trial counsel were ineffective in complying with Strickland v. Washington (1984). Indeed, the court stressed the paucity of counsel’s billing records, which “confirm counsel’s own admissions that they spent almost no time preparing for the penalty phase hearing that would determine whether Pinholster would live or die.” Thus, the court set forth two conclusions in accordance with Strickland. First, Pinholster’s counsel were “deficient” for neglecting to research Pinholster’s history so that they could provide mitigating evidence during the penalty phase. Second, such deficiency “prejudiced the defense,” thereby rendering the California Supreme Court’s denial of relief on ineffective assistance as a contravention of Strickland. The Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari was followed by an opinion which, while not directed at Pinholster’s behavioral genetics evidence, surely would have some bearing on how such evidence could be considered for future inmates. Writing for the Court, Justice Clarence Thomas took a different stance, for example, on how to interpret trial counsel’s billing records, stressing that the records showed that Pinholster’s counsel had indeed investigated mitigating evidence. In reversing the Ninth Circuit, Justice Thomas explained that “[t]here [was] no reasonable probability that the additional evidence presented at Pinholster’s state proceedings would have changed the verdict.” Not only would the supplementary information have “largely duplicated the mitigation evidence of [Pinholster’s] mother and brother at trial,” but any new documentation that may have been offered “is of questionable mitigating value.” Although Justice Thomas did not address Pinholster’s genetic evidence specifically, the prior opinion, Pinholster v. Ayers (2009), did discuss the records Pinholster sought to introduce. Yet, despite the fact that behavioral genetics information was presented as part of the mitigating evidence at issue in the Pinholster Court’s review, the Court’s holding is not based on the genetic nature of the evidence. At the same time, Pinholster has already had an impact on behavioral genetics evidence cases, and it can be expected to have further influence.

2. Behavioral genetics cases Behavioral genetics evidence is often not introduced until post-conviction proceedings, and the cases using it frequently involve ineffective assistance of counsel claims. Therefore, Pinholster could have a considerable impact on currently-pending behavioral genetics cases. Two petitioners in this chapter’s survey have already had their cases remanded in light of Pinholster (see the Appendix listing Ryan v. Detrich (2011) and Ryan v. Jones (2011)). In each of the cases, the failure to adequately investigate or present File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 403 behavioral genetics evidence (along with other factors) was grounds for vacating a death sentence and remanding for imposition of a sentence of life in prison. At the present time, it is unclear whether these petitioners’ death sentences will remain vacated. Since Pinholster was decided, lower courts have been more reluctant to grant evidentiary hearings; the decision places a greater burden on a petitioner to adequately develop the factual record in state court, making it uncertain whether federal courts will be permitted to fill the gap in situations where a petitioner is unable to do so. As Professor Wiseman explains, “Without the safeguard of federal fact development under [AEDPA], cases of egregious unfairness in state post-conviction procedures will demand new solutions.” The cases followingPinholster suggest that petitioners seeking habeas relief in the federal courts, particularly those who have claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, will face higher hurdles. Pinholster makes clear that federal courts should be basing their determination on whether to grant habeas relief solely on evidence found within the state record. This situation poses a considerable barrier for petitioners whose grounds for relief are rooted in the inadequacy or absence of certain evidence in state proceedings. In seven of the cases in this chapter’s Study in which the petitioner’s death sentence was vacated or an evidentiary hearing was upheld, the decision was based precisely on the failure to adequately investigate or present behavioral genetics evidence in state court. It is unclear whether the same results would follow had these cases been decided after Pinholster. Pinholster, of course, did not mandate that courts take a less favorable approach to behavioral genetics evidence specifically. At the same time, reaction to the Court’s holding indicates that cases seeking appellate relief on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel, a category into which behavioral genetics cases have typically fallen, may receive cooler reception in the federal courts. This potential outcome may have implications for the likelihood of success of behavioral genetics cases in general irrespective of any actual change in courts’ views of genetics evidence. Indeed, a change in standards to one of greater deference to state and attorney determinations might pose additional problems for petitioners seeking to introduce new facts to the record. One way for a petitioner to avoid the hurdles created by Pinholster would be to convince the court that the petitioner’s claims were not “adjudicated on the merits” in state proceedings. The future success rate of these claims may be an indicator of whether new evidence remains a key component in obtaining federal habeas relief on two levels − in the context of behavioral genetics evidence and also in the broader sense of ineffective assistance of counsel claims in habeas proceedings.

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404 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law

Conclusion For decades, the link between behavioral genetics and criminality has been haunted with controversy, raising questions about how such evidence is, or should be, applied. This chapter tackles those questions by analyzing a unique study of all criminal cases (totaling thirty-three) that addressed behavioral genetics evidence from June 1, 2007, to July 1, 2011. The Study builds upon this Author’s prior research on all criminal cases (totaling forty-eight) that used such evidence during the preceding thirteen years (1994-2007). This combined collection of eighty-one criminal cases employing behavioral genetics evidence offers a rich context for determining how the criminal justice system has been handling genetics factors for nearly two decades, but also why more recent years reveal particularly important discoveries. Results suggest that not only is much of the controversy surrounding behavioral genetics and crime unwarranted, the use of such evidence has been misunderstood. From 2007-2011, for example, behavioral genetics evidence has appeared to have been applied almost exclusively as mitigating evidence in death penalty cases and primarily in two ways to support claims of ineffective assistance of counsel for neglecting such evidence or to provide proof and diagnosis of a defendant’s mitigating condition. Strikingly, this Study found no case during 2007-2011 in which behavioral genetics factors were introduced by the State, much less used as aggravating evidence or as indications that a defendant would be a future danger to others. These findings debunk arguments that such evidence will be legally detrimental to a defendant. Indeed, in most cases, the evidence is so tightly intertwined with other factors in a defendant’s life that the particular impact of behavioral genetics can be difficult to isolate. This Study’s results suggest that, at the very least, behavioral genetics evidence has no decipherable impact on a defendant’s case or, at most, it becomes an effective tool along with a range of other kinds of variables in rendering a defendant ineligible for the death penalty. Courts appear willing to accept behavioral genetics evidence as part of a defendant’s mitigation story, even if genetics renders that story a more troubling one in terms of the defendant’s purported propensities. The 2007-2011 period also showed a number of break-a-way trends from earlier years. For example, there were substantially more cases that incorporated behavioral genetics evidence of any kind. In addition, there was a clear increase in the number of cases in which defendants submitted proof of a genetic propensity for alcoholism and/or substance abuse. Overall, this chapter’s research shows that courts accept behavioral genetics evidence in the majority of cases in which defense attorneys attempt to offer it. In contrast to past years when courts at times questioned the applicability or relevance of such information, recent findings indicate that their focus has turned elsewhere. In particular, courts emphasize the importance of determining whether the evidence, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

D. W. Denno 405 when used with other factors in mitigation, can outweigh the aggravating factors that support a death sentence. The coming years will reveal whether such trends will be affected by Cullen v. Pinholster (2011), the Supreme Court’s recent decision restricting prisoners’ efforts to seek federal habeas relief under AEDPA. Regardless, behavioral genetics evidence seems, on the surface, to have reached a status commensurate with other kinds of evidence without the baggage of abuse with which it has typically been associated.

Figure 1 Genogram Presented in the Susan Smith Case*

Johnson Harrison Vaughan Albright ?

S D D A A D

Linda Infant Harry DSA D D D D DS

Michael Scotty Susan DS DS

or Deceased D Depression S Suicide attempt A Alcohol abuse according to self or family report Mental retardation, disability

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D. W. Denno 407 File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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D. W. Denno 409

Appendix Criminal cases referencing behavioral genetics evidence: June 1, 2007 - July 1, 2011

Loving v. United States, 64 M.J. 132 (C.A.A.F. 2006), 68 M.J. 1 (C.A.A.F. 2009), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 67 (2010). Hamilton v. Ayers, 458 F. Supp. 2d 1075 (E.D. Cal. 2006), aff’d in part, rev’d in part, 583 F.3d 1100 (9th Cir. 2009). Mickey v. Ayers, No. C-93-0243 RMW, 2006 WL 3358410 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 17, 2006), aff’d in part, rev’d in part, 606 F.3d 1223 (9th Cir. 2010), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 419 (2011). Morales v. Mitchell, 507 F.3d 916 (6th Cir. 2007), reh’g en banc denied, Nos. 00- 3694/3787, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 5909 (6th Cir. Mar. 10, 2008). Malone v. State, 168 P.3d 185 (Okla. Crim. App. 2007). Schurz v. Schriro, No. CV-97-580-PHX-EHC, 2007 WL 2808220 (D. Ariz. Sept. 25, 2007). Wood v. Schriro, No. CV-98-053-TUC-JMR, 2007 WL 3124451 (D. Ariz. Oct. 24, 2007). Berryman v. Ayers, No. 1:95-CV-05309-AWI, 2007 WL 1991049 (E.D. Cal. July 10, 2007); see also Berryman v. Wong, No. 1:95-CV-05309-AWI, 2010 WL 289181, at *1 (E.D. Cal. Jan. 15, 2010). Hodges v. Bell, 548 F. Supp. 2d 485 (M.D. Tenn. 2008). Hall v. McPherson, 663 S.E.2d 659 (Ga. 2008). Williams v. Norris, No. 5:07cv00234 SWW, 2008 WL 4820559 (E.D. Ark. Nov. 4, 2008), aff’d, 612 F.3d 941 (8th Cir. 2010), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1677 (2011). Brant v. State, 21 So. 3d 1276 (Fla. 2009). Simpson v. State, 3 So. 3d 1135 (Fla. 2009). Henry v. Ryan, No. CV 02-656-PHX-SRB, 2009 WL 692356 (D. Ariz. Mar. 17, 2009). Jones v. Ryan, 583 F.3d 626 (9th Cir. 2009), vacated, 131 S.Ct. 2091 (2011). The U.S. Supreme Court later reversed and remanded the case in Ryan v. Jones, 131 S. Ct. 2091 (2011), in light of Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388 (2011). Rienhardt v. Ryan, 669 F. Supp. 2d 1038 (D. Ariz. 2009). Woodall v. Simpson, No. 5:06-CV-P216-R, 2009 WL 464939 (W.D. Ky. Feb. 24, 2009). Hall v. Quarterman, No. 4:06-CV-436-A, 2009 WL 612559 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 9, 2009). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

410 Genetics: overview of United States criminal law

Hawkins v. Wong, No. CIV S-96-1155 MCE EFB DP, 2010 WL 3516399 (E.D. Cal. Sept. 2, 2010). Morris v. Malfi, No. C 06-7409 SI, 2010 WL 2629738 (N.D. Cal. June 29, 2010), aff’d, 449 F. App’x 686 (9th Cir. 2011). Creech v. Hardison, No. CV 99-0224-S-BLW, 2010 WL 1338126 (D. Idaho Mar. 31, 2010). Allison v. Cullen, No. CV 92-06404 CAS, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82957 (C.D. Cal. July 22, 2010); see also Allison v. Cullen, 725 F. Supp. 2d 924 (C.D. Cal. 2010) (publishing only the judgment portion of the decision). Detrich v. Ryan, 619 F.3d 1038 (9th Cir. 2010), vacated, 131 S. Ct. 2449 (2011). The U.S. Supreme Court later reversed and remanded the case in Ryan v. Detrich, 131 S. Ct. 2449 (2011), in light of Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388 (2011). Ex parte Smith, No. 1080973, 2010 WL 4148528 (Ala. Oct. 22, 2010). Keough v. State, No. W2008-01916-CCA-R3-PD, 2010 WL 2612937 (Tenn. Crim. App. June 30, 2010), vacated, 356 S.W.3d 366 (Tenn. 2011). Commonwealth v. Williams, Nos. 200001876, 200002869, 2010 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 193 (Pa. D. & C. May 13, 2010). Purkey v. United States, No. 06-8001-CV-W-FJG, 2010 WL 4386532 (W.D. Mo. Oct. 28, 2010). Darling v. Sec’y, No. 6:07-cv-1701-Orl-31GJK, 2010 WL 2471441 (M.D. Fla. June 17, 2010), cert. denied, 131 S. Ct. 1492 (2011). Turner v. Epps, No. 4:07CV77-WAP, 2010 WL 653880 (N.D. Miss. Feb. 19, 2010), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 998 (2012). Worthington v. Roper, 631 F.3d 487 (8th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 763 (2011). Rhoades v. Henry, 638 F.3d 1027 (9th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 401 (2011). Cullen v. Pinholster, 131 S. Ct. 1388 (2011). Commonwealth v. Gibson, 19 A.3d 512 (Pa. 2011).

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Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings1

Óscar Morales García

Table of contents: 1. Spanish substantive law and its developing case law. - 1.1. The impact of neurobiological pathologies non associable to psychiatric diagnosis criteria. - 1.2. Genetic predisposition to a violent response. - 2. The impact of genetics in the procedural field.

1. Spanish substantive law and its developing case law Genetics and neurobiology are able to present premature diagnostics of certain illnesses un-related to psychiatry that impact in the processes determining human behavior. The statement above gives rise to a debate confronting freedom vs. human determinism exceeding the scope of this work2. It would be somehow dishonest to criticize that culpability is the cohesive criteria for the (normative) attribution of a

1 Translated from Spanish by Matilde Fourey, Attorney at Uría Menéndez, Barcelona (Spain). Extended version of the lecture given in the International Congress Genetics, Robotics, Law, Punishment, held in Padova-Treviso the 30 September and 1 October 2013. I acknowledge Prof. Silvio Riondato and Dr. Debora Provolo their kind invitation to participate in the Congress. 2 For a general overview, see E. Demetrio Crespo’s magnificent work,Libertad de voluntad, investigación sobre el cerebro y responsabilidad penal, in “Indret”, 2/2011, passim, containing an exhaustive examination of the question’s current state, especially in German bibliography. The author addresses the perspective of freedom not only from neurobiology but also from the criminal law viewpoints, highlighting the insurmountable differences arising from «the misnamed categorical failure»: the analysis of the same phenomenon (freedom) from the perspective of science (empiric and criminal) with different methods and objectives. Reporting on the lack of harmony between the medical and legal concepts of mental illness, N. Eastman, C. Campbell, Neuroscience and legal determination of criminal responsibility, in “Nature Reviews”, Vol. 7, April 2006, p. 312. The authors also allude to the different interest of empiric and medical sciences in concepts that are eventually interlinked: while neuroscience is interested in the concepts of “emotion” and “thought”, (criminal) Law is interested in the concepts of “intent” and “culpability”, which complicates the understanding between both worlds. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

412 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings fact to its author based on the model’s obsolescence, due to the progress of empiric sciences, without recognizing the capacity of culpability and its demonstration to work as a guarantee in the criminal procedure. At the same time, it would be scarcely prudent to preach for immediate changes to take place in criminal Law and procedure as a consequence of results that are not yet empirically sufficiently verified. However, it is worth underlining that the criteria to reduce or exclude the author’s responsibility linked to suffering from illnesses is currently circumscribed in our country to the diminution of the author’s ability to discern good from evil. There are few rulings in which an author distinguishing the difference between right and wrong and knowing his actions’ transcendence is declared non-liable, even if he has a marked tendency to carry out such actions. This is closely related to the debate on free will, the presumed existence of which is the basis for Spanish criminal liability rules3. The impossibility to adjust a behavior to the standards set forth in legislation is the foundation of the decision to reduce or exclude criminal responsibility. In general, such reduction or exclusion will not apply when the author is able to identify the wrongfulness of his actions4. Hence the existing link, in the Spanish criminal system, between the reduction of penalty due to a default in the author’s responsibility and purely psychiatric foundations. The author’s culpability will be reduced when his illness can be associated to clinical diagnosis reference books referred to the subject’s psyche and are, additionally, linked with the specific behavior developed by the author. Only such illnesses with a pathologic, organic, reflection in the author’s mind will be taken into consideration when reducing his responsibility. That is where the application of security measures based on danger prognosis takes on its real meaning, if the mental illness persists after carrying out the criminal act. Case law is clearly in favor of identifying the extenuating circumstance of mental

3 See, for example, E. Demetrio Crespo’s abstract of Hassemer’s thesis on this subject, Libertad, pp. 17-20. In El legado genético y el prinicipio de culpabilidad. Algunas conclusiones provisionales, in El Derecho ante el Proyecto Genoma Humano, vol. II, Bilbao, 1994, p. 67, J.L. De La Cuesta maintains that, in order to choose between two non-accredited theories, determinism and free will, it is always best to start from a concept such as freedom, merely intuitive but «a socially accepted value governing social life, which criminal Law can hardly disregard, especially when existing alternatives do not lead to better solutions». 4 Regardless of whether or not the nineteenth-century categories are still suitable to a criminal justice administration based on humanity and proportionality values, the axis of which is the human being and the legal attribution of dignity, I fully agree with E. Demetrio Crespo, Libertad, cit., p. 31, that it is no longer possible to neglect what we effectively know from his empirical verification: «this increasingly complex reality requires to consider if the glasses we are using provide us enough “visual acuity” or, on the contrary, only allow us to assess things from a partial and reductionist perspective that may be mistaken». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 413 anomaly5 with the binomial foundation psychological cause-psychiatric effect6. At the same time, the psychological cause is often required in pathological terms, translating to a psychiatric mental illness psychologically affecting the subject7. In short, the reduction of the author’s criminal culpability due to a responsibility deficiency is necessarily linked to pathological consequences, that is, the psychiatric effect. The physical effect is, in turn, identified with the ability to discern good from evil and adjust one’s behavior to such knowledge. Though as we will see below, the importance of both abilities attributed to the subject is not alike8, and that historically explains and justifies the reason why some anomalies or personality disorders such as psychopathy do not fit in the pattern: their pathological basis is not clear; their effect in the ability to discern good from evil is nil. The consequences of such disorders in the subject’s ability to decide are not relevant enough to this effect, closing the argumentative circle: the ability to decide is presumed, the free will is the starting point. In this scenario, the extenuating circumstance of mental anomaly set forth in the criminal Code would not be able to offer a predictable answer to those cases in

5 Article 20.1 of the Spanish Criminal Code sets forth that: «The following persons shall not be criminally accountable: 1º those who, at the time of committing a crime, due to any mental anomaly or alteration, cannot comprehend the unlawful nature of the act or act in line with such comprehension». 6 The Sentence of the Spanish Supreme Court (“SSC”) dated 22 October 2003 [RJ 2003, 7630] explains the foundation of irresponsibility in the Spanish legal system: «The Criminal Code of 1995 (RCL 1995, 3170 and RCL 1996, 777) is incardinated in a mixed system regarding the incidence of psychological anomalies or disorders in criminal responsibility, as the exemption or semi-exemption require a psychological anomaly or disorder as cause and the subject’s diminished or annulled ability to comprehend the illegality of his behavior or to act according to such comprehension, as a consequence and effect of such anomaly or disorder». 7 See the Sentences of the SSC dated 9 March 2005 (RJ 2005, 4043) and 19 December 2011 (RJ 2012, 8615). The latter explains that: «The mixed system of the Criminal Code is based on the double requirement of a bio-pathological cause and a psychological effect, the suppression or serious alteration of the ability to comprehend the illegality of one’s behavior or to establish one’s behavior according to that comprehension». 8 Both elements, cognitive and volitive, are alluded to in case law rulings doctrinally speculating about the reach of the extenuating circumstance set forth in article 20.1 of the Spanish criminal Code. In principle, both should be given a similar relevance. It is not the case, however, in court rulings of a decisive nature, namely sentences setting the impact of pathological illnesses on the author’s criminal responsibility and the determining of the penalty. This occurs, for example, in the Sentence of the Supreme Court dated 30 April 2009, JUR 2009, 218028, in which the court refers to the analogous extenuating circumstance («atenuante de análoga significación») in the case of a brain tumor causing evident behavioral dysfunctions though the subject still possesses the unimpaired capacity to discern good from evil. The Supreme Court assesses the case in the following terms: «The appellant demands the application of the extenuating circumstance of mental alienation set forth in article 21.1 and 20.1 of the Criminal Code. As examined in the precedent ground, the appellant suffers from a sporadic paraphilia presenting an impulsive change of behavior with an organic basis and from a brain tumor diagnosed since 1996 which slightly diminishes his volitive capacities. The biological requirement is met for there is a psychological anomaly. However, the legal psychological requirement is not met as it hasn’t been proved that he didn’t comprehend what he was doing or that he had an altered perception of reality. The existence of the referred illness did slightly influence him in the commission of the crime; therefore, the application of the analogous extenuating circumstance is correct». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

414 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings which the subject suffers from a non-psychiatric illness, of a genetic basis or not, or an illness of a purely genetic basis yet not psychiatric. We will address both matters separately.

1.1. The impact of neurobiological pathologies non associable to psychiatric diagnosis criteria The field of neurobiology is rich in corroborated hypothesis of illnesses with a pathological basis though not relatable to diagnosis reference books at use. Some of them have been the object of the most recent literature and can be used as reference for the analysis of the case law infra. (i) The Charles Whitman case9. In 1996, Charles Whitman murdered his wife and mother, left for the University of Texas, Austin, where he fired and murdered 15 more people from the flat roof. After being taken down at the University an autopsy was performed, revealing a 5 centimeter brain tumor that pressured the hypothalamus and compressed the amygdala, which adjusts the emotional processes and especially those referred to fear (own survival) and aggression10. No doubt the subject is conscious of what is right and what is wrong; he does not find any satisfactory explanation to his attraction for homicidal behaviors (I wouldn’t even qualify them as violent, as that didn’t seem to be the leitmotive of his acts); and of course, the subject does not suffer from a classic psychiatric illness: he doesn’t suffer from schizophrenia, psychosis nor mental retardation. In short, no psychiatric pathological basis influencing the subject’s psyche is described. Thus, if we follow our case law’s logic, which we will expose later on, should Charles Whitman have committed his massacre in Spain and survived it doesn’t seem probable that we could have escaped our own conceptual prison. And that even if we hadn’t asked ourselves if, under a pathological conditioning (a tumor) and its context (causing variations in the amygdala), the volitive process as such was still working in the brains and psyche of the subject – which doesn’t even amount to asking whether or not the volitive

9 Repeatedly cited in this article’s bibliography. Lately, and for all, in D. Eagleman, Incognito. The secret lives of the brain, 2013, p. 183. 10 D. Eagleman, Incognito. The secret lives of the brain, cit., p. 184 and 185, incorporates what Whitman wrote in his diary days before he died: «The truth is that I can’t seem to understand myself these days. I supposedly am an intelligent and reasonable young man. However, lately (I don’t remember how it started) I have been the victim of numerous unusual and irrational thoughts». After killing his wife he added: «After a lot of thought, I have decided to kill my wife, Kathy, tonight (…) I love her deeply, and she has been as good a wife to me as any man could desire. Rationally, I can’t find any specific reason to do it». In his diary, Whitman, a man of a more than reasonable intelligence, a bank employee, a former boy scout child and a monitor, described by all his friends and acquaintances as someone as reasonable as anyone who claim to be so can really be, added the following: «I imagine I gave the impression of having brutally assassinated my beloved ones. I just tried to do a quick and conscientious work. (…) If my life insurance policy is valid, please cancel my debts. (…) [A]nonlymously donate the rest to a foundation for mental health. Investigation may prevent similar tragedies to come». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 415 ability of the subject was diminished or neutralized. (ii) Let us also consider the (real) case11 of an individual with an ordinary behavior and normal heterosexual parameters. Suddenly, he starts to feel a strong sexual attraction for young children (a paraphilia: a diagnosis traditionally associated to personality disorders unrelated to a pathological basis). The subject starts to compulsively download enormous quantities of child pornography and attempts to seduce his teenage daughter, for which he is sentenced to three years of imprisonment, substituted by a preventive-curative therapy. The acute headaches he starts feeling after being hospitalized, where he carries on with his new sexual behavior, invite the doctors to perform a tomography imaging, discovering an enormous tumor in his orbitofrontal cortex. After its extirpation the subject’s behavior went back to the normality observed before its genesis, losing any sexual attraction for minors. Shortly after, the subject’s behavior indicated a new sexual compulsion towards minors, and he was thus subjected to new exploratory tests. The tumor had regrown and was extirpated again, this time definitively. The subject turned back to his original sexual behavior, in heterosexual normal parameters and without any remains of his former interest for minors. Removing the tumor, the attraction completely disappears; the tumor regrows and so does the attraction; extirpated again, so does again his sexual pedophile impulse. Little medical experiments bring that much clarity on the brain functioning and malfunctioning in the presence of pathologies lacking a psychiatric basis. In this case, a reduction of the subject’s criminal responsibility would neither be accepted in our system, according to the general postulates on criminal responsibility applied by the Supreme Court case law. Few are the appellation or cassation rulings in Spain which have faced cases like the two mentioned above, though such situations cannot be said to be exceptional either. Indeed, the example of the brain tumor and the paraphilia is not unusual and has generated some rulings that confirm, as we anticipated earlier, the idea that the lack of responsibility possesses one insurmountable barrier: a pathological basis mentioned in diagnosis reference books. An example substantially similar to Eagleman and Bauman’s, a paraphilia associated with a brain tumor, is portrayed in the Supreme Court’s ruling dated 30 April 2009, (JUR 2009, 218028). The Court excludes the application of the extenuating circumstance of severe mental anomaly set forth in article 20.1 of

11 Also repeatedly cited in this article’s bibliography. Lately, and for all, in D. Eagelman, Incognito, cit., p. 187; and M. Bauman, The Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA) Genetic Predisposition to impulsive Violence: Is it relevant to Criminal Trials?, in “Neuroethics”, 6 (2) 2013, p. 297, among others (accessible on-line at: http://www.pc.rhul.ac.uk/sites/rheg/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/genetic-italy-case.pdf). Bauman’s perspective, however, refers to whether or not, in hypothesis such as the case presented in this example, the average man should also be afflicted by a brain tumor in order to be used as a valid abstract comparative concept. If not, the perspective of the average man may not be a determining comparative factor, by comparing radically different perspectives. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

416 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings the Spanish Criminal Code, redirecting the situation to a mere diminution of responsibility applying the analogous extenuating circumstance of severe mental illness12. That is to say that the Court does not believe there is a severe mental illness, but rather something similar, yet different13. Furthermore, the referred ruling emphasizes the subject’s ability to discern good from evil14, as a question weighing more than the diminishment of his volitive capacity. The Court does not address, however, a major question, which is the value to be attributed to the ability to discern good from evil in a pathological context clearly defined: a tumor neurologically associated to a basic alteration of the subject’s behavior. The fundamental question that any Court ought to answer before a pathological reality, be it psychiatric or not, such as the one demonstrated in this case, is whether or not the subject is able to correctly go through the process of determining good and evil or if such distinction becomes different/indifferent for the subject due to his new physical condition, a brain tumor, being able to recognize that his new sexual behavior is deemed incorrect by the social majority while presently lacking any commitment to those valuating rules15. The equivalent conditions theory (“teoría de la equivalencia de las condiciones”) becomes useful in this kind of process, where the condition to be suppressed is absolutely effective in the progress of the action committed. Of course, it may be objected that the starting point is the subject’s ability to understand the

12 On the analogous extenuating circumstance see infra and footnote 18. 13 The reasoning of the Court is the following: «The appellant considers the first instance Court has mistakenly evaluated the evidence consisting in a medical expert report (pages 524 to 535) and the medical documents attached to the defense writ consisting in eight X-ray photographs resulting from computerized axial tomography, a non-confirmed diagnosis certificate dating from 2007 and communications of temporary incapacity due to common contingencies. The sentencing Court considers to be proven that the appellant suffers from a sporadic paraphilia, presenting an impulsive behavioral change with an organic basis and a brain tumor diagnosed since 1996, which slightly diminish his volitive capacities. This has granted him the analogous extenuating circumstance of psychological alteration. In pages 534-535 of the case file the medical conclusions are stated and the sentencing Court make them its own for in the referred documents no conclusion is reached regarding the existence of a serious cognitive alteration (“he can tell good from evil”). Regarding his volitive capacity, those documents indicate that “his interior free will to inhibit such changes is diminished”, referring to his behavioral changes. Thus, nothing is said regarding the diminishment or annulation of that volitive capacity. On the other hand, the documents attached to the defense writ do not indicate a severe diminishment or annulation of his intellective or volitive capacities. Thus, the first instance Court has correctly evaluated the expert reports as they do not allow for a higher diminishment of the penalty than what was granted by the sentencing Court (extenuating circumstance analogous to mental disorder)». 14 Specifically, the Court affirms: «the legal psychological requirement is not met because it is not affirmed that he didn’t understand what he was doing or that his conscience of reality was altered». 15 This is the reason why M. Bauman, The Monoamine, cit., p. 302, questions the necessity, in cases such as a paraphilia associated with a tumor, that in order to be adopted as an abstract concept and a comparative reference, the average man should also be afflicted of a brain tumor. Otherwise, it would be impossible to know the manner in which the subject faces the valuation of his sexual behavior from a cognitive stand point (not volitive, not yet) and whether or not this process is identical to the hypothesis of absence of bio-pathological cause. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 417 illegality of his acts, though it would be presumptuous in the current state of the art to affirm that there is but one unique and univocal cognitive process tending to that end. Again, the more effective the pathological (non-psychiatric) cause involved in the development of the facts, the more autonomous and farther from the ordinary standards will be the process of understanding the illegality of the action. In any event, the criminal irresponsibility and the extenuating circumstance based on this belong to a category only applicable to exceptions, to the cognitive abnormality, that cannot be solely referred to normality but to the ensemble of possible abnormalities, without aprioristic exclusions based on the cause that is generating them. In other cases associated to brain tumors, the so called minor case law (of the Provincial Courts) has opted for declaring the complete criminal irresponsibility through the application of the extenuating circumstance of mental alienation16. It needs to be pointed out, however, that the brain tumor becomes relevant so far as it may explain a mental illness of a psychiatric basis referred in the diagnosis reference book DSM-IV. It is thus not a ruling in which reflection is put into the legal/criminal consequences of the existence of a neurobiological pathology with a non-psychological foundation in the agent’s responsibility, in the event that there is a verified interference of the tumor with normal brain processes. It is rather a ruling addressing the hypothesis that a tumor may be the probable joint cause (together with a previous accident) of a personality disorder, referring again to the ability of such disorder to annul the intellective and volitive capacities. The situation does not improve by turning to hypothesis of exclusion or diminishment of criminal responsibility of a pathological basis yet different from mental anomaly, such as the perception alteration foreseen in article 20.3 of the code17. First, the very same extenuating circumstance has a legal limit: any perception

16 The Provincial Court of Madrid (Section 4), in its Sentence no. 62/2009, dated 1 June (JUR 2010, 14410), inserted the suffering of a brain tumor by the subject as a joint cause for the mental disorder he experienced, which led to the application of the complete extenuating circumstance of mental alienation. This ruling develops the following reasoning: «The defendant, who is currently 53 years old was being treated in the Centre for Mental Health of Villaverde, for a chronic delusional disorder and recurring depressive episodes. When he was 33, he was involved in a car accident that caused the fracture of his parieto-occipital region, as a consequence of which he could never go back to work, receiving a pension for his inability. Three years later, a delusional disorder gradually appeared which has become chronic over the years, consisting in believing that a person, his victim, is the cause for the subject’s physical ailments. Later on, as a consequence of the facts that are being sentenced here, the defendant has been detected a brain tumor in his pituitary gland, the dimension of which might possibly be the cause of the subject’s symptoms, that he deliriously attributed to his neighbor. In short, the defendant suffers from a delusional disorder (297); recurrent depression (296.3); organic personality disorder (310.1) and pituitary macroadenoma. We have to conclude that the defendant’s illness caused the annulment of his volitive and cognitive capacities, thus granting the mental alienation set forth in article 20.1 of the criminal code». 17 Article 20.3 of the Criminal code stipulates that: «The following persons shall not be criminally accountable: 3º whoever, due to suffering alterations in perception from the time of birth, or from childhood, has his perception of reality seriously altered». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

418 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings alteration (whatever that may mean), must be suffered from birth or childhood, which should exclude ex lege all serious non-pathological illnesses that are unrelated to genetics (or which cannot be unquestionably linked to genetics – note that the presumption of innocence is not applicable when we are analyzing culpability) originated after childhood. Furthermore, the extenuating circumstance set forth in article 20.3 of the criminal Code refers to the case of non-correspondence between the society’s cultural values and the values effectively absorbed by the subject18, as a consequence of a malfunctioning in the cerebral system for interpreting values, which will again exclude the application of this extenuating circumstance to the cases in which the subject (like Whitman) do not suffer from a clear defect in the value interpreting system, and less so since birth or childhood. Neither does appealing to the situations of non-requirement (“inexigibilidad”) to behave in accordance with Law provide a solution to such cases. First, because non- requirement is a conceptual category, dogmatic if you please, though not positive, not set forth as such in Spanish positive law. The excusing state of necessity (article 20.7 SCC) or the insurmountable fear (article 20.6), both set forth in Spanish positive law, dogmatically refer to such concept. In short, those are circumstances in which the environmental context determines a quasi-automatic response in the acting subject; always under the premise that the exceptionality of the environmental context turns the act in (statistically) unrepeatable. I am not saying that non-requirement as a category is not the fitting concept to place such behaviors (in fact, non-requirement seems to embrace them very well, at least literally), but its translation to Spanish positive law is restricted to extreme environmental contexts completely unrelated to a genetic predisposition or to the appearance of neurologic illnesses unrelated to psychiatric disorders with a traditional pathological basis. In view of this, the only viable way out left by the legislator and the case law to the phenomenon of acting under the influence of congenital illnesses or non-psychiatric brain malfunctioning is the analogous extenuating circumstance19. This extenuating

18 In extenso, F. Morales, La alteración de la percepción: contenido y límites (artículo 8.3 CP), in “Cuadernos de política criminal”, 1990, p. 71 ff.Though it is referred to article 8.3 of the former criminal Code, this extenuating circumstance has not been substantially altered in the current version of the Code, set forth in article 20.3. 19 Article 21 of the criminal Code sets forth the semi-extenuating circumstances and the mitigating circumstances. The first semi-extenuating circumstance (art. 21.1 CC) refers precisely to the mental anomaly foreseen in article 20.1, when not all the requirements of a complete exemption of criminal responsibility are met. In case law, its application is of a quantitative nature (lower intensity of the psychological influence caused by the psychiatric pathological basis) and is thus not a solution for those cases in which the link to a psychiatric illness is missing. The th7 circumstance of article 21, however, sets forth the analogous extenuating circumstance, defined as “any other circumstance with an analogous signification to the circumstances above”. It offers a criminal responsibility reduction in a much lesser extent (operating as an ordinary circumstance it imposes the ordinary penalty framework File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 419 circumstance would reduce the agent’s responsibility if similar causes (but different) to those described in the above paragraphs concur. That is, something similar to a perception alteration or to a severe mental anomaly, though not exactly, be it because the pathological basis is lacking or because the anomaly is not suffered from birth or childhood, etc20. However, the application of this extenuating circumstance responds to exceptionality criteria. Its use in our criminal system allows alleviating the State’s criminal response in such cases in which the subject’s behavior evidences traces of the pure and autonomous extenuating circumstances’ basic requirements, though not all of them concur. Its application to a criminal behavior deriving from a neurobiological and/or genetically based illness would imply an express acknowledgement that these behaviors have no consideration in the Spanish criminal system. In Whitman’s case, his elimination aborted in some way the debate on the social response to be given (through the State) to this kind of cases. The situation of the “pedophile” is different, for he was sentenced for child abuse. Once the tumor was extracted, it is clear that nothing justified the application of security measures based on a forecast of his dangerousness after the crime; in the Spanish criminal system, that would imply his return to an ordinary penitentiary regime until the completion of his sentence. If the neurobiological tie determining (totally or mainly) the agent’s behavior cannot be linked to a severe mental dysfunction with a psychiatric basis, the neurobiological reasons will not be relevant to criminal Law. It will keep judging the author as a free man, sending general deterrent messages through the reaffirmation of the law by processing and sentencing him and projecting upon the author individual

in its lower half). 20 In this position, see the Sentence of the Supreme Court dated 30 April 2009, (JUR 2009, 218028). Clearly, the Sentence of the Supreme Court dated 23 October 1984, RJ 1984/5060, also referred to mental illnesses attributed to neurobiological causes, such as a tumor. The ruling states that: «even then, and according to what has been stated in ground no. 3 of the appeal, different degrees of lucidity exist between vigil consciousness and entire consciousness, all accepted in case law, going from one to the other, legally frameworked, or depending on the application of the complete or semi-complete mental alienation; the transitory mental dysfunction; outburst and blind rage in a severe or normal range, or as an analogous circumstance stated in no. 10, here invoked as being applicable. The truth is that, against the usual belief, the perfect framing of the facts does not only depend on the degree of consciousness with which the acts were carried out or on the intensity of the dysfunction suffered by the subject, but also to other conditioning circumstances that we have to consider, such as: mental illness in the cases of alienation; morbidity or brain damage unbalanced by an exogenous cause regarding some mental disorders; psychological normality in passionate states, more or less disrupted by the stimulus’ intensity, or those originated in character defects or character deviations or abnormalities producing deviated or criminal behaviors even in a psychologically normally functioning brain without the intervention of emotion or, finally, a whole range of unconsciousness situations presenting common notes with the above described circumstances though not fully fitting, such as behavior abnormalities caused by an incipient brain tumor, a dysendocriny or an irritability burst produced by an hypoglycemia, which would depend on the application of the so called analogous extenuating circumstance (an analogous situation to the above, though not exactly) set forth in no. 10 of article 9º…)». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

420 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings deterrent messages of an impossible effectiveness21. There is no possible individual deterrent message so far as the subject is cured, and the general deterrent message is not very flattering, for little motivation can derive from knowing that under such circumstances the author’s acting against the law will still be punished through a legal blame. Thus, only a merely retributionist message derives from the fact22 (and not from the responsibility deriving from the fact) or the systemic thesis which always lead back to neo-retributionism23. And this is where the debate turns fiercer between scholars supporting a reformation of the Spanish criminal system of attributing responsibility able to avoid not only the theoretical problems of retributionism24, but more importantly the practical problems posed by neuroscience, and those who maintain that the system should remain just slightly permeable to the evolution of neurobiology in order to preserve the social basis of the attribution of responsibility25-26. A typical debate in the commencement of a scientific revolution that is just starting to provide tangible results, generating reservations basically among the defenders of the legal theory of crime and the criminal system as a whole. Obviously, the aims of criminal Law may be reconsidered so as to keep the building standing, but that would amount to cheat in the game of solitaire, for it doesn’t face the problem nor it contributes to improve one’s own position. In this regard, the substantive Law cannot give up a systematic interpretation allowing article 20.1 of the criminal Code to be effective upon those who could not act consistently with the logic “knowing the rules/acting accordingly” for being affected by an a neurobiological anomaly

21 D. Pavlovic, Right to be wrong: if brain is Guilty, are We Responsible?, in “The Open Ethics Journal”, 2, 2008, p. 41. 22 D. Pavlovic, Right to be wrong, cit., p. 41. 23 With a broad acceptance not only among scholars. In fact, in Spain, the Jakobsian message has cheekily leaked in the criminal Code reformation recently submitted to the Parliament (October 2013). Article 80 of the criminal Code (on the adjournment of penalties depriving of liberty under two years) is expected to change in the following terms: «The penalties depriving of liberty over one year will not be adjourned where not doing so may be necessary to secure the general confidence in the application of the law infringed by the offence». The reformation may be consulted inwww.congreso.es . 24 On the necessary modification of the retributive conception of attributing responsibility,J. Green, J. Cohen, For the Law, neuroscience changes Nothing and Everything, in “Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences”, vol. 359, nº 1451, Law and the Brain, pp. 1776, 1777 and, especially, p. 1784. Also, broadly, D. Eagleman, Incognito, cit., pp. 183-232. 25 Including broad bibliography, with special attention given to Hassemer’s thesis, as pointed out above, E. Demetrio-Crespo, Libertad, cit., pp. 17-20. 26 Among the skeptical ones, the preventions of such authors in whose countries allow for security measures to be applied prior to committing the offence must be highlighted. Thus,N. Eastman, C. Campbell, Neuroscience, cit., p. 317, alert of the possibility of a use/abuse of the neurosciences’ progress in the application of security measures prior to the commission of the offence based on a forecast of dangerousness to third parties of those suffering by a neurological ailment: «...this further emphasizes the risk of (mis) use of biological evidence that shows a tendency towards violence being adopted towards preventive detention». The authors are also persuaded of the necessity to divide neurobiology and law, alerting of the risk: «That is, there is a risk of even the courts not properly maintaining the boundary between scientific evidence and legal decision» (p. 312). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 421 unconventionally psychiatric27. And it is obvious that it will modify not only the traditional conception of attributing responsibility, but responsibility as a whole. For the information provided by empirical sciences on the limits of our capacity to know and act freely cannot be regulated from the point of view of social “sciences” to the extreme of becoming unrecognizable. This is not compatible with the principle of proportionality on which the contemporaneous criminal systems are based and, of course, with the idea of responding for one’s own acts.

1.2. Genetic predisposition to a violent response Scientific genetic development is not indifferent to criminal Law regarding the attribution of responsibility. The decoding of human genomics and the deepening in the individual’s genetic features has allowed to determine, in the past few years, the statistical incidence of certain genetic anomalies in the context of aggressive responses with the capacity to affect fundamental legal interests. The case of Monoamine Oxidase A (hereinafter “MAOA”) is doubtless the one with the higher degree of development do date. Genetic studies combined with prolonged periods of empirical studies on the surrounding environment reach undisputable results in medical bibliography on the predisposition to a violent behavior in certain contexts. Indeed, low levels of MAOA, or MAOA-Low (hereinafter “MAOA-L”), combined with a surrounding environment of sexual o physical abuse during childhood generate a predisposition to a violent response to a provocation, close to 85%. MAOA-L + adverse environment can thus be determining in the reaction of the individual afflicted by the genetic alteration in the hypothesis of a previous provocation28. In short, the scientific verification of the high probability of a violent over-reaction towards a previous provocation by MAOA-L carriers + adverse environment compels us to question the suitability of such behaviors to be subsumed in the extenuating circumstance of serious mental alteration. It is worth warning that Spanish case law has never seriously faced29 the suitability

27 In Italian literature, clearly, V. Di Mascio, Neuroscienza forense: spiragli applicativi e possibili sviluppi nel sistema processuale penale, 2011-2012, pp. 137 to 140. 28 Discovery usually attributed to Dr. James Fallon. About this, see the interesting article published by L.M. Ariza in the Spanish journal “El País” on 29 January 2012, elaborated based on interviews conducted with James Fallon. 29 The only case that could be deemed to be remotely related is stated in the Sentence of the Provincial Court of Guipúzcoa (Section 2) dated 24 march 1998, ARP 1998\766, with a single legal ground, that analyzes the case of sexual assaults reiterated in time (for years) from the defendant upon his minor daughters (4 to 17) and his own sister (between 8 and 15 years old); facts that were completely admitted by the defendant. The sentence rules out any possible influence of genetics on the substantive criminal law, but it is not clear from the text whether the genetic-grounded arguments of the defense File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

422 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings of the extenuating circumstance set forth in article 20.1 of the criminal Code to harbor hypothesis of genetic predisposition, so we can only speculate on the answer to be granted by case law to a mixed pathological-psychological system such as the one described above. We know that in the field of brain tumors unrelated to a classic psychiatric diagnosis, case law rejects the diminishment of the author’s responsibility, reducing the penalty solely through the extenuating circumstance analogous to mental alteration. Thus, a similar answer should be expected regarding genetic predisposition. Especially if we take into account that in conditions differing from the initial hypothesis, that is when there is no previous provocation, MAOA-L carriers + adverse environment do not present cognitive or volitive limitations in the sense to which the Spanish case law appeals30. This kind of cases simply does not seem to have surfaced in the Spanish forensic debate. Responsibility for the current situation cannot be exclusively attributed to the legislative work, as the extenuating circumstance is in my opinion sufficiently malleable to harbor this kind of cases if, after the corresponding debate, it was the most appropriate conclusion31 (regarding this, see infra). An explanation may be found in the predictability of case law in this sort of matters, together with the lawyer exposed in the ruling were accompanied by an expert witness report or introduced in the debate by the lawyer’s conclusions report. The Sentence assesses the matter in the following words, scarcely elaborated: «And regarding the penalty, all the arguments of the defense lawyer tending to show a “pathological” conduct, a “genetic issue”, a permanently abnormal life, are not tenable. Setting aside the lack of evidence concerning the foregoing, the fact that the wife and the injured parties clearly state to have forgiven him, relating that their will is that he is released from jail as soon as possible, may be caused by the precarious situation in which they are, for the sole revenue was the salary of the defendant, or to a complete instability accrediting more than ever the necessity of a long term educational treatment. Such treatment shall be united to a financial help, otherwise it will be of no use. Even if we admit a strong understanding between the defendant and his victims, sickly understanding though understanding after all, and accepting the genetic inheritance alluded to by his lawyer, the terrible family environment with such examples as the one that is being judged, separating the author, the Court shall sentence in a prudent yet firm way such an abnormal behavior, deeming 15 years imprisonment as fitting. The existence of two requirements allowing the imposition of this penalty by themselves must be presently noted». 30 There is a similar situation in Canadian law, where the legal description of mental disorder reminds of the Spanish case law on article 20.1 of the Criminal code: «No person is criminally responsible for act committed or an omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong» (reference to the Canadian criminal code: C-46, s.16). This country’s case law has also been modeling the content of the concept of mental disorder, the sense of which highly complicates the inclusion of MAOA-L cases in that conceptual development. About this, see S. Halwani, D. B. Krupp, The Genetic defence: The impact of Genetics on the concept of Criminal Responsibility, in “Health Law Journal”, Vol. 12, 2004, pages 52 to 54. The authors affirm in page 54: «…wrong means morally wrong rather than legally wrong, and therefore the defence is available to an accused “if he is incapable of understanding that the act is wrong according to the ordinary moral standards of reasonable members of society. There is no evidence that an individual with a MAOA defect does not appreciate the wrongfulness of his act». 31 Regarding the capacity of article 20.1 of the criminal Code to harbor these cases, vid. the interrogations developed infra. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 423 reasonable preconception of legal actors before the perspective of failing; or it may simply be due to the general ignorance on the progress of genetics and their incidence in certain conducts able to damage legal interests that are essential to the community. The disparity of the state of technique from one state to another is surprising. The excellent case law study of Professors Deborah Denno and Arthur McGivney32 highlights such difference, not only due to the quantitative basis of the study, referred to 81 rulings related to the treatment of genetic predisposition to a violent behavior, but rather by qualitative matters such as the way by which those questions are introduced in the procedure and the way the Courts address the solution in each case, especially when the penalty at stake is death. Certainly, the procedural features of each country respond to a myriad of historical reasons. Starting from the procedural possibility offered by the American law to incite rulings’ revisions based on failure of the defense to use the appropriate means in the trial which derived in a condemnatory ruling; the truth is that such a possibility is resorted to. And its use in this particular field is not only the evidence of a different attitude between American and Spanish legal operators, but it supposes the ordinary acknowledgement of the influence of these questions in the criminal response: the possibility to revise the rulings in which the defense lawyer did not appeal to genetic reports implies the existence of rulings in which ordinarily appealing to such reports the lawyer accomplished a significant victory in the defense of his client. The admission of a revision based on the failure to employ useful means does not make sense if the means are not previously admitted to be useful33. In order to contextualize the state of Spanish law the Bayout case examined in Italy is of particular interest, as stated in the Sentence of the Trieste Court of Appeal dated 18 September 2009. The defendant, schizophrenic untreated for the 6 months prior the facts, was aggressed and provoked by a group of south-American boys. An hour and a half after the aggression and the provocation, having gotten possession of a knife, he stabbed a south-American citizen he had taken for one of the boys with whom he had had the previous altercation. The first instance ruling partially

32 D. Denno, A. McGivney, Court’s increasing consideration of behavioral genetics evidence in criminal cases: results of a longitudinal study, 2011, in “Michigan State Law Review”, pp. 968 to 1028. 33 In the study carried out by D. Denno, A. McGivney, Court’s cit., pp. 1028 ff., the influence of introducing genetic predisposition in the judicial results is proven, especially in the cases of death penalty and very probably, as the authors point out, because of the existence of death penalty. However, genetic predisposition wasn’t always harbored by the American Courts. Among the most representative cases that opened the public debate on the effectiveness of proving the genetic predisposition to a violent behavior, Stephen Mobley’s case stands out. He was diagnosed MAOA-L + adverse environment, but the Judge considered the law was not yet prepared for this kind of forensic evidence, being executed on March 2005. On this, see also the authors cited in this footnote (pages 980 and following), N. Eastman, C. Campbell, Neuroscience, cit., p. 313; and K. Ching, Pleading for Mercy and Mitigation: The use of behavioral Genetic Evidence in Death Penalty Cases, in “Washington Undergraduate Law Review”, Vol. II, 2007, p. 14 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

424 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings applied the extenuating circumstance of mental anomaly as a consequence of the schizophrenia suffered by the defendant, however not applying the penalty reduction in its whole extent (up to 1/3 of the penalty). The appeal Court considered the suffering of MAOA-L by the defendant had been proved, reducing the penalty to its limit of 1/334. The ruling is interesting because it surfaces the fundamental problems to be taken into account regarding genetic predisposition and the possibility to exempt the subject of criminal responsibility. As a previous note, however, it is not clear that Italian case law has accepted genetic predisposition and, specifically, MAOA-L + adverse environment as an extenuating circumstance. It rather seems that the appeal Court sanctions the application of the semi-extenuating circumstance of mental disorder due to its concurrence together with schizophrenia in the author, thus extending to their maximum the effects of the extenuating circumstance on the final penalty. In short, it appears more as a quantitative than a qualitative question35. Yet we could understand that the maximization of the effects of the semi-extenuating circumstance caused by the verification of MAOA-L amounts to affirming that the extenuating circumstance of MAOA-L is being applied. But the truth is that we have no detailed knowledge of the extension of the penalty reduction had only MAOA-L concurred (without the schizophrenia to support the application of the extenuating circumstance, as it happened). The only effect of MAOA-L in this particular case was limited to reducing the penalty based on the application of an extenuating circumstance granted for different reasons; the contribution of MAOA-L in such a reduction was so limited that it could be characterized as a simple mitigating circumstance. That being said, the truth is that the consideration by the Trieste Court of the concurrence of MAOA-L evidences two basic questions that scholars and case law should not lose sight of in this type of matters. In the first place, that genetic predisposition should not be distinguished in causal terms from any of the classic mental disorders able to convene the complete or incomplete extenuating circumstance. The subject’s act should be directly

34 A second Italian ruling recognize the incidence in responsibility of «alterations in a brain area regulating aggressive actions and, from the genetic standpoint, of factors generally associated to a higher risk of evidencing an impulsive, aggressive and violent behavior». Addressing the case and analyzing it in depth, M.T. Collica, Il riconoscimento del ruolo delle neuroscienze nel giudizio di imputabilità, in “Diritto penale contemporaneo”, 2012, pages 1 and following. 35 This is connected to the reflection of the experts group constituted in theNuffield Council of Bioethics expressed in Genetics and Human Behavior: the ethical context, published in 2002 and cited by A. Santosuosso, Il dilemma del diritto di fronte alle neuroscienze, in A. Santosuosso (a cura di), Le neuroscienze e il diritto, Padova, 2009, p. 15. The practice group exposes, as cited in the aforementioned author in his work, that «it is not possible, based on the available knowledge, to affirm that there are genetic conditions that justify the exclusion of criminal responsibility, but some of those conditions may be taken into consideration when determining a penalty (sentencing) that could be diminished». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 425 causally connected to the presence of MAOA-L. As we informed at the beginning of this section, scientific investigations carried out to date evidence that MAOA-L is only relevant to determine the correlation degree to violent responses under two conditionings: (i) its combination with a surrounding environment, such as a verified sexual, physical or mental child abuse36; and (ii) the existence of a previous provocation: MAOA-L + adverse surrounding is not scientifically related to aggressive inclinations un-connected to a previous provocation37. The Trieste ruling does not seem to sufficiently assess any of the aforementioned conditionings, opting for the verification of the presence of MAOA-L without further specification. On the one hand, the legal ground dedicated to this question does not contain any pronouncement on the kind of abuse the subject – an immigrant – may have been the victim during his childhood, nor on the surrounding in which the abuse may have taken place. The Court’s reflection in its legal ground on the concurrence of MAOA-L seems more of a scientific discovery by the Court than an individual evidence process in which the elements concerning the subject’s specific genetic predisposition should be accredited, otherwise turning the expert report ineffective38. Furthermore, the Court does not evaluate whether or not the time taken by the subject to objectify his response to a previous violent provocation was in accordance with the standard model response of MAOA-L39. Note that the defendant takes one hour and a half to carry out the acts that would conduct to the tragic death of the south-American citizen he took for one of his previous attackers. Clearly, this could suggest that the triggered violent action was not a reaction linked to MAOA-L. On the other hand, the attention given by the American Courts but also and especially by the Trieste Appeal Court to hypothesis of genetic predisposition makes us wonder whether or not we are facing true mental illnesses and, finally, if their application absolutely prejudges individual freedom of will and, in turn, the very same basis of the criminal attribution of responsibility40. It is true that the subject

36 Critical with this aspect, A. Urruela, La predisposición genética a la agresividad como fundamento de una reducción de condena, in http://www.institutoroche.es/Legal_comentarios_de_actualidad/V87. html. In turn, M. Bauman, The Monoamine, cit., p. 301, questions in his analysis whether or not schizophrenia would be a specific surrounding environment. 37 M. Bauman, The Monoamine, cit., p. 302 ff. 38 On the problems threatening the appropriate valuation of the neuro-scientific expert report by the judge, see M. Bertolino, Prove neuro-psicologiche di verità penale, in “Diritto penale contemporaneo”, 2010-2012, p. 9. In particular, the author’s reflections on generality and generalization. Warning us of the necessity to individualize the subject’s genetic predisposition as opposed to the impulse of granting the subject a reduction or exemption of criminal responsibility by the mere fact that he is classified amongst a group of similar subjects, N. Eastman, C. Campbell, Neuroscience, cit., p. 316. 39 M. Bauman, The Monoamine, cit., p., 302. 40 The second section of the extenuating circumstance stated in article 20.1 of the criminal Code may provide an answer to these cases, which in my opinion would be erroneous. This circumstance exempts from criminal responsibility when there is a transitory mental disorder, which in contrast to the mental File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

426 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings afflicted from MAOA-L belongs to numerous population groups, which in principle would not distinguish him from the population groups suffering from mental illnesses with a pathological basis. But the debate on the freedom of will is not different from the debate that could originate regarding schizophrenia or other mental illnesses. We have highlighted above the uniting feature of the DSM-IV and other diagnostic reference books. The evidence on the existence of a mental disorder afflicting the subject in the criminal procedure, in order to normatively attribute an act to its author is of an eminently inferential nature. The judge will seek the psychiatrist’s assistance, who will be able to submit his clinical diagnosis after the subject’s appropriate examinations, looking for a common nomenclature in the diagnosis reference books that will allow the same language to be spoken in Spain, Italy or the United States. However, the psychiatrist will not be able to affirm before the Judge if the subject acted under the influence of his illness in the moment of committing the facts, or if his criminal behavior was carried out in normal parameters. The sentencing body will have to decide, attending to the diagnosed illness and the behavioral traits statistically associated to it, whether or not the subject acted under his illness’ effects in every specific case. In such cases, the subject’s capacity to understand and act accordingly must be affected in such a degree that he could not be motivated by the criminal law to act differently. And that is an inferential judgment. Nothing different comes out regarding genetic predisposition in cases such as MAOA-L + adverse surrounding41. What medicine is able to demonstrate to the sentencing judge is that, where there is a previous provocation, the individuals affected by MAOA-L in an adverse surrounding will normally react to the provocation with a violent behavior (up to 85%). It cannot prove that it happened in the specific case, nor can it directly demonstrate to the Judge that during the commission of the facts the subject was acting under the effects of schizophrenia, as opposed to a moment of lucidity. Psychiatry and genetics can endeavor to examine an individualized model of mental illness or genetic mutation possibly suffered by the author, the record of his surroundings and the result of the clinical examinations. The remainder is an inference process corresponding to the Judge alone. disorder does not require a pathological basis, is not continued in time and its cure would be effective and without sequelae (the ruling of the Supreme Court dated 6 July 2001 (RJ 2001, 5262) is of this opinion). MAOA-L + adverse surrounding explain unfathomable or unusual aggressive reactions in previous provocation contexts, and its concurrence will probably not affect the subject’s ability to discern good from evil. But the transitory mental disorder is also defined by its exceptional irruption lacking any risk of reiteration, which usually leads to the defendant’s absolution without any security measure being applied. But the application to MAOA-L of an extenuating circumstance may not be able to ignore the statistical probability of the subject reiterating his behavior in similar conditions, which would be extremely high, and would frontally oppose transitory mental disorder and MAOA-L + adverse surrounding. 41 M. Bauman addresses this issue in The Monoamine, cit., p. 303 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 427

2. The impact of genetics in the procedural field The question is considerably different in the procedural field. There, genetics seem to be manna to the Courts in order to establish the identity of the responsible individual. Genetic markers can be a solid guaranty to exclude criminal responsibility due to the high probability of attributing a genetic profile to an individual, thus very probably excluding the remainder of the population42. Lastly, from the victimologic point of view, the contrasting of genetic markers allows in many cases, especially in sexual offences, to identify the author with margins of doubt close to zero. However, it is still true that the procedure of taking samples tending to the author’s identification through his genetic markers can constitute a risk to the remaining 0.1%; that is to the individual whose markers will be compared to those found in the crime scene. Risks for the fundamental rights and their articulation in legislation; risks of sample contamination and risks in the contrasting procedure, especially regarding the contrasts with samples held in databases. Spanish procedural law unsystematically regulates the collection of samples, analysis and use of genetic markers as an evidence mechanism. The general regime is set forth in articles 326 and 363 of the Criminal Procedural Law, which is in turn indirectly completed by Organic Law43 10/2007 regulating DNA markers databases. Each country’s legislation is certainly competent to determine the procedure to gather samples in the crime scene with or without a judicial authorization, and with or without a judicial authorization when they belong to the suspect (who consents)44. The truth is that in the Spanish procedural system the collection of samples in a crime scene, the suspect’s bodily interventions and the performance of the corresponding analysis would in principle require a judicial authorization. Thus, article 326.3 establishes that: «Before the existence of fingerprints or traces the analysis of which could contribute to the elucidation of the investigated facts, the investigation Judge may adopt or order to the Judicial Police or the forensic doctor to adopt the necessary measures for the collection, custody and analysis of those samples gathered in conditions determining their authenticity». And article 363 sets forth further authenticity requirements: «If justified reasons exist, the investigation Judge may order, in a motivated ruling, to gather from the suspect those biological samples that are necessary to determine his DNA profile. For this purpose, he can decree those inspection, recognition or bodily intervention acts

42 Regarding this, C.Mª Romeo, S. Romeo, Los identificadores del ADN en el sistema de Justicia Penal, Aranzadi, 2010, pp. 37 ff. 43 Which means qualified law under Spanish constitutional system, requiring at least, half plus one of the total voting power to be approved (176 of 350 in Spain). 44 See the compared panoramic in L.Mª Prieto, La Ley Orgánica de Registro de perfiles de AND para fines de investigación criminal, en el marco del derecho comparado, in La Ley, 40107-2008. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

428 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings that adjust to the principles of proportionality and reasonability». The literality of the articles above, operated by the Organic Law 15/2003 dated 25 November, reforming the criminal Code, left no doubts to the Supreme Court that the collection of dubitable samples in a crime scene had to be judicially controlled; the DNA evidence deriving from samples collected with no such control became illicit and null45. The Organic Law 10/2007, however, nuances the requirements of article 326.3. If the literality of this article requires a judicial pronouncement for the collection of samples in the crime scene, which does not appear as irrational for the investigation Judge must direct the investigation, the Third Additional Provision of OL 10/2007 reminds of the capacities and competences of the judicial police, allowing them to decide on the collection, custody and analysis of the traces permitting the extraction of an identifying genetic profile46. The literality of the above highlights the first of the referred risks, that is, the violation of fundamental rights. The case law developing the aforementioned articles is constituted by two non-jurisdictional agreements of the Supreme Court’s Criminal Section47. Note that non-jurisdictional agreements in Spain, which are not adopted following the jurisdictional functions attributed by the Constitution and the law, are binding as a consequence of a jurisdictional agreement, which is non-binding by definition48.

45 Sentence of the Supreme Court no. 501/2005 dated 19 April. Regarding it, see C. Figueroa’s analysis, Cooperación policial e intercambio de perfiles de ADN, in La Ley Penal, no. 54, Studies’ section, pages 7 and following. However, turning its back to this Supreme Court ruling, the Provincial Court of Barcelona, in its resolution dated 17 October 2006, ratified the collection of samples in a crime scene without any judiciary control, mentioning that such control would only be necessary in the cases where a criminal proceeding has been initiated, though not when it hasn’t been started yet and the police begins its investigating labors. 46 The OL 10/2007 Third Additional Provision states that: «During the investigation of the offences listed in letter a) of article 3.1, the judicial police will collect samples and fluids from the suspect, the arrested or the defendant, and from the crime scene. The collection of samples needing an inspection, examination or bodily intervention, carried out without the affected person’s consent will always require a motivated ruling, according to the provisions of the Criminal Procedural Law». 47 The non-jurisdictional agreement of the Criminal Section’s plenary dated 3 March 2005 sets forth the following: «First matter: Is the judicial authorization enough to collect samples for a DNA analysis upon a person that has not been informed of his right not to incriminate himself and who is not assisted by a lawyer? Agreement: Article 778.3 of the Criminal Procedural Law is a sufficient legal habilitation to carry out this investigation proceeding». In turn, the non-jurisdictional agreement of the Criminal Section’s plenary dated 31 January 2006 establishes the following: «The judicial police can collect genetic remains and biological samples abandoned by the suspect without a judicial authorization». 48 The non-jurisdictional agreement of the Criminal Section dated 18 July 2006 sets forth: «This Section’s agreements (non-jurisdictional plenary session) are binding. That is not irrelevant for non- jurisdictional agreements are not always followed by a ruling in which the Court exposes the content of its agreements. Therefore, their content is binding to Judges and Courts even if it hasn’t been incorporated to jurisdictional rulings and is not considered case law». File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 429

After the agreements of the Criminal Section dated 2005 and 2006, the Sentence of the Supreme Court issued on 7 July 2010 distinguishes a myriad of cases49 that are little compatible with the literality of the articles on this matter50: • Collection of samples in the crime scene: it will be the exclusive competence of the judicial police, not requiring any judicial intervention. The judicial police will have to assume control of the samples and guarantee the custody chain. The investigation Judge may only decide on the admission of the collected samples as investigation proceedings51. • Collection of the victim’s biological samples located or found in the suspect’s personal belongings. Idem to the previous point. • Collection of biological matter directly from the suspect. The following situations may be distinguished: ü Collection of samples from the suspect’s body with his consent. Only the presence of his lawyer is required. ü Collection of samples from the suspect’s body without his consent. Judicial authorization will be required, according to the proportionality principle. ü Collection of samples belonging to the arrested suspect though not directly from his body. Judicial authorization will not be required, nor consent or legal counsel. It will thus be possible to gather the suspect’s hair he may have left in his cell. The judicial motivated ruling, which implies a procedure of balancing interests, that is necessary for the collection of samples, its analysis and the incorporation of the results to the criminal procedure is thus substituted by the police’s sole activity in a non-negligible set of cases52. The legal quantitative limits that proportionality needs to bear in mind, that is, the collection and analysis of samples in the most serious criminal hypothesis, cede to the profit of the free judgment of the Security Forces and Bodies53. The guaranty of judicial control also cedes in typically controversial

49 See J. Sánchez, La prueba de ADN: pronunciamientos de la jurisprudencia, in La Ley, 7720, 21 October 2001, p. 3. 50 Particularly critical with the plenary non-jurisdictional agreement dated 31 January 2006, C.Mª Romeo, S. Romeo, Los identificadores, cit., pp. 98 and 99. 51 Agreeing with this interpretation, as accepted in case law, M.-J. Dolz, ADN y derechos fundamentales (breves notas sobre la problemática de la toma de muestras de ADN –frotis bucal- a detenidos y sospechosos, in La Ley, 7774 dated 12 January 2012; J.A. Del Olmo, Las garantías procesales en la identificación de imputados mediante perfiles de ADN, in La Ley penal, no. 91, Studies’ section, 2012, p. 6. 52 Pleading for the judicial police acting without the control of the judiciary regarding the collection of dubitable samples in the crime scene, J. Martin, Controversia jurisprudencial y advances legislativos sobre la prueba pericial de ADN en el proceso penal (en especial, a base de datos policial sobre identificadores obtenidos a partir del ADN, creada por la Ley Orgánica 10/2007, de 25 de noviembre), in La Ley, no. 46, Studies’ Section, 2008, p. 4. 53 Among others, Mª A. Pérez, El ADN como método de identificación en el proceso penal, in “Revista do Ministerio Público”, Octubre Diciembre 2012, p. 138. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

430 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings situations such as obtaining the suspect’s consent: if its obtaining is possible for who has arrested the suspect, the only guaranty that he has not been deceived or coerced is the presence of his lawyer. That subsequently forces him to exercise nullity actions against the sample if the surveillance conditions in which it was obtained were not reasonable. Lastly, the proportionality appraisal inherent to any fundamental rights’ limitation, that only the Judge is legitimated to do, also cedes54. Furthermore, the legitimacy of the police acting outside the margin of judicial intervention connects with the following risk: the contamination of samples in the event the police does not follow the defined protocol. This protocol is established in Order JUS/1291/2010, dated 13 May, of the Ministry of Justice, by means of which the rules to prepare and remit the samples to be analyzed by the National Toxicology and Forensic Sciences’ Institute are approved. Especially, regarding the obtaining of samples to be submitted to procedures of genetic identification, article 28 establishes the processes possessing the capacity to alter a sample’s integrity to carry out a DNA analysis. In order to continue highlighting the validity risks of identification carried out by means of a genetic profile, we have to underline the following processes, possessing such capacity to interfere with validity: (i) the contamination due to human biological matter, that can mean the erroneous belief that an un-related third party had a previous contact with the investigated crime scene; (ii) the transfer of biological evidence, that can equally imply the erroneous belief that an un-related third party was present in the crime scene; (iii) the degradation of DNA, by means of UV-light, which may distort the obtained results. In order to avoid the risks of the aforementioned sampling, article 29 imperatively orders to extract the samples in the following manner: • To isolate and protect the crime scene as soon as possible and collect the biological evidences; • To wear clean gloves and to change them frequently, especially when biological evidences with a probable different origins are handled; • To avoid talking, coughing or sneezing over the samples. To wear a mask;

54 Mª A. Pérez, El ADN, cit., p. 140. The proportionality appraisal should also extend, in my opinion, to hypothesis of collecting genetic samples abandoned by the suspect. Unless we understand that our right to intimacy vanishes with the voluntary abandonment, and that no reasonable expectation of destruction exists upon the material abandoned with such finality, I don’t see how this proportionality appraisal can be avoided. Efficacy reasons may be adduced, and I could even agree with the arbitration of mechanisms eluding the inefficiency of continually seeking authorization (that could be obtained ex post, for example, with an impending obligation to destroy the sample should the authorization be denied). But I don’t see a way of avoiding the proportionality appraisal between the right to intimacy and the process’ legitimate interests (of a police or judicial investigation) where intimacy does not always cede without a controllable legal ground. They understand, however, that the lack of authorization regarding abandoned organic samples should not necessarily result in nullity, C.Mª Romeo, S. Romeo, Los identificadores, cit., p. 101 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 431

• To wear a lab coat, protective shoe covers and other protective clothing; • To use disposable instruments of a single use whenever it is possible, or to clean them thoroughly before collecting another biological evidence; • Not to add conservatives to the samples; • To let the samples dry at room temperature, in a protected place, before wrapping and sending them to the laboratory; • To wrap every sample separately; • To wrap the samples in paper bags or cardboard boxes, avoiding the use of plastic. Hyssops must be boxed in specific boxes; • The use of equipment working in the visible rank of the spectrum is recommended; • The use of reagents with proven compatibility with genetic samples is recommended; • To immediately send the samples to the laboratory. No reference is made to double sampling for the purpose of contrasting evidence, nor to the way in which those double samples should be treated and sent to the laboratory. Regarding the obtaining of indubitable samples, that is, belonging to the suspect’s body, mandatory mechanisms are foreseen to guarantee the reliability of the sample (article 30). Thus, the obtaining of hair or blood should respond to the technical specifications stated therein so as to guarantee the trustworthiness of the sample in subsequent analysis. The first question is what happens in the event of a protocol breach, or in all cases preceding the enforcement of that protocol. What accrediting value will be given by the sentencing Court to a sample collected against the legal procedure. Until now, the Supreme Court case law was contented with the judicial testimony of those who intervened in the collection of samples in order to validate its accrediting capacity. Again, the Sentence of the Supreme Court dated 7 July 2010, subsequent the coming into force of the Order regulating the protocol for obtaining samples, seems to be content with the mere affirmation in trial by the acting police officers in order to link the samples, the suspect and the followed custody chain. Without mistrusting the professional performance of the acting officers, it doesn’t seem probable that a professional will constantly criticize the validity of his work and, on the contrary, it is likely that he is inclined to constantly confirm the reasonability of the procedure he followed. As a consequence, it should be mandatory that the Court explores the specific way in which the samples were collected as a minimum and essential validity requirement regarding evidence that is to be incorporated to the oral trial, which has an incriminatory capacity. The breach of the protocols established in Order JUS/1291/2010 should thus be linked with the evidence validity rules and, especially, the extent of the breach File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

432 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings of essential procedural rules determining the nullity of evidence in our legal system. Certainly, the breach of essential procedural rules is referred to the procedural regime and its incidence in the fundamental rights of the injured party; we could thus succumb to temptation and affirm that a protocol breach is not equivalent to a breach of essential procedural rules55. The latter, however, will only be respected if the evidence to be introduced in the oral trial was originally obtained according to its inherent minimum guaranties, whether or not such guaranties are directly related to the most personal fundamental rights (intimacy, privacy, etc.) or if they affect rights of an institutional nature, or the right to effective judicial protection. The non-respecting of the protocols for the collection of samples, that have been legally designed, locate the States’ Security Forces and Bodies in the field of prohibition of the public authorities’ arbitrary acts (article 9.3 of the Constitution). Its confirmation by the Courts would in turn infringe the right to effective judicial protection (and to a fair trial, ex article 24 of the Constitution). A light interpretation such as the Supreme Court’s on the validity of the samples the obtaining of which infringes the Order in force in the moment of the ruling and the European comparative frameworks56 is, in my opinion, detrimental of the right to effective judicial protection and is framed in the temptation to apply the ius puniendi once the material truth is known, even if that truth has been reached through a spurious process. All the above brings us to the third risk: contrasting the samples collected from the suspect, presuming the validity of the collecting process, with the DNA files registered in the police databases created pursuant to OL 10/2007. OL 19/2007 allows the Judicial Police to gather samples from crime scenes, which presupposes the later judicial control of the case and, consequently, of the police activity; but, in time, it enables the Security Forces and Bodies to gather samples in ordinary police investigations, without the effective or possible intervention of the judiciary, and the incorporation of the analysis’ results to DNA police databases. ¿How can we guarantee the reliability of the collection and analysis of the samples, and the custody chain, in these conditions?57 The Supreme Court, again, seems to feel

55 Clearly, the Sentence of the National Court no. 39/2005, dated 30 November, ratifying the police’s acts to document the objects from which they collected a DNA sample only after the obtaining of the analytical results. What looks like a simple formality change holds a risk non-confirmable without affecting the right to effective judicial protection: the risk that the sample thus gathered was not what was stated in the documentary evidence, but rather an adjustment to the results previously obtained. The custody chain does not need to be materially completed; in fact, material rigor during custody is worthless if the means by which it was guaranteed are not formalized. 56 See the reference alluded to by Mª J. Cabezudo, La regulación del “uso forense de la tecnología del ADN” en España y en la UE: identificación de cinco nuevas cuestiones controvertidas, in “Revista General de Derecho Procesal”, 26, 2012, p. 9, to the protocols established by the International Society for Forensic Genetics (ISFG). With no legal value, they are still extraordinarily alike the requirements contained in Order JUS/1291/2010, dated 13 May. 57 Along with the interrogation that the Supreme Court answers by ratifying the errors at the suspect’s File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Ó. Morales García 433 comfortable with the mere presumption of veracity of the databases held in public registries58. However, the presumption of veracity cannot be alleged as a mechanism to avoid control on the incriminating evidence, as it would not only affect the rights of the defense, but the very same presumption of innocence, which may be destroyed through a mechanism presumably valid as a consequence of being held in a public database, though de facto potentially completely irrational59. As a consequence, legal coordination of the precepts regulating the collection of samples in the crime scene, the suspect’s body, and its custody and analysis must be improved. Fingerprints have admittedly become a part of the ordinary forensic practice with barely any contesting deriving from errors in the taking of evidence. But a fingerprint is unique, yet genetic markers can be obtained in infinity of hypothesis and circumstances: remains of saliva, blood, urine, semen, tissue or hair are all fit to obtain genetic markers. The aforementioned remains can be found in many places, forms and conditions. This multiplies the risk of confusion in the process of attributing a fact, given the quasi-absolute reliability of evidence correctly accomplished. If the identity of the marker’s possessor can be almost certain, the risk of indubitably attributing a fact to the marker’s possessor will be much greater, and so any caution taken upon the samples is paltry60. The Supreme Court case law has found the formula to escape from the system’s deficiencies in the vast majority of the cases that have arisen regarding the process of collecting samples, the custody chain and the samples’ analysis, confirming their incriminatory result in the criminal procedure. Different standards exist when it expense, C.Mª Romeo, S. Romeo, Los identificadores, cit., p. 191, set down some others with no little relevance: «¿suspect of which offence? It is known that this is determining to decide if the DNA profile is legally qualified to be inscribed in the database. ¿Who will take this decision? ¿Will the Judge be able to intervene previously, and how will this intervention be made effective?». 58 Clearly, the Sentence of the Supreme Court no. 880/2011, dated 26 July. 59 However, see M.-J. Dolz, ADN, cit., page 4, for whom alleging the incorrect incorporation of profiles to the database deriving from samples gathered from the suspect with his consent but without legal counsel and judicial control, should not be receivable (the author is a Public Prosecutor’s office representative before the Supreme Court). Nor would be the receiving in Spain of data coming from other countries’ databases gathered with the same procedure. 60 To M.-J. Dolz, ADN, cit., page 5, on the contrary, no doubts exist on the necessity to loosen procedural guarantees in the field of collecting and analyzing samples, and using the results as evidence through DNA. The author equates the situations in which the samples have been obtained with the suspect’s consent, without legal counsel or judicial control resulting in a condemnatory ruling, and those obtained in the exact same way leading to an absolution. He questions whether or not the Supreme Court would dare releasing from prison all those sentenced as a result of DNA evidence deriving from samples collected with their consent yet without judicial control or legal counsel, asserting that many of them could be the authors of serious terrorism offences, rape, etc. The answer will logically depend on the importance of the purpose (obtaining a profile regardless of the method) or the means through which we meet that purpose (a fair trial with all guarantees, including the defense rights and the nemo tenetur). In similar terms, J. Sánchez, La prueba de ADN, cit., in the case law exposition performed throughout his work. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

434 Genetics. Applications within the Spanish law and criminal proceedings comes to measuring the impact of genetics in the criminal Law and procedure, and in the field of substantive criminal law, so slightly permeable to scientific progress in the direction of improving the procedure of attributing responsibility. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Part III Human enhancement, robotics, artificial intelligence File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

International protection and limits to the right to self-determination for the bio-technological strengthening of one’s own person1

Francesco Salerno

Table of contents: 1. The “open” structure of the norms protecting human rights: the ECHR. - 2. Different nature and prescriptive intensity of the obligations for the protection of human rights. - 3. The right to self-determination of the human person. - 4. The (circumscribable) scope of the international protection of the “user” of bio-technology. - 5. International limits to the right to self-determination for the bio-technological strengthening on one’s own person. - 6. Limits imposed by the “Oviedo system” to personal choices. - 7. Reasons for legitimate interferences by national authorities according to the safeguard clause. - 8. Relevance and limits of the national or sub-regional more favourable treatment.

1. The “open” structure of the norms protecting human rights: the ECHR According to the definition of the Cartagena Protocol of 29 January 2000 on biosafety (additional instrument to the Rio de Janeiro Convention on biologic diversity of 5 June 1992), the expression “modern biotechnology” implies «the application of: a. In vitro nucleic acid techniques, including recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and direct injection of nucleic acid into cells or organelles, or b. Fusion of cells beyond the taxonomic family, that overcome natural physiological reproductive or recombination barriers and that are not techniques used in traditional breeding and selection»2. In other words, the biotechnological approach may manifest itself under the double vest of both the introduction of extraneous DNA fragments through the techniques of recombinant DNA, and the cellular fusion so to overcome the barriers between species by obtaining anyway results that cannot be realised in

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. 2 Cartagena Protocol, art. 3, lett. i). On this protocol see also infra, footnote 3. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

438 International protection and limits to the right to self-determination nature. Both research and the use of such a technique usually take place only for therapeutic reasons but they may also respond to the individual desire of improving his/her own performances3. In international human rights law there is no specific norm protecting the individual wilfulness of taking advantage of biotechnologies by undergoing treatments to strengthen one’s own person4. However, following a frequent tendency in practice, this safeguard aspect gradually materialises thanks to the “open” structure that characterises international instruments of human rights protection and makes them in various ways permeable to emerging interests and values unexpressed in the text of the single treaty, inasmuch as however included within the objectives and principles that uphold it. Besides, precisely in order to safeguard ever new needs for protection, four “generations” of human rights have succeeded one another, in testimony of the growing expectations of protection gradually regulated at an international level: civil and political rights, then social rights, then the protection of environment until the fourth, more recent, acquisition of the rights of the future generations on which we will return later. All these four dimensions are relevant to appreciate the expectations of protection with regard to the multiform and ever faster developments of science and technique, included those directly useful to health and individual wellbeing, thus – where appropriate – to the “strengthening” of the human person5. This functional link with the centrality of human person in its several “dimensions” does not consent to establish any separateness between the several stages as, instead, the observation of the reciprocal interaction does. We will centre our analysis on the paradigmatic case of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Such an instrument has a position of absolute relevance in the whole scene of human rights for some of its specific characteristics. First of all, the ECHR presents itself as a regulation of “constitutional” value for State parties, to the extent it sets joint obligations to respect and to ensure respect also in situations in which the jurisdiction of the State party is not full6. In order to strengthen its value of “European public order”, the ECHR permeates of itself also the EU legal order: however, since a long time, the latter has bound itself to respect human rights as granted by the ECHR (art. 6 TEU), independently of the perspectives of its future

3 On the fluidity of the boundary between interventions aiming at the improvement of health and those aimed at the strengthening of the person see infra § 5 and footnote 65. 4 See, in general, amongst others, Ordine internazionale e valori etici (VIII Convegno della SIDI, Verona 26-27 giugno 2003), edited by N. Boschiero, Napoli, 2004, p. 365 ff.; Bioetica e biotecnologie nel diritto internazionale e comunitario. Questioni generali e tutela della proprietà intellettuale, edited by N. Boschiero, Torino, 2006. 5 See European Court of Human Rights, 19 July 2002, Koch, application n. 497/09 § 51. The decisions of the European Court of Human Rights can be found in http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int. 6 Infra also § 2. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 439 accession still to be perfected7. Secondly, the ECHR is provided with a permanent jurisdiction, the European Court of Human Rights, which makes an autonomous interpretation of the relative prescriptions when it is called to find any violation. The assumed victims of a violation may file an application directly to the Court, which is, thus, in contact with the “living” needs of society – even without the “mediation” of national judges, as it happens for the EU Court of Justice – by dialoguing with them precisely in the perspective of a constant “actualisation” of normative precepts. The capacity of the European judge to read such spontaneous social dynamics and to rationalise them within the normative framework of the Convention making it effective explains the extraordinary request for “access” to its jurisdiction, which ends up with bending to its purposes the original content of the conventional protection updating its scope, modifying – whereas necessary – the previous case law8. To develop such hermeneutical approach, the Court “dialogues” both with national legal systems of State parties, and with other international normative sources. The purpose is different. In the first case, the judge verifies which is the level of convergence of States parties to the ECHR towards a “common feeling” capable to make acceptable its “synthesis” in a general and shared principle of law, susceptible to integrate the conventional formula by moulding it in continuity with the effective element of national law9. In the second case, the European judge, affirming that the Convention cannot be placed in an international legal void (jurisprudence of the vacuum)10, tries to recover the normative model that better clarifies on an international level the kind of protection at stake. It is on the basis of these two indicators – one “internal” to the ECHR’s social body, one external to it – that the conventional text evolves assuming new meanings and prescriptive contents11. The work of “fertilisation” of the conventional text takes place within the

7 Cf. ECHR, Communication commune des présidents Costa et Skouris, in http://www.echr.coe.int; Fifth negotiation meeting between the CDDH and the European Commission on the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights, Strasbourg, 10 June 2013, 47+1(2013)008rev2 § 65 ff. 8 In consideration of this, Protocol n. 14 to the ECHR has “rationalised” the jurisdictional system by configuring the role of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights as the only place where to establish orientative precedents for the minor articulations of the same Court: La nouvelle procédure devant la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme après le Protocole n° 14. Actes du colloque tenu à Ferrara les 29 et 30 avril 2005, edited by F. Salerno, Bruxelles, 2007. 9 On the integrative function of the general principles of law and their capability to favour the evolutionary interpretation of conventional norms: F. Salerno, Principi generali di diritto, in Digesto IV, vol. XI, Torino, 1996, p. 533 ff. 10 See in this regard F. Salerno, Diritto internazionale. Principi e norme, Padova, 20133, pp. 179 and 192 ff. 11 According to the European Court of Human Rights the «Convention en général … constitue un traité de garantie collective des droits de l’homme et des libertés fondamentales [et] doit être interprétée et appliquée d’une manière qui en rende les exigences concrètes et effectives» (decision 26 October 2000, Sanles Sanles, ric. n. 48335/99, p. 7). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

440 International protection and limits to the right to self-determination

ECHR in both cases, regardless of a necessary dependence of the incisive character of such an evolution upon the convergence of the two indicators. In this regard, the applicative development of art. 8 of the ECHR is emblematic. The obligation of States to respect private life in its many perspectives of “development” embraced the “spontaneous” evolution of national legal systems towards the removal of forms of discrimination against the homosexuals, by inducing the European Court of Human Rights to revise the initial indications of the European Commission of Human Rights inclined to legitimise penal prescriptions punishing homosexual behaviour12. The same happened in the case of transsexualism: first denied and then absorbed in the scope of the safeguard of art. 813. It follows that the same international rule originates many prescriptive indications that are expression of the same protected value. In other words, the original conventional bond connotes itself as a “principle” articulated in several “rules” of various content susceptible to be changed in time due to the continuous evolution of the State parties’ “legal conscience” 14. Nevertheless, these situations are not considered alien to the object of the ECHR, to the extent that the Court considers them as an autonomous expression of the right to private life. Sometimes, in order to consolidate and expand such normative datum also in a more analytical manner, the determination of the Council of Europe’s Member States to adopt new conventional instruments may be of some help. A manifestation of such a determination – with regard to the topic we deal with here – is the Oviedo Convention of 1997 (henceforth: “1997 Convention”) for the protection of human rights and dignity of the human being with regard to the application of biology and medicine: it is essentially a framework-convention establishing a set of principles and entrusting (art. 31) the more detailed regulation to successive protocols, which States can adhere to only after having ratified the 1997 Convention. At the moment three Protocols have been adopted (1998, 2002, 2005). They concern respectively: the prohibition of cloning of human being, the implantation of organs and tissues of human origin and, finally, biomedical research15. What emerges is an “Oviedo

12 Theory and practice of the European convention on human rights, edited by P. Van Dijk, F. Van Hoof, A. Van Rijn, L. Zwakk, Oxford, 20064, p. 678 ff.;C. Pitea, Art. 8, in Commentario breve alla Convenzione europea per la salvaguardia dei diritti dell’uomo e delle libertà fondamentali, edited by S. Bartole, P. De Sena, V. Zagrebelsky, Padova, 2012, p. 330. 13 European Court of Human Rights, 11 July 2002, Goodwin, application n. 28957/95, § 74 f. 14 Lacking such a factor, for instance, the Court has not acknowledged the right to euthanasia yet and it has not equalized homosexual wedding and heterosexual wedding. These “rights” might find objective collocation within the pertinent conventional formulas (art. 2, 3 and 8 of ECHR), but until now the Court avoided to enunciate them precisely because it does not deem possible to catch their presence within the legal conscience of State parties. 15 The functional link is explicated in art. 31 of the 1997 Convention: «Protocols may be concluded … with a view to developing, in specific fields, the principles contained in this Convention». The texts of the Convention of 1997, of the following Protocols as well as of their explicatory reports can be found File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 441 system” which is only partially similar to the ECHR, since the European Court of human rights is entrusted solely with a consultative function (art. 29 of the 1997 Convention), thus excluding the possibility for individuals to challenge directly the violations suffered by hand of a State party. However, the rules of the “Oviedo system” interact under several aspects with the ECHR conveying the meaning of the principles of the latter16: in these circumstances the alleged victim can make use of the judicial mechanism of the ECHR to enforce those values that have been specified in the “Oviedo system” 17. Moreover the “Oviedo system” is connected, under many aspects, with conventional instruments of universal scope, especially with the above- mentioned Cartagena Protocol of 2000, which various European States (such as Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy) not yet parties to the 1997 Convention or the Protocols thereof have ratified18. Therefore it does not seem improper to recall the “Oviedo system” in the Italian legal order, even though, until now, Italy has not yet ratified the Convention, although authorised to do so by the Parliament a few years ago19. In such conditions Italy is not bound to respect the obligations set by the Convention (and by its Protocols), but one cannot elude its reflections on those ECHR rules – which are granted prevalence over any other legislative rule by art. 117, para. 1, Const. – that inspired the “Oviedo system” and that shall therefore be interpreted in the light of the most recent diplomatic practice of the same State parties of the ECHR (Article 31, para. 3, of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties)20. This is further consolidated by the fact that some principles affirmed in the “Oviedo system” are in any case binding for Italy by reason of arts. 1 and 3 of in http://www.conventions.coe.int. 16 Cf. R. Lawson, Dwelling on the Threshold: On the Interaction Between the European Convention on Human Rights and the Biomedicine Convention, in Human Rights and Biomedicine, ed. by A. Den Exter, Antwerpen, 2010, p. 23 ff. For references to the Oviedo Convention and to its additional Protocols albeit within the field of application of the ECHR see European Court of Human Rights, 9 March 2004, Glass, application n. 61827/00 § 58; 8 July 2004, Vo, n. 53924/00 §§ 35 and 84; 10 April 2007, Evans, application n. 6339/05 § 39; 11 October 2007, Özalp, application n. 74300/01; 13 May 2008, Juhnke, application n. 52515/99 § 56. 17 In the explicatory report to the 1997 Convention is clarified (§ 165) that «This Convention does not itself give individuals a right to bring proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. However, facts which are an infringement of the rights contained in this Convention may be considered in proceedings under the European Convention of Human Rights, if they also constitute a violation of one of the rights contained in the latter Convention». 18 The same happens with regards to universal instruments: the UNESCO Declaration of 2005 on bioethics and human rights in its preamble recalls (infra) the “Oviedo system”. 19 Cf. law 28 March 2001, n. 145, in Gazzetta Ufficiale, n. 95 of 24 April 2001. On this see V. Tonini, La rilevanza della Convenzione di Oviedo sulla biomedicina secondo la giurisprudenza italiana, in “Riv. dir. int.”, 2009, p. 116 ff. 20 Such a dimension is totally eluded by Italian courts, notwithstanding the variety of positions expressed by judges with regard to the relevance to be attributed to the 1997 Convention (on this see F. M. Palombino, La rilevanza della Convenzione di Oviedo secondo il giudice italiano, in “Giurisprudenza costituzionale”, 2011, p. 4811 ff.). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

442 International protection and limits to the right to self-determination the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, to which moreover the more intense constitutional safeguard of art. 11 Const. applies, albeit only in respect of cases regulated by EU law. There is also another factor that makes the normative framework and the interaction between different sources very complex in this subject. The expansion of international law towards the new frontiers of “bioethics” entails facing a “private” dimension involving the behaviour of scientists and health workers often “self- regulated” through the respective organised communities, also on an international level. The UNESCO Declaration of 19 October 2005 on “Bioethics and Human Rights”21 recalls in its preamble the codes and guidelines adopted by such associations as the “World Medical Association” and the “Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences”, as well as the reference to the acts that form the “Oviedo system”. These are technical and especially deontological rules that have no proper normative value inasmuch as they are defined out of the national mechanisms of production of law. The international rules set forth by the ECHR and by the “Oviedo system”, however, cannot ignore this dimension of self-regulation. This is confirmed by art. 4 of the 1997 Convention, according to which Any« intervention in the health field, including research, must be carried out in accordance with relevant professional obligations and standards». Also the European Court of Human Rights takes into account the “professional guidelines” in assessing the medical procreation practices under art. 8 of the ECHR22. Since it has to frame such space of “self- regulation” within a unitary perspective of “governance” of situations deserving protection, international law mandates States to involve also “private” sectors in a public debate, by assuming, especially through dedicated “Ethical Committees”, indications that are the result of their participation. A punctual promotion of such organisms at an “appropriate level” can be found – amongst others – in art. 28 of the 1997 Convention and in arts. 19 and 22, para. 2, of the above mentioned UNESCO Declaration of 19 October 2005 on “Bioethics and Human Rights”23. The various longstanding ethical Committees operating in the biomedical sector on a national, international and also infra-national level are precisely entrusted with that function, confirming that the “ethical truth” cannot be a State monopoly24. At the same time, “objective” law (which includes domestic law but also transnational and supranational rules) defines on its own the relevant ethical criteria, transforming

21 Cf. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, ed. by H. A. M. Ten Have, M. S. Jean, UNESCO, 2012. 22 European Court of Human Rights, 10 April 2007, cit., § 39. 23 Cf. C. Huriet, Ethic Committees, in The UNESCO Universal Declaration…, cit., p. 265 ff. 24 S. Maljean-Dubois, Bioèthique et droit international, in “AFDI”, 2000, p. 87. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 443 them into legal standards25. The extension of international protection and the multifaceted social base that is interested by it, produces an increasingly complex normative framework in which different and also opposite values coexist. The dialectic of values in this regard can be referred to the same person or also to different persons up to the configuration of a possible tension between individual dimension and general interest, in the different “ordering” levels in which this is mainly managed and defined: State, EU and international level. In all these situations a process of necessary “coexistence” of values at stakes is triggered. The outcome of such coexistence leads unavoidably to the compression of one or more of them. The European Court of Human Rights is well aware of this, to the extent that the Court makes itself one of its architects by resorting to the criterion of proportionality to balance the different values of the Convention legitimately.

2. Different nature and prescriptive intensity of the obligations for the protection of human rights In the ECHR system there are different “deontic” levels, depending on the intensity of the protection, which may have full perceptive dimension or develop according to a decreasing degree of intensity (although never fading completely). Only for expositive clarity, we can recall that the “core nucleus” is without any doubt expressed by rights that cannot be derogated for any reason (art. 15, para. 2 ECHR). This nucleus is followed by those rights that are subjected to a variously wide margin of appreciation, a margin that sometimes is quite significant, as it happens for the choice of the electoral and Parliamentary model more adequate to enforce the right to representative democracy (art. 3 additional Protocol to the ECHR) 26 or for the preferences granted to the prevailing religion (or “religious feeling”) in a certain country27. In such cases, what matters are the historical and cultural traditions of the

25 J. Ayllón, Biotecnología y dignidad humana en la jurisprudencia, in Biotecnología, Derecho y dignidad humana, Comares, 2003, p. 88. On the “phenomenon of hybridation between ethics and law”, D. Ruggiu, Diritti e temporalità, Bologna, 2012, p. 117; see also ibid., p. 160 ff. e 168 ff. The need for dialoguing with “non-State” forms of regulation explains the resort to soft law promotional formulas; see in this regard, amongst others, the recommendation of the EC Commission of 7 February 2008, n. 2008/345/CE, on the behavioural code for a responsible research in the field of nanosciences and nanotechnologies: in OJEU, L 116 of 30 April 2008, p. 46 ff. 26 Cf. F. Salerno, “Sovranità liquida” ovvero il diritto alla democrazia rappresentativa tra sovranità costituzionale ed obblighi internazionali, in Per il 70. Compleanno di Pierpaolo Zamorani, edited by L. Desanti, P. Ferretti, D. Manfredini, Milano, 2009, p. 363 ff. 27 Current international law seems to include within the State’s margin of discretion the opportunity to assign a certain privilege to the religious tradition of the Country, by recognising certain festivities or by publicly exposing symbols of a particular religion (European Court of Human Rights, 18 March 2011, Lautsi e altri, application n. 30814/06, § 68 ff.). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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State and the way certain values are perceived. Also the individual freedom of choice on bio-technological strengthening on one’s own person is affected by the ethical values of the State (other than by its scientific and technological capacities) 28. The variegated modulation of the obligations of human rights protection becomes even more significant when measured to the type of conduct required to the States upon which such obligations fall. In this regard, the distinction is between “positive” and “negative” obligations. The latter are univocal, as the State is obliged “not to do”, that is to say, not to interfere on the private dimension as protected by international law. An emblematic case is the prohibition of torture, according to which the State cannot allow its organs to behave that way. The negative content of the obligation of conduct is applied uniformly, as it admits no inflection. The positive obligation, instead, implies that the State performs a certain activity – concerning a specific conduct or specific results – capable to concretise the benefit that international law aims at granting for the individual, included the protection from other non-State actors’ interferences29. In the latter case, the ECHR does not indicate the means a State has to adopt but it leaves them to the discretional assessment of the State itself, taking into consideration also the concrete chances the latter has to obtain the prescribed result in a given situation on which it has «jurisdiction» according to Article 1 of the ECHR. Moreover, we need to clarify that, also with regard to art. 8 of the ECHR, the alternative between positive and negative obligations is not as rigid as to be neatly «designed» for a specific protection30. The right to life established by art. 2 of the ECHR imposes on State the negative obligation not to kill a human person without any legitimate reason to do so (for instance, an armed conflict), but it also requires the obligation for the State to set up adequate procedural mechanisms in order to ascertain the legitimacy of a person’s death. The international protection of human rights is related to their progressively transnational dimension, evoking the action that State parties to pertinent instruments such as the ECHR and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are to take so to ensure their respect, although within the limited areas in which they can exercise their jurisdiction and influence. In this case, States’ conduct is directed and assessed according to due diligence parameters, as it concerns situations that escape (although sometimes temporarily) their full effective control31

28 European Court of Human Rights, 10 April 2007, cit. § 77. 29 C. Pitea, op. cit., p. 304; European Court of Human Rights, 10 April 2007, cit. § 75. 30 Cf. European Court of Human Rights, 13 February 2003, Odièvre, application n. 4236/98 § 40; 10 April 2007, cit. § 75; 25 September 2012, Godelli, application n. 33783/09 § 47 («The boundaries between the State’s positive and negative obligations under art. 8 do not lend themselves to precise definition»); 2 October 2012,Knecht , application n. 10048/10 § 55. 31 European Court of Human Rights, 8 July 2004, Ilaşcu, application n. 48787/99; International Court of Justice, 26 February 2007, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, § 430; full textin www.icj-cij.org. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 445 or that fall under other States’ sovereignty. Such indications may therefore come to regulate also the conduct of States parties towards non-party States. We find this in the «General Comment» n. 14 (2000) of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights concerning the right to health as established by art. 12 of the respective Covenant. According to the Committee, States parties have the obligation to «respect the enjoyment of the right to health in other countries, and to prevent third parties from violating the right in other countries, if they are able to influence these third parties by way of legal or political means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and applicable international law»32. The same rule is codified in various instruments concerning biotechnologies. Art. 21, para. 1, of the UNESCO Declaration of 2005 affirms that:States, « public and private institutions, and professionals associated with transnational activities should endeavour to ensure that any activity within the scope of this Declaration, undertaken, funded or otherwise pursued in whole or in part in different States, is consistent with the principles set out in this Declaration». Art. 29 of the 2005 Protocol to the Oviedo Convention of 1997, concerning bio-medical experimentation, considers the all but rare possibility that «sponsors or researchers» subject to the jurisdiction of a State party of the Protocol fund or develop (plan or direct) researches also in non-party States: in such a situation the country shall adopt «appropriate» measures to ensure that the private person subject to its jurisdiction carries out those «extra-territorial» researches according to the «principles» on which the dispositions of the Protocol are based33. According to the explanatory report to the Protocol, the State party’s obligation to adopt, if necessary, «appropriate measures to that end» is configured with regard to those private subjects «who fall under the authority of the State concerned»34, based on effective and qualified personal connections, such as the registered office

32 § 39; full text in: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CESCR. 33 According to the explanatory report of the 2005 Protocol (§ 138), «the term “principles” implies that while it may be impracticable to implement all the detailed provisions contained in this Protocol when a research project is carried out in a State that is not party to the Protocol, it is nevertheless mandatory to observe the principles that those provisions develop. … This does not imply that a body in the State Party to the Protocol has the authority to approve research in the non-Party State if that State does not approve the research, or to override its regulations. However, researchers from the Party State may be required to observe additional conditions, in accordance with the principles on which the provisions of this Protocol are based, to those applicable in non-Party States». This orientation can be found also in similar fields, such as the above-mentioned supra( § 1) Cartagena Protocol of 2000 annexed to the Convention of Rio of 1992 on biologic diversity, the “system” of which does not apply to human genetic material: Conference of Parties (COP), decision II/11 § 2 (1995). art. 24 of the Protocol establishes that «Transboundary movements of living modified organisms between Parties and non-Parties shall be consistent with the objective of this Protocol. The Parties may enter into bilateral, regional and multilateral agreements and arrangements with non-Parties regarding such transboundary movements». 34 Explanatory Report, § 139. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

446 International protection and limits to the right to self-determination of the corporation sponsoring the research activity or the conduction of activities in the territory of that State aimed at directing the research35. As the requirement concerns the respect of the «principles» of the Protocol in addition to the conditions provided for by the State that materially hosts the research36, the State to which the research belongs shall set in its own jurisdiction specific conditions for extra- territorial research activities if, like public control, they are not established by the former State but they reflect «principles» of the Protocol.

3. The right to self-determination of the human person Such a framework of rules defined at an international level gradually converges toward the formation of customary norms of general scope. A manifestation of this is the right to self-determination of the human person with particular regard to the application of bio-technological devices on his/her own body. Its genesis can be found in art. 8 of the ECHR that, in the evolving interpretation of the European Court for Human Rights, grants the right of the individual to the respect of his/her own private life as well as to the respect of the choices on the relative «development», regardless its «contextualization» within a family environment37. Such a right to «personal autonomy» is a manifestation of the human person38 and it includes also the right to establish and develop relations «with other human beings and the outside world»39. The content of this individual self-determination cannot be typified in itself, because, as the European Court for Human Rights underlines, «the notion of “private life” within the meaning of art. 8 of the Convention is a broad concept which does not lend itself to exhaustive definition»40. The right to individual self- determination reflects choices on one’s own private life that the State shall respect also with regard to aspects that are not directly covered by the material safeguard of art. 8 of the ECHR41. This is not a purely negative obligation, as the State has the positive obligation to ensure that the interested subject is in the condition of fully consciously exercise his/ her own choice42. Precisely to this end, in the bio-medical field it is required that the

35 Ibidem. 36 Explanatory Report, § 138. 37 For the punctual distinction between the two profiles, European Court of Human Rights, 13 February 2003, Odièvre, application n. 42326/98 § 28. 38 A. Sassi, Autodeterminazione e consenso informato tra diritto interno e fonti europee, in Diritti, principi e garanzie sotto la lente dei giudici di Strasburgo, edited by L. Cassetti, Napoli, 2012, p. 313. 39 European Court of Human Rights, 10 April 2007, cit. § 71. 40 European Court of Human Rights, 19 July 2012, Koch, application n. 497/09 § 51. 41 European Court of Human Rights, 20 January 2011, Haas, application n. 31322/07 § 50; 19 July 2012, cit. § 65 ff. 42 European Court of Human Rights, 19 July 2012, cit. § 52. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 447

State respects the principle of the «informed consent» when it comes to apply decisive therapeutic treatment to deal with and possibly solve certain pathologies (art. 5 of the 1997 Convention). The obligation to grant full information to the individual with regard to medical treatments of whatever nature is punctually established by art. 7 of ICCPR, at least to prevent tortures or mistreatments. The same principle shall apply, as we will see, to the case of bio-medical treatment aimed at the strengthening of the human person, especially when capable to determine irreversible effects. The right to self-determination of the human person is not absolute, although it is supported by the (full) informed consent to certain interventions on one’s own body. It is international law itself that poses limitations by recalling values such as the «integrity» and «dignity» of the human person. These are ethical evaluations that result in a legal prohibition whenever – as in the case of cloning – the aim is that of preventing a phenomenon that is widely practiced in the animal and vegetal world without causing a different evaluation of the belonging of the local product to its «natural» species43.

4. The (circumscribable) scope of the international protection of the “user” of bio-technology The individual right to self-determination – no matter how much informed – concerns choices that have to confront the comprehensive framework of values protected by the ECHR. Sometimes the contrast is neat. For instance, the European Court for Human Rights excludes – at the moment – that art. 2 of the EHCR protects the right to suicide. In other words, also because of a lack of agreement between States parties, there is not a complete freedom of choice of the human person on this value44. The Court explains such a limitation with the very nature of the right to life, which is an absolute value, rectius a «right» that cannot be disposed of within the same margins established by norms granting freedoms45. And indeed the Court acknowledged that the «negative» aspect operates within the field of the freedom of religion, of trade union freedom or of the right to representative democracy itself,

43 Cf. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, cit., p. 159 ff.; more generally: K. L. Macintosh, Human Cloning. Four Fallacies and Their Legal Consequences, Cambridge, 2013. 44 European Court of Human Rights, 20 January 2011, cit. § 54 ff.; 19 July 2012, cit. § 70. On the personalist perspective of the Italian Constitution and its different “readings”:F. Faenza, Profili penali del suicidio, in Trattato di biodiritto, Il governo del corpo, edited by S. Canestrari, G. Ferrando, C.M. Mazzoni, S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, vol. II, Milano, 2011, p. 1808 ff. However the interactions between ECHR and the “Oviedo system” cannot be neglected (supra, footnote 15). Thus, the right to life cannot be absolute as it has to comply with the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatments (Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights, cit., p. 391), amongst which there are the hypotheses of overtreatment prohibited by the 1997 Convention, as it disregard the consent of the person that suffers the relative interventions. 45 European Court of Human Rights, 29 April 2002, Pretty, application n. 2346/02 § 39. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

448 International protection and limits to the right to self-determination by consenting precisely not to believe in any religion, not to join any union nor to express one’s own «right» to vote. According to art. 8 of the ECHR the individual has wide margins to «qualify» the developments of his/her own life, or rather his/her own personal identity. By emphasising such a need, the European Court for Human Rights has framed within art. 8 the right of the individual to know his/her own biological identity46 as well as the right to transsexualism47. This is not an unlimited faculty, though. The Protocol of 1998 forbids the cloning of human beings; the same prohibition is repeated by art. 3 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The unconditioned tenor of such a prescription reflects an absolute value to defend in protection of the integrity of the human being. Due to the nature of such a limitation the activity of the researcher that, in order to strengthen his/her own and other people’s life, realises an automaton does not seem to be forbidden, even if the automaton’s composition is partially cellular. In a future perspective, one might think to a partly mechanical creature functional to the «production» of tissues and organs meant to be transplanted in the human being48. One may also think to a sentient (and sensitive) automaton, in other words a robot that is not a mere artefact but the conscious manufacturer of its own will49. It is still (for how long?) premature to face the question of a «dignity» of the robot as a legal subject different from its own manufacturer (and not as an «asset» of the latter), although we could not frame it in the defining category of «human being»50.

46 European Court of Human Rights, 13 February 2003, cit., §§ 29 and 44; 20 December 2007, Phinikaridou, application n. 23890/02 § 45; 25 September 2012, cit., § 47 ff. 47 Supra. 48 On the combination between organic and inorganic matter: Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, Comitato nazionale per la bioetica, Nanoscienze e nanotecnologie, 9 June 2006, p. 24; the full text can be found on: http://www.palazzochigi.it/bioetica/testi/Nanoscienze_Nanotecnologie.pdf. In this case, once established whether the whole product can be patented as «synthetic» process, it would be necessary to assess whether the human parts can be separated from the whole product and attracted by a legal evaluation on the «decent» use (S. Rodotà, Il corpo “giuridificato”, in Trattato di biodiritto, Il governo del corpo, cit., vol. I, Milano, 2011, p. 56) and – possibly – regardless of any profit (art. 3 of the European Charter of fundamental rights). 49 Cf. F. Grigenti, Ambivalenza prometeica e nanotecnologie, in Forme di responsabilità, regolazione e nanotecnologie, edited by G. Guerra, A. Muratorio, E. Pariotti, M. Piccinini, D. Ruggiu, Bologna, 2011, p. 27 f. On the so-called «post-human» see S. Rodotà, Il diritto di avere dei diritti, Roma-Bari, 2012, p. 341 ff.;Id. , La vita e le regole. Tra diritto e non diritto, Milano, 20122, p. 73 ff. 50 On definition issues, L.Olivieri , Persona ed essere umano: spunti per una nozione giuridica di persona alla sfida delle biotecnologie, in Bio-tecnologie e valori costituzionali. Il contributo della giustizia costituzionale, edited by A. D’Aloia, Torino, 2005, p. 435 ff. The greatest reservation on the «humanist» consideration of the robot is given by the alleged lack of «free will» of the sentient automaton, which would always be an expression of induced «automatic» processes. It can be noticed, though, that, even without having inhibitory mechanisms, the automaton has much more «mathematical» alternatives that can all be equally activated, while the human person has less concrete choices to make even in a framework of «absolute» free will. Moreover, lacking any inhibitors and provided that it is impossible to insert indicators of emotion in the robot, the automaton operates on the basis of «pure» (mathematical) File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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Without considering here the «right to life» of the sentient robot, its bio-mechanical constitution and composition in itself is not alien to the present field of investigation due to the possible impact of the automaton on the collective «good» of the integrity of the human being51.

5. International limits to the right to self-determination for the bio-technological strengthening on one’s own person The integrity of the human being limits the right to self-determination as configured in art. 8 of the ECHR. It is necessary, though, to establish its scope. In this regard, it shall be reminded that the right to the “development” of one’s own private life set forth by art. 8 does not pose any conceptual differences between the self-determination of the individual to modify his/her own sex and an analogous self- determination of the individual to create irreversible conditions for strengthening his/ her own person through bio-technological means. In both cases technology comes to help individual choices not supported by considerations of pathologic necessity52. Art. 8 protects also the latter type of choices53, but in such a way to comply with the whole system of ECHR guarantees. The limits to that depend on the impact that individual choices may have on several levels: on the individual who practices them, on other individuals who are presently connected to him/her in various ways or on others who may become connected to him/her in the future. According to the most recent case-law, art. 8 presents an high degree of protection capable to sacrifice other aspects also granted by the ECHR. Thus, art. 8 includes within the right to family life also the right to have children, if necessary, through assisted fertilization techniques that the State has the positive obligation to grant54. But art. 8 also comprises the “negative right” not to have children. For this reason the European Court of Human Rights includes in art. 8 the right to abortion as a legitimate expression of the mother’s self-determination: the right to one’s own private life and to a certain “model” of family life results therefore in a compression of a potential right to life of the suppressed embryo or foetus, so that it has no right to life according to art. 2 of the ECHR55. Despite the radical implications acknowledged by art. 8 to the individual right rationality, whereas the human person may also diverge from an «objective» rationality: in this perspective the essence of free will remains a purely human prerogative. 51 Infra. 52 This is the case of genic therapies: C. Faralli, S. Zullo, Terapia genica e diritti della persona, in Trattato di biodiritto. Il governo del corpo, cit., vol. II, cit., p. 520. 53 L. Tomasi, Art. 8, in Commentario breve alla Convenzione europea …, cit., p. 299 ff. 54 European Court of Human Rights, 2 October 2012, cit., § 54. 55 European Court of Human Rights, 10 April 2007, cit., § 54. On the mother’s primary interest see also Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights, cit., p. 389 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

450 International protection and limits to the right to self-determination to self-determination on one’s own life, the relative determinations find a first limitation whenever they are capable to irreversibly deprive those who intend to take advantage of bio-technological human “strengthening” of their own capacity to self-determination56. In other words, the right to the respect of the human person’s private life cannot go – according to the ECHR and the coordinated instruments such as those of the “Oviedo system” – as far as to consent bio-technological implants that would prevent the same individual to express other autonomous choices in the future. Just for the nature of the protected “good” – the individual right to one’s own model of life – the ECHR cannot legitimise concrete acts of disposal that compromise in nuce the capacity to self-determination in itself. For the same reasons, the European Court of Human Rights excludes – as we saw – the right to suicide, which would otherwise nullify the value of the right to life as an inescapable requirement for the enjoyment of other rights57, or authorises also radical limitations to political rights and to the activity of party formations whenever such limitations are needed to preserve the existence of the democratic State that represents the only constitutional model complying with the effective exercise of the rights protected by the ECHR58. A second typology of limitations derives from the relational dimension of the human being. The European Court of the Human Rights asserts that art. 8 protects «to a certain degree the right to establish and develop relationships with other human beings»59. In the logic of the human person as a “social animal” the ECHR legitimises initiatives that limit the sphere of liberties when it comes to protect the general interest of the human population as a whole60 or whenever there is an “abuse of rights” – according to art. 17 – for the prejudicial effects deriving from the exercise of a legitimate right within another person’s individual sphere. The indicated limitations do not exclude forms of individual self-determination radically diverging from the conventional model of coexistence among human beings, such as the choice to live as a hermit. In these cases, the individual self-determination may, at best, raise the need for a direct control on the person when his/her behaviour, without him/her to be an “outlaw”, is susceptible to determine a social danger. The ECHR considers (art. 5, para. 1) the figure of the “vagrant” or other similar categories

56 «Self-replicating nanoparticles could act through the same working system as a computer virus: they could activate themselves automatically and spread themselves so to destroy the basic elements for the functioning” (Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, Comitato nazionale per la bioetica, op. cit., p. 13, our transl.). 57 Supra. 58 European Court of Human Rights, 13 February 2003, Refah Partisi, application n. 41340/98. 59 European Court of human rights, 16 December 1992, Niemietz, application n. 13710/88 § 29. 60 According to the European Commission for human rights, «the claim to respect for private life is automatically reduced to the extent that the individual himself brings his private life into contact with public life or into close connection with other protected interests» (decision 12 July 1977, Bruggemann, application n. 6959/75 § 56). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 451 such as the persons of unsound mind, alcoholics or drug addicts: the purpose is not that of “criminalising” choices of such kind, but rather that of justifying measures limiting the personal freedom of individuals that made them, in order to protect general interests such as the possible propagation of infective diseases the person is carrying. This disposition clearly shows that the ECHR authorises States to prevent and repress behaviours that result from a lawful self-determination but are susceptible to have prejudicial effects on the entire human society. Obviously, the more widespread and profound the choice expressed by the individual is, the more marked the “social dangerousness” scenario becomes. The strengthening of the human being by giving him superior abilities compared with the others’ certainly would be such a widespread and profound choice. Such a sort of eugenics in bio-technological key would create a totally new61 human being, hardly compliant with the principle of non-discrimination (art. 14 ECHR) if such a model of “dignity of life” would not potentially accessible to every human being62. There is another and more latent consequence in this scenario: the influence of bio-technological manipulations on human DNA with reflections that potentially regard the whole humankind. The effect of such “self-determination” disregards the procedure employed, regardless whether the strengthening is realised through a product present in nature or in a synthetic way63. The process is evident with regard to the techniques of recombinant DNA, as it is for the use of nanobiotechnologies that «do not limit themselves to provide new technological opportunities for the production of materials or plastic and chemical substances … but combine inorganic nanomaterials with organic molecules, by intervening on cellular metabolism to influence the production of molecules or the transmission of information or to create new cellular structures or supports for the construction of new complex molecules or atomic assemblers for the creation of new molecular frameworks. In sum, we would have the intentional alteration of living organisms through the manipulation of DNA in order to create moleculesize machines, devices synthesising any single piece of a variety of macromolecules, by penetrating into and integrating with the cells of living organisms»64. It is not easy to trace the legal boundaries of the employment of this technology

61 S. Rodotà, Il corpo “giuridificato”, cit., p. 54. 62 «If dignity is inherent to every human being, it applies equally to all» (R. Adorno, What is the role of “human nature” and “human dignity” in our biotechnological age, in “Amsterdam Law Forum”, 2011, p. 56). On this topic see C. Campiglio, Eugenetica e diritto internazionale, in Ordine internazionale e valori etici, cit., p. 453 ff. 63 This does not prevent us to note, under other points of view, the existence of legally appreciable differences between the two aspects. On patents concerning isolated human genomic DNA see US Supreme Court, 13 June 2013, n. 12–398 Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, in http://www.supremecourt.gov. 64 Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, Comitato nazionale per la bioetica, op. cit., p. 11 (our transl.). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

452 International protection and limits to the right to self-determination or other similar technologies combined with the “natural” cellular component. A possible line of discrimination could be drawn between what is functional to improve health and what, instead, merely strengthens human life. But it is not always easy to trace such a distinction65. Let us consider the case of the “manipulation” of gametes for strictly therapeutic purposes, in the respect of the couple’s right to become parents of a “healthy” creature. The route research could take and its voluntary application by the interested individual shall be framed within appropriate legal principles already capable to be assumed by current international regulations protecting human dignity from certain medical treatments. This is imposed by the circumstance that the boundaries to the employment of such techniques, according to whether they are aimed at curing pathologies or at strengthening healthy individuals, are ever more labile as they get ever more close to the primary “source” of biological existence: DNA. This kind of interventions may interfere with the “natural” attribute of the human person and on his/her “inborn” data. Thus, also the judgement of value on the legal filed does not necessarily depends on the degree of complexity of the bio-technological manipulation on the human body, but rather on its possible consequences.

6. Limits imposed by the “Oviedo system” to personal choices It is in such scenario that we shall consider the Oviedo Convention of 1997 with its three additional Protocols. As we already noticed, the “Oviedo system” represents a development and an expansion of principles already underlying the ECHR and in particular its art. 866. Particularly, art. 2, para. 3, of the 2005 Protocol configures the relevance of these principles in the dimension of the medical intervention on the human body, which includes the “physical” intervention as well as “any other intervention in so far as it involves a risk to the psychological health of the person concerned”. International law, therefore, takes charge of preserving the psychophysical integrity of the human person and, eventually, his/her “dignity”. This dimension is subtracted to any individual assessment so to be subjected to an “objective” evaluation67. Still, a full convergence of evaluations between State parties of the ECHR on the way of conceiving “human dignity” is lacking, as such a convergence is lacking, a fortiori, when it comes to the way in which human “dignity” shall be protected in the case of choices of bio-technological strengthening. If human life is considered a “gift”, the strictly “conservative” point of view is bound to prevail, so that no interventions capable to alter the essential features of the “gift” should be

65 See C. Faralli, S. Zullo, op. cit., p. 521 ff. 66 Supra. 67 In this regard, see E. Pariotti, I diritti umani: concetto, teoria, evoluzione, Padova, 2013, p. 187. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 453 allowed. If the “individualistic” point of view prevails, “biology is not a destiny any more”68, so that human life (and its biological components) is a “good” susceptible to be employed and, thus, to be disposed of in legally permitted forms. The former position would entail a conceptually absolute limitation to bio-technological treatments; the latter, instead, would allow the employment of the human body to its own improvement and strengthening69. There is, though, a point of convergence between the two different perspectives, in the sense that States converge in maintaining that “disposability” and “strengthening” of one’s own body shall comply with the right to self-determination of the person concerned by the intervention, in particular with the highest information possible on the possible consequences so to make the individual aware of the choice he/she is called to express or to revoke it promptly70. The “positive” obligation falls upon the State, which is called to ensure that those in charge with the cure and the strengthening of the body concerned behave accordingly. The central question, however, concerns the typology of interventions that can be forbidden although authorised by the “fully informed” interested individual. If we exclude the already mentioned prohibition of cloning of human beings (1998 Protocol), the conventional instruments of the “Oviedo system” limit themselves to establish a general criterion for “balancing values”: bio-medical interventions shall respect the integrity of the human being (art. 5 of the Convention of 1997, art. 1 of the Protocol of 2002), of the general interest of humankind, also not to compromise the rights of future generations (recital 12 of the preamble to the 1997 Convention71 and, more punctually, art. 16 of the UNESCO Declaration of 200572). From such statements clearly emerges the so- called “principle of precaution” that in international law limits the employment of scientific and productive means in case of uncertainty on the negative consequences – if not even the harms – that they might cause with regard to goods or interests that the same international law is aimed to protect. This principle is precisely evoked in the mentioned practice in order to protect the genetic identity and integrity of the human being in an inter-generational perspective73. Such an approach does not exclude research, experimentation and practical application of bio-technological

68 S. Rodotà, Il corpo “giuridificato”, cit., pp. 57 and 59 (our transl.). 69 In this regard, see R. Brownsword, Ethical Pluralism and the Regulation of Modern Biotechnology, in Biotechnologies and international human rights, ed. by F. Francioni, Oxford, 2007, p. 46 ff. 70 Art. 5 of the Oviedo Convention of 1997 as well as the attached explanatory report: §§ 37 and 38. 71 «Affirming that progress in biology and medicine should be used for the benefit of present and future generations». 72 «The impact of life sciences on future generations, including on their genetic constitution, should be given due regard». 73 Cf. E. Seng, Human Cloning; Reflections on the Application of Principles of International Environmental and Health Law and their Implications for the Development of an International Convention on Human Cloning, in “Oregon Review of International Law”, 2003, p. 119 ff.; see, in this regard, alsoR. Molanda, Intervenciones genetico sobre et ser humano y derecho penal, Granada, 2006, p. 272. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

454 International protection and limits to the right to self-determination innovations on the human body, but it dictates a punctual and constant verification to prevent that humankind is exposed – according to the present knowledge – to the risk of unpredictable prejudicial consequences74. The indication is connected with other sectors of international law that contemplate rights of future generations (the fourth generation of human rights75), recalling the States’ responsibility on this matter. The undisputed relevance in the bio-technological field of the principle of precaution is due to the nature of the obligation that falls upon the States76. This is an obligation «of conduct» that each single State shall observe within the limits of the means at its concrete disposal. International law appreciates the bona fide fulfilment of the obligation if accomplished through the diligence required from that State. The balance between such principle and individual expectations for the realisation of one’s own personality (principle of autonomy) should be configured in the sense that the former succumbs to the latter when the risk in the inter-generational dimension is attenuated or is lacking. The application of such a principle shall unavoidably respect different stages depending on whether it is relevant for pure research, experimentation or the application of their results77. The first and the second can be easily eluded in the same perspective of the principle of precaution, as a correct assessment of the risks inherent to a certain scientific activity depends on the higher degree of knowledge that one can have about it. At the present stage of scientific knowledge, the development of robotics is conceptually less inhibited than it is for the manipulation of the human body, as the former does not have any direct and immediate prejudicial effects on the intergenerational perspective. Similarly, there is the need for containing a possible negative impact of on the integrity of the human being, to the extent that we can recall here the famous Asimov’s “three laws” aiming at inserting in the programming of robots

74 On the need for reducing the level of unpredictability: M. Buiatti, Le biotecnologie, Bologna, 20042, p. 126; on the need for monitoring: G. Battaglino, Regolamentazione delle attività biotecnologiche, in Le biotecnologie: certezze e interrogativi, edited by M. Volpi, Bologna, 2001, p. 89 ff. Here we are not assessing the international regulations on genetic testing: in this regard see art. 12 of the 1997 Convention («Tests which are predictive of genetic diseases or which serve either to identify the subject as a carrier of a gene responsible for a disease or to detect a genetic predisposition or susceptibility to a disease may be performed only for health purposes or for scientific research linked to health purposes, and subject to appropriate genetic counselling») and especially the relevant interpretative indications emerging from the explanatory report to the Convention (paragraphs 78 ff.). 75 Supra. 76 For a reconstruction of such a principle, see M. Purdue, Integrated Pollution Control in the Environmental Protection Act 1990: A Coming of Age of Environmental Law?, in “Modern Law Review”, 1991, p. 535 ff. 77 On the distinction between scientific research and patentability to commercial purposes of the research outcomes, see EU Court of Justice, 18 October 2011, C-34/10, Brüstle § 40; for a comment see S. Vezzani, Invenzioni biotecnologiche e tutela dell’ordine pubblico e della morale nel diritto europeo dei brevetti: il caso Brüstle, in “DUDI”, 2012, p. 447 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 455 inhibiting data to prevent their behaviour from harming humankind78. Rather than setting rigid boundaries, conventional instruments preferred to articulate “value” parameters of reference to be concretely verified by social control procedures (Article 16 of the 1997 Convention79), in which public bodies entrusted with precise evaluations on the legitimacy of certain bio-medical techniques of intervention play a decisive role. The social control shall take place within States, which – as we will see in the two following paragraphs – may determine punctual limitations and “more favourable” practices. Such ambivalence involves both the side of the “user” of the bio-technological therapy and the side of the researcher who is called to “discover” it. The individuation of research objectives and of the relative practical applications with regard to legitimate forms of human strengthening falls within a wide margin of States’ discretion. The national model is to be drawn from different indicators prefiguring the type of conduct adopted by States: from constitutional principles to defined and authorised clinical practices80.

7. Reasons for legitimate interferences by national authorities according to the safeguard clause The wide margin of State parties’ discretion on the respect of private life does not mean their full liberty to take any sort of initiative, both preclusive and permissive. As far as such determinations concern the sphere of respect of private life, the ECHR adopts a number of guiding-criteria that must be invoked to justify any kind of initiative. Such criteria are to be coordinated and integrated in the light of the principle of precaution. The consequence of this is coordination between general rules, or between “principles”, which is susceptible to be differently perceived within the various national contexts. This is possible because the rules that come into play are very flexible according to the level of “due diligence” that each State is concretely able to predispose or to the kind of “ethical” sensibility that it shows. However, no matter how high the level of States’ autonomy is, States remain part of a system of international rules that defines their normative coordinates. The interference of the State shall be justified within the respect of a general interest of society, especially considering the circumstances required by art. 8, para. 2, of the ECHR81. This means that prohibitions of all kind shall first of all be provided by law (even if not necessarily

78 Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_laws_of_robotics. 79 The Communication of the EC Commission onTowards a European Strategy on Nanotechnology (Bruxelles, 12 May 2004, COM(2004) 338 def.), maintains that «an open, traceable and verifiable development of nanotechnology, according to democratic principles, is indispensable» (art. 3.5.1). 80 European Court of Human Rights, 10 April 2007, cit., § 39. 81 European Court of Human Rights, 29 April 2002, cit., § 68 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

456 International protection and limits to the right to self-determination expressed in a legal act) and cannot be discriminatory, for religious reasons82. This includes criminal rules, especially those aimed at deterring “managers” and “users” of bio-technology from committing attempts harming the integrity of the human person83. A criminal offence of such a kind could concern both the event in itself (for instance, cloning) and the conduct preliminary to its verification. The criterion of proportionality between the effects of the measure and the right to be “compressed” should always be respected. Also benefits and prizes can be normatively established so to encourage those forms of strengthening that are coherent with general interests.

8. Relevance and limits of the national or sub-regional more favourable treatment Both the ECHR and the “Oviedo system” include the so-called clause of the more favourable treatment84. Such a clause preserves national – or supranational – legislation providing for more favourable conditions. The inclusion of such a clause is a diffused practice within the international conventions on human rights, in the assumption that the rules they provide for configure a minimum due protection, enabling national laws or other laws to freely raise the threshold of protection, being logically undisputed that the minimum standard is included in the higher one. Also EU law (as made clear by recital 7 and art. 2, para. 1, of Directive No. 2010/63 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes) knows such an approach, to the extent that it recognizes, within a material regulation of harmonisation, the opportunity of preserving “more favourable” regulations pre-existing in member States85. But this is an ever less undisputable approach, first of all because the parameter of normative comparison typical of international law is made more by principles than by norms, so that the regulatory declination of the former becomes autonomous and hardly relatable to considerations of higher or minor valorisation of the protected interest. The assessment of the more favourable treatment is made

82 European Court of Human Rights, 23 June 1993, Hoffmann, application n. 12875/87 § 30 ff. 83 On the «orientating» function of penal precepts: M. Petrone, Biotecnologie e problemi penalistici, in Le biotecnologie: certezze e interrogativi, cit., p. 160. 84 Art. 53 ECHR, art. 27 of the 1997 Convention, art. 34 of the 2005 Protocol. 85 According to art. 2, para. 1, of the Directive, «Member States may, while observing the general rules laid down in the TFEU, maintain provisions in force on 9 November 2010, aimed at ensuring more extensive protection of animals falling within the scope of this Directive than those contained in this Directive». The derogating disposition is thus explained by the seventh recital of the directive: «Attitudes towards animals also depend on national perceptions, and there is a demand in certain Member States to maintain more extensive animal-welfare rules than those agreed upon at the level of the Union. In the interests of the animals, and provided it does not affect the functioning of the internal market, it is appropriate to allow the Member States certain flexibility to maintain national rules aimed at more extensive protection of animals in so far as they are compatible with the TFEU». On the topic, see also R. Bin, Freedom of Scientific Research in the Field of Genetics, in Biotech Innovations and Fundamental Rights, ed. by R. Bin, S. Lorenzon, N. Lucchi, Milano, 2012, p. 137. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 457 even more problematic as international law seems increasingly inclined to define by itself a determined balance of values and therefore their assessment, so that the more favourable treatment in a national or supranational context could alter precisely the balance established within the international instrument. The different sensibilities of State parties to the ECHR on the nature of human life itself, that is, whether it is a “gift” or a “good”, unavoidably lead States to lean towards solutions aimed to privilege either an absolutely conservative approach on human dignity, or an utilitarian approach and therefore to balance interventions and interferences in a way or another. Then there is the fact that States do not have certain and univocal data o bio- technological impact: different conclusions follow also with regard to the resort to autonomous ethical parameters. Thus, lacking established epidemiological testing, not everybody agrees with the assertion according to which epigenetic mutations are inherited by the future generation86. For these different reasons, the parameter of “more favourable treatment” becomes rather equivocal in its contents, except for the part in which it refers to the undisputed principles in protection of human dignity stated at an international level. One cannot dispute those criteria that make the principle of precaution more rigorous by limiting experimentation and the application susceptible to determine irreversible effects on human dignity and integrity, or by imposing more strict verification procedures on this. In this sense the formula contained in art. 27 of the 1997 Convention is absolutely pertinent: «None of the provisions of this Convention shall be interpreted as limiting or otherwise affecting the possibility for a Party to grant a wider measure of protection with regard to the application of biology and medicine than is stipulated in this Convention»87.

86 Cf. V. L. Chandler, Paramutation: From Maize to Mice, in “Cell”, 2007, p. 641 ff. 87 Italic added. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione per il potenziamento bio-tecnologico della propria persona

Francesco Salerno

Sommario: 1. La struttura “aperta” delle norme a tutela dei diritti umani: la CEDU. - 2. Diversa natura ed intensità precettiva degli obblighi a tutela dei diritti umani. - 3. Il diritto all’autodeterminazione della persona umana. - 4. L’ambito (circoscrivibile) di tutela internazionale per il “fruitore” della bio-tecnologia. - 5. Limiti internazionali al diritto di autodeterminazione per il potenziamento bio-tecnologico della propria persona. - 6. Limiti imposti dal “sistema Oviedo” alle scelte personali. - 7. Motivi di interferenze legittime delle autorità nazionali in base alla clausola di salvaguardia. - 8. Rilevanza e limiti del trattamento più favorevole su base nazionale o sub-regionale.

1. La struttura “aperta” delle norme a tutela dei diritti umani: la CEDU Secondo la definizione data dal Protocollo di Cartagena del 29 gennaio 2000 sulla biosicurezza (strumento addizionale alla Convenzione sulla diversità biologica di Rio de Janeiro del 5 giugno 1992), il termine “moderna bio-tecnologia” implica «the application of: a. In vitro nucleic acid techniques, including recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and direct injection of nucleic acid into cells or organelles, or b. Fusion of cells beyond the taxonomic family, that overcome natural physiological reproductive or recombination barriers and that are not techniques used in traditional breeding and selection»1. In altri termini, l’approccio bio-tecnologico può manifestarsi sotto la duplice veste sia dell’introduzione di frammenti estranei di DNA attraverso le tecniche di DNA ricombinante, sia della fusione cellulare in modo da superare le barriere fra le specie ottenendo comunque risultati non realizzabili in natura. Tanto la ricerca che l’utilizzo di queste tecniche avvengono solitamente per ragioni terapeutiche ma possono anche rispondere al desiderio dell’individuo di migliorare le proprie prestazioni2.

1 Protocollo di Cartagena, art. 3, lett. i). Su questo protocollo vedi anche infra, nota 32. 2 Sulla fluidità del confine tra interventi miranti al miglioramento della salute e quelli invece finalizzati al potenziamento della persona: infra § 5 e nota 64. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

460 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione

Nel diritto internazionale sui diritti umani non vi è una norma specifica che tuteli la volontà dell’individuo di avvalersi delle bio-tecnologie sottoponendosi a trattamenti per il potenziamento della propria persona3. Tuttavia, seguendo una tendenza frequente nella prassi, questo profilo garantistico prende progressivamente corpo grazie alla struttura “aperta” che caratterizza gli strumenti internazionali a tutela dei diritti umani e che li rende in vario modo permeabili alla emergenza di interessi o valori inespressi nel testo del singolo trattato perché comunque compresi negli scopi e nei principi che lo sorreggono. D’altronde, proprio per salvaguardare sempre nuove esigenze di tutela si sono succedute quattro “generazioni” di diritti umani, a testimonianza delle crescenti aspettative di tutela via via regolamentate a livello internazionale: i diritti civili e politici, poi quelli sociali, quindi la tutela dell’ambiente fino alla quarta, più recente, acquisizione del diritto delle generazioni future su cui proprio avremo modo di ritornare più avanti. Tutte e quattro le dimensioni evocate vengono in evidenza per apprezzare le aspettative di tutela in relazione ai multiformi e sempre più accelerati sviluppi della scienza e della tecnica, ivi compresi quelli direttamente fungibili alla salute ed al benessere individuale, quindi – se del caso – al “potenziamento” della persona umana4. Proprio questo nesso funzionale con la centralità della persona umana nelle sue varie “dimensioni” non consente di stabilire una separatezza tra i diversi stadi quanto invece osservarne la reciproca interazione. A titolo paradigmatico l’analisi va incentrata sulla Convenzione europea dei diritti dell’uomo (CEDU). Questo strumento riveste una posizione di assoluto rilievo nel panorama complessivo sui diritti umani per alcune sue specifiche caratteristiche. Anzitutto la CEDU si pone come disciplina di valenza “costituzionale” per gli Stati parti, tanto da investirli di obblighi solidali da rispettare e far rispettare anche in situazioni nelle quali la giurisdizione dello Stato parte non sia piena5. A rafforzare la sua valenza di “ordine pubblico europeo”, la CEDU permea di sé anche l’ordinamento dell’UE: in ogni caso, questa si è da tempo unilateralmente vincolata a rispettare i diritti umani quali garantiti dalla CEDU (art. 6 TUE), indipendentemente dalle prospettive della sua futura adesione tuttora da perfezionare6. In secondo luogo, la CEDU è provvista di una giurisdizione permanente, la Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo, che svolge una interpretazione autonoma delle relative prescrizioni quando ne deve appurare eventuali violazioni. Le pretese vittime di una violazione possono rivolgersi direttamente alla Corte, la quale si mette così direttamente in collegamento - senza quindi neppure la “mediazione” del giudice nazionale come avviene per la Corte di giustizia dell’UE nel caso del rinvio pregiudiziale - con le istanze “vive” della società dialogando con esse proprio nella prospettiva di una costante “attualizzazione” dei precetti normativi. La capacità del giudice europeo di

3 Cfr. in generale, tra l’altro, Ordine internazionale e valori etici (VIII Convegno della SIDI, Verona 26-27 giugno 2003), a cura di N. Boschiero, Napoli, 2004, pp. 365 ss.; Bioetica e biotecnologie nel diritto internazionale e comunitario. Questioni generali e tutela della proprietà intellettuale, a cura di N. Boschiero, Torino, 2006. 4 Vedi Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 19 luglio 2002, Koch, ric. n. 497/09 § 51. Le decisioni della Corte europea dei diritti umani sono reperibili nel sito http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int. 5 Infra anche § 2. 6 Cfr. ECHR, Communication commune des présidents Costa et Skouris, in http://www.echr.coe.int; Fifth negotiation meeting between the CDDH and the European Commission on the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights, Strasbourg, 10 June 2013, 47+1(2013)008rev2 § 65 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 461 leggere questa spontanea dinamica sociale e di razionalizzarla nella cornice normativa della Convenzione rendendola effettiva spiega la straordinaria richiesta di “accesso” alla sua giurisdizione, che finisce col piegare a propri fini l’originario contenuto della tutela convenzionale aggiornandone la portata, modificando – ove necessario – la precedente giurisprudenza7. Per sviluppare tale approccio ermeneutico, la Corte “dialoga” sia con i sistemi giuridici nazionali degli Stati parti, sia con altre fonti normative internazionali. La finalità è diversa. Nella prima ipotesi, il giudice verifica quale sia lo stadio di convergenza degli Stati parti della CEDU verso un “comune sentire” idoneo a rendere accettabile la sua “sintesi” in un principio di diritto generale e condiviso, suscettibile di integrare la formula pattizia plasmandola in continuità con il dato effettivo dei diritti nazionali8. Nella seconda ipotesi, il giudice europeo, partendo dal presupposto che la Convenzione non può essere collocata in un vuoto giuridico internazionale (dottrina del vacuum)9, cerca di reperire il modello normativo che meglio chiarisce a livello internazionale il tipo di tutela in giuoco. È sulla base di questi due indicatori - l’uno “interno” al corpo sociale della CEDU, l’altro esterno ad esso - che il testo convenzionale si evolve assumendo sempre nuovi significati e contenuti precettivi10. L’opera di “fertiliz- zazione” del testo convenzionale avviene nell’ambito della CEDU in entrambi i casi, senza che il carattere incisivo di tale evoluzione dipenda necessariamente dalla convergenza dei due “indicatori”. Emblematico al riguardo lo sviluppo applicativo dell’art. 8 della CEDU. L’obbligo degli Stati di rispettare la vita privata nelle sue varie prospettive di “sviluppo” ha accolto l’evoluzione “spontanea” dei sistemi giuridici nazionali verso la rimozione di forme di discriminazione nei confronti della condizione omosessuale inducendo la Corte europea dei diritti umani a rivedere le iniziali indicazioni della Commissione EDU incline a legittimare prescrizioni penali che punivano la condotta omosessuale11. Lo stesso è avvenuto per il caso del transessualismo: inizialmente negato e poi assorbito nella sfera di garanzia dell’art. 812. Se ne evince che dalla medesima regola internazionale si dipanano più indicazioni prescrittive che sono espressione dello stesso valore tutelato. In altri termini, il vincolo pattizio originario si connota alla stregua di un “principio” che si articola in più “regole” di vario tenore suscetti-

7 In considerazione di ciò, il Protocollo n. 14 alla CEDU ha “razionalizzato” il sistema giurisdizionale configurando il ruolo della Grande Camera della Corte europea dei diritti umani quale unica sede in cui stabilire precedenti orientativi per le articolazioni minori della stessa Corte: La nouvelle procédure devant la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme après le Protocole n° 14. Actes du colloque tenu à Ferrara les 29 et 30 avril 2005, a cura di F. Salerno, Bruxelles, 2007. 8 Sulla funzione integrativa dei principi generali di diritto e la loro idoneità a favorire l’interpretazione evolutiva delle norme convenzionali: F. Salerno, Principi generali di diritto, in Digesto IV, vol. XI, Torino, 1996, p. 533 ss. 9 Cfr. in proposito F. Salerno, Diritto internazionale. Principi e norme, Padova, 20133, pp. 179 e 192 ss. 10 Secondo la Corte europea dei diritti umani, la «Convention en général … constitue un traité de garantie collective des droits de l’homme et des libertés fondamentales [et] doit être interprétée et appliquée d’une manière qui en rende les exigences concrètes et effectives» (decisione 26 ottobre 2000, Sanles Sanles, ric. n. 48335/99, p. 7). 11 Theory and practice of the European convention on human rights, ed. by P. Van Dijk, F. Van Hoof, A. Van Rijn, L. Zwakk, Oxford, 20064, p. 678 ss.; C. Pitea, Art. 8, in Commentario breve alla Convenzione europea per la salvaguardia dei diritti dell’uomo e delle libertà fondamentali, a cura Di S. Bartole, P. De Sena, V. Zagrebelsky, Padova, 2012, p. 330. 12 Corte europea dei diritti umani, 11 luglio 2002, Goodwin, ric. n. 28957/95 § 74 s. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

462 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione bili anche di mutare nel tempo per il continuo evolversi della “coscienza giuridica” degli Stati parti13. Tuttavia, queste situazioni non vengono considerate di per sé estranee all’oggetto della CEDU tanto che la Corte le valuta come espressione autonoma del diritto alla vita privata. Talora, per consolidare ed espandere questo dato normativo anche in modo più analiti- co, sovviene la determinazione degli Stati membri del Consiglio d’Europa di adottare nuovi strumenti convenzionali. Ne è una manifestazione - per l’argomento qui affrontato - la Con- venzione di Oviedo del 1997 (di seguito “Convenzione del 1997”) sulla protezione dei diritti umani e la dignità della persona umana nel campo della bio-medicina: si tratta essenzialmente di una convenzione-quadro che fissa una serie di principi rimettendo (art. 31) la disciplina più dettagliata a protocolli successivi, ai quali gli Stati possono aderire solo se abbiano anche ratificato la Convenzione del 1997. Al momento ne sono stati adottati tre (1998, 2002, 2005) riguardanti rispettivamente: il divieto di clonazione di esseri umani, il trapianto degli organi e di tessuti di origine umana ed infine la ricerca biomedica14. Ne emerge un “sistema Oviedo” solo in parte simile alla CEDU, dal momento che alla Corte europea dei diritti umani è rimessa una funzione consultiva (art. 29 della Convenzione del 1997) escludendo di conseguenza che l’individuo possa far valere direttamente le violazioni di cui è vittima ad opera di uno Stato parte. Tuttavia le norme del “sistema Oviedo” interagiscono sotto diversi profili con la CEDU canalizzando il significato dei principi propri di quest’ultima15: in tali circostanze la pretesa vittima può utilizzare il meccanismo giurisdizionale della CEDU per far rispettare quei valori del “sistema Oviedo” che vi si siano “materializzati”16. Inoltre il “sistema Oviedo” si raccorda sotto più profili con strumenti convenzionali di portata universale, in specie con il già ricordato Protocollo di Cartagena del 2000 cui aderiscono vari Stati europei (come Germania, Regno Unito e Italia) che al momento non sono parti della Convenzione del 1997 o dei relativi Protocolli17. Perciò, a prescindere dallo stato delle ratifiche, non sembra

13 È in mancanza di tale fattore che, ad esempio, la Corte non ha tuttora accolto il diritto all’eutanasia e non ha equiparato il matrimonio omosessuale a quello eterosessuale. Questi “diritti” potrebbero trovare obiettiva collocazione nelle formule pattizie pertinenti (articoli 2, 3 e 8 della CEDU), ma la Corte si è finora trattenuta dall’enunciarli proprio perché non ritiene possibile coglierne la presenza nella coscienza giuridica degli Stati parti. 14 Il legame funzionale è esplicitato nell’art. 31 della Convenzione del 1997: «Protocols may be concluded … with a view to developing, in specific fields, the principles contained in this Convention». I testi della Convenzione del 1997, dei Protocolli successivi come anche dei rapporti esplicativi all’una e agli altri sono reperibili nel sito http://www.conventions.coe.int. 15 Cfr. R. Lawson, Dwelling on the Threshold: On the Interaction Between the European Convention on Human Rights and the Biomedicine Convention, in Human Rights and Biomedicine, ed. by A. den Exter, Antwerpen, 2010, p. 23 ss. Per riferimenti alla Convenzione di Oviedo ed ai suoi Protocolli addizionali ma nell’ambito di applicazione della CEDU, vedi Corte europea dei diritti umani: sent. 9 marzo 2004, Glass, ric. n. 61827/00 § 58; sent. 8 luglio 2004, Vo, n. 53924/00 §§ 35 e 84; sent. 10 aprile 2007, Evans, ric. n. 6339/05 § 39; decisione 11 ottobre 2007, Özalp, ric. n. 74300/01; sent. 13 maggio 2008, Juhnke, ric. n. 52515/99 § 56. 16 Nel rapporto esplicativo della Convenzione del 1997 si chiarisce (§ 165) che «This Convention does not itself give individuals a right to bring proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. However, facts which are an infringement of the rights contained in this Convention may be considered in proceedings under the European Convention of Human Rights, if they also constitute a violation of one of the rights contained in the latter Convention». 17 Lo stesso peraltro avviene con strumenti di portata universale: la Dichiarazione UNESCO del 2005 su bioetica e diritti umani richiama (infra) nel preambolo il “sistema Oviedo”. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 463 improprio richiamare il “sistema Oviedo” nell’ordinamento italiano benché l’Esecutivo non abbia voluto finora depositare lo strumento di ratifica della Convenzione nonostante da anni il Parlamento l’abbia autorizzato18. In tali condizioni l’Italia non è vincolata a rispettare gli obblighi della Convenzione (e tanto meno dei relativi Protocolli), ma non se ne possono però eludere i riflessi su quelle regole della CEDU – garantite nell’ordinamento italiano dall’art. 117, 1° comma, Cost. – da cui il “sistema Oviedo” prende spunto e che vanno dunque in- terpretate alla luce della più recente prassi diplomatica degli stessi Stati parti della CEDU (art. 31 § 3 della Convenzione di Vienna del diritto dei trattati del 1969)19. Questo dato si consolida ulteriormente se si considera che taluni principi enunciati nel “sistema Oviedo” sono comunque vincolanti per l’Italia in ragione degli articoli 1 e 3 della Carta UE dei diritti fondamentali, cui peraltro si attaglia la più intensa garanzia costituzionale dell’art. 11 Cost., sia pure limitatamente a fattispecie disciplinate dal diritto dell’UE. Vi è poi un ulteriore fattore che rende in questa materia oltremodo articolato il quadro normativo e l’interazione tra le diverse fonti. L’espansione del diritto internazionale verso la nuova frontiera della “bio-etica” comporta il confronto con una dimensione “privata” che coinvolge la condotta di scienziati e operatori sanitari sovente “auto-regolata” attraverso le rispettive comunità organizzate anche a livello internazionale. La Dichiarazione UNESCO del 19 ottobre 2005 su “Bioethics and Human Rights”20 richiama nel preambolo i codici e le guidelines adottate da associazioni quali la “World Medical Association” ed il “Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences” alla stessa stregua del riferimento agli atti che compongono il “sistema Oviedo”. Si tratta di regole tecniche e soprattutto deonto- logiche che non hanno un valore normativo in senso proprio poiché definite al di fuori dei meccanismi statali di produzione del diritto. Al tempo stesso, però, la normativa internazionale contenuta nella CEDU o nel “sistema Oviedo” deve tener conto di questo spazio di auto-regolamentazione. Ne è conferma l’art. 4 della Convenzione del 1997, in base al quale «Any intervention in the health field, including research, must be carried out in accordance with relevant professional obligations and standards». Anche la Corte europea dei diritti umani tiene conto delle “professional guidelines” nel valutare le pratiche mediche procreative alla luce dell’art. 8 della CEDU21. Dovendo però ricondurre questo spazio di “autoregolamentazione” ad una prospettiva unitaria di “governance” di situazioni meritevoli di tutela, il diritto internazionale impone agli Stati di coinvolgere anche i settori “privati” in un confronto pubblico assumendo, in specie tramite appositi “Comitati etici”, indicazioni che siano frutto della loro partecipazione. Una puntuale promozione di tali organismi ad un “livello appropriato” si ritrova - tra l’altro - nell’art. 28 della Convenzione del 1997 e negli articoli 19 e 22, 2° comma, della già ricordata Dichiarazione UNESCO del 19 ottobre 2005 su “Bioethics and

18 Cfr. legge 28 marzo 2001, n. 145, in Gazzetta Ufficiale, n. 95 del 24 aprile 2001. Sul punto vedi V. Tonini, La rilevanza della Convenzione di Oviedo sulla biomedicina secondo la giurisprudenza italiana, in “Riv. dir. int.”, 2009, p. 116 ss. 19 Questa dimensione è del tutto elusa dalla giurisprudenza italiana, nonostante la varietà di posizioni da essa espresse in ordine al rilievo da attribuirsi alla Convenzione del 1997 (sulle quali vedi F. M. Palombino, La rilevanza della Convenzione di Oviedo secondo il giudice italiano, in “Giurisprudenza costituzionale”, 2011, p. 4811 ss.). 20 Cfr. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, ed. by H. A. M. Ten Have, M. S. Jean, UNESCO, 2012. 21 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sentenza 10 aprile 2007, cit., § 39. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

464 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione

Human Rights”22. I vari Comitati etici da tempo operanti nel settore bio-medico a livello internazionale, nazionale e anche infra-nazionale sono per l’appunto preposti a questo scopo, confermando che la “verità etica” non può essere monopolio dello Stato23. Al tempo stesso il diritto “oggettivo”, quello cioè di emanazione statale, interstatale o sovranazionale, assume “in proprio” criteri etici delineandone una “giuridicizzazione”24. L’estensione della tutela internazionale e l’articolata base sociale che ne è interessata produce però un quadro normativo sempre più complesso nel quale coesistono istanze valoriali diverse anche in contrapposizione tra loro. La dialettica dei valori in proposito può essere riferita alla medesima persona o anche a persone diverse fino a configurare una possibile tensione tra la dimensione individuale e l’interesse generale, nei diversi livelli “ordinatori” in cui questo viene principalmente gestito e definito: statale, dell’UE ed internazionale. In tutte queste situazioni si innesca un processo di necessaria “coesistenza” tra valori in giuoco il cui esito concreto conduce inevitabilmente alla compressione di uno o più di essi. La Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo ne è ben consapevole, tanto che essa stessa se ne rende artefice ricorrendo al criterio della proporzionalità per bilanciare in modo legittimo i diversi valori presenti nella Convenzione.

2. Diversa natura ed intensità precettiva degli obblighi a tutela dei diritti umani Nel sistema della CEDU coesistono diversi livelli “deontici” secondo che la tutela configurata rilevi nella sua piena dimensione precettiva ovvero si dipani (senza mai sfumare del tutto) secondo un grado decrescente di intensità. Solo per chiarezza espositiva, si potrebbe ricordare che il “nucleo duro” è senz’altro espresso dai diritti per i quali non è ammessa alcuna deroga di sorta (art. 15 § 2 della CEDU). Ad esso fanno seguito quei diritti in relazione al cui godimento sia ammesso un margine di apprezzamento variamente ampio, talora notevole come accade per la scelta del modello elettorale e parlamentare più idoneo a rendere effettivo il diritto alla democrazia rappresentativa (art. 3 del Protocollo addizionale alla CEDU)25 o per le preferenze accordate alla religione (o al “senso religioso”) prevalente in un determinato paese26. A pesare in questi casi sono le tradizioni storiche e culturali dello Stato ed il modo

22 Cfr. C. Huriet, Ethic Committees, in The UNESCO Universal Declaration…, cit., p. 265 ss. 23 S. Maljean-Dubois, Bioèthique et droit international, in “AFDI”, 2000, p. 87. 24 J. Ayllón, Biotecnología y dignidad humana en la jurisprudencia, in Biotecnología, Derecho y dignidad humana, Comares, 2003, p. 88. Sul “fenomeno di ibridazione tra etica e diritto”, D. Ruggiu, Diritti e temporalità, Bologna, 2012, p. 117; vedi anche ivi, p. 160 ss. e 168 ss. La necessità di dialogare con forme “a-statali” di regolamentazione spiega il ricorso a formule promozionali di soft law; vedi al riguardo, tra l’altro, la raccomandazione della Commissione CE del 7 febbraio 2008, n. 2008/345/ CE, recante il codice di condotta per una ricerca responsabile nel settore delle nanoscienze e delle nanotecnologie: in GUUE, L 116 del 30 aprile 2008, p. 46 ss. 25 Cfr. F. Salerno, “Sovranità liquida” ovvero il diritto alla democrazia rappresentativa tra sovranità costituzionale ed obblighi internazionali, in Per il 70. Compleanno di Pierpaolo Zamorani, a cura di L. Desanti, P. Ferretti, D. Manfredini, Milano, 2009, p. 363 ss. 26 Il diritto internazionale attuale sembra far rientrare nel margine di apprezzamento dello Stato l’opportunità di assegnare un certo privilegio alla tradizione religiosa del paese, riconoscendo determinate festività o esponendo in pubblico simboli di una determinata religione (Corte europea dei diritti umani, sentenza 18 marzo 2011, Lautsi e altri, ric. n. 30814/06, § 68 ss.). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 465 di percepire determinati valori. Anche la libertà di scelta individuale sul potenziamento bio-tecnologico della propria persona risente dei valori etici dello Stato (oltre che delle sue capacità scientifiche e tecnologiche)27. La variegata modulazione degli obblighi a tutela dei diritti umani diventa ancora più significativa se commisurata al tipo di condotta richiesto agli Stati che ne sono destinatari. La distinzione in proposito è tra obblighi “positivi” e obblighi “negativi”. I secondi sono univoci, dal momento che lo Stato è tenuto “a non fare”, vale a dire a non interferire sulla dimensione del privato quale tutelata dal diritto internazionale. Caso emblematico è il divieto di tortura, in forza del quale lo Stato non può porre in essere comportamenti di quel genere da parte di propri organi. Il contenuto negativo dell’obbligo di condotta, in quanto insuscettibile di alcun temperamento, è di applicazione uniforme. L’obbligo positivo implica invece per lo Stato lo svolgimento di una certa attività – che riguarda una determinata condotta o specifici risultati – idonea a rendere concreto il beneficio che il diritto internazionale intende assicurare al privato, anche mettendolo al riparo da interferenze di terzi privati28. In quest’ultimo caso, la CEDU non indica quali siano i mezzi che lo Stato deve predisporre, rimettendoli alla valutazione discrezionale del medesimo ed alle possibilità che quello ha di farlo in una data situazione concreta su cui pure avrebbe “giurisdizione” ai sensi dell’art. 1 della CEDU. Va peraltro chiarito che, anche in relazione all’art. 8 della CEDU, l’alternativa tra obblighi positivi e negativi non è talmente rigida da essere “disegnata” in modo netto per una specifica tutela29. Il diritto alla vita di cui all’art. 2 della CEDU impone allo Stato l’obbligo negativo di non uccidere la persona umana se non sussistono ragioni legittime per farlo (ad esempio un conflitto armato), ma richiede pure l’obbligo per lo Stato di predisporre misure processuali adeguate per appurare se sia stata legittima la morte di una persona. La tutela internazionale dei diritti umani si rapporta alla loro dimensione progressivamente transnazionale, evocando l’azione che gli Stati parti degli strumenti pertinenti come la CEDU ed il Patto sui diritti civili e politici devono espletare per assicurarne il rispetto nei pur limitati ambiti entro cui sono in grado di esercitare la loro giurisdizione o la loro influenza. La condotta degli Stati è in questo caso indirizzata e valutata secondo parametri di due diligence perché riferita a situazioni che sfuggono (se del caso, momentaneamente) al loro pieno controllo effettivo30 ovvero che rientrano nella sovranità di altri Stati. Tali indicazioni possono perciò anche spingersi a regolare la condotta di Stati parti verso Stati non parti dei trattati in esame. Lo si ritrova nel “General Comment” n. 14 (2000) del Comitato dell’ONU per i diritti economici, sociali e culturali relativamente al diritto alla salute quale garanti- to dall’art. 12 dell’omologo Patto. Secondo il Comitato, gli Stati che ne sono parti hanno l’obbligo di «respect the enjoyment of the right to health in other countries, and to prevent

27 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sentenza 10 aprile 2007, cit. § 77. 28 C. Pitea, op. cit., p. 304; Corte europea dei diritti umani, sentenza 10 aprile 2007, cit. § 75. 29 Cfr. Corte europea dei diritti umani: sentenza 13 febbraio 2003, Odièvre, ric. n. 4236/98 § 40; sentenza 10 aprile 2007, cit. § 75; 25 settembre 2012, Godelli, ric. n. 33783/09 § 47 («The boundaries between the State’s positive and negative obligations under Article 8 do not lend themselves to precise definition»); sentenza 2 ottobre 2012,Knecht , ric. n. 10048/10 § 55. 30 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sentenza 8 luglio 2004, Ilaşcu, ric. n. 48787/99; Corte internazionale di giustizia, sentenza 26 febbraio 2007, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, § 430; il testo completo è reperibile nel sito www.icj-cij.org. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

466 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione third parties from violating the right in other countries, if they are able to influence these third parties by way of legal or political means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and applicable international law»31. Lo stesso indirizzo è codificato in più strumenti riguardanti le biotecnologie. L’art. 21 § 1 della Dichiarazione UNESCO del 2005 così re- cita: «States, public and private institutions, and professionals associated with transnational activities should endeavour to ensure that any activity within the scope of this Declaration, undertaken, funded or otherwise pursued in whole or in part in different States, is consistent with the principles set out in this Declaration». Il Protocollo del 2005 alla Convenzione di Oviedo del 1997, che riguarda la sperimentazione bio-medica, prende in esame all’art. 29 l’eventualità, tutt’altro che rara, che “sponsors or researchers” soggetti alla giurisdizione di uno Stato parte del Protocollo finanzino o svolgano (pianifichino o dirigano) ricerche anche in uno Stato non-parte: in tale situazione il paese parte deve assumere misure “appropriate” affinché la persona privata soggetta alla propria giurisdizione svolga quelle ricerche “extra-ter- ritoriali” in modo conforme con i “principi” su cui si fondano le disposizioni del Protocollo32. L’obbligo per lo Stato parte di assumere, se necessario, «appropriate measures to that end» si configura, secondo il rapporto esplicativo al Protocollo, in relazione a quei privati «who fall under the authority of the State concerned»33 in base a legami personali effettivi e qualificati, come può essere la sede sociale della società che sponsorizza l’attività di ricerca oppure lo svolgimento nel territorio di quello Stato di attività miranti a dirigere la ricerca in questione34. Poiché il vincolo riguarda il rispetto dei “principi” del Protocollo in aggiunta alle condizioni già previste dallo Stato che ospita materialmente la ricerca35, lo Stato “di origine” della ricerca dovrà configurare nel proprio ordinamento condizioni specifiche per l’attività di ricerca extra-territoriale se, come per il controllo pubblico, quelle non sono previste dal primo Stato ma riflettono per l’appunto “principi” del Protocollo.

31 § 39; il testo completo è reperibile nel sito: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CESCR. 32 Secondo il rapporto esplicativo del Protocollo del 2005 (§ 138), «the term “principles” implies that while it may be impracticable to implement all the detailed provisions contained in this Protocol when a research project is carried out in a State that is not party to the Protocol, it is nevertheless mandatory to observe the principles that those provisions develop. … This does not imply that a body in the State Party to the Protocol has the authority to approve research in the non-Party State if that State does not approve the research, or to override its regulations. However, researchers from the Party State may be required to observe additional conditions, in accordance with the principles on which the provisions of this Protocol are based, to those applicable in non-Party States». L’orientamento si riscontra anche in altri campi affini, come il già ricordato (supra § 1) Protocollo di Cartagena del 2000 annesso alla Convenzione di Rio del 1992 sulla diversità biologica, il cui “sistema” non si applica al materiale genetico umano: Conference of Parties (COP), decisione II/11 § 2 (1995). L’art. 24 del Protocollo stabilisce che «Transboundary movements of living modified organisms between Parties and non-Parties shall be consistent with the objective of this Protocol. The Parties may enter into bilateral, regional and multilateral agreements and arrangements with non-Parties regarding such transboundary movements». 33 Explanatory Report, par. 139. 34 Ibidem. 35 Explanatory Report, par. 138. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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3. Il diritto all’autodeterminazione della persona umana Questo quadro di regole definite a livello internazionale converge gradualmente verso la formazione di norme consuetudinarie di portata generale. Ne è manifestazione il diritto all’autodeterminazione della persona umana per ciò che riguarda in particolare l’applicazione sul proprio corpo di ritrovati bio-tecnologici. La sua genesi si ritrova nell’art. 8 della CEDU, che nell’interpretazione evolutiva della Corte europea dei diritti umani garantisce il diritto dell’individuo a vedersi rispettata sia la propria vita privata che le scelte sul relativo “sviluppo”, a prescindere dalla sua “contestualizzazione” in un ambito familiare36. Questo diritto alla “personal autonomy” costituisce una manifestazione della persona umana37 ed include il diritto di stabilire e sviluppare anche rapporti “with other human beings and the outside world”38. Il contenuto di questa autodeterminazione individuale non è di per sé “tipicizzabi- le”, dal momento che, come sottolinea la stessa Corte europea dei diritti umani, «the notion of “private life” within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention is a broad concept which does not lend itself to exhaustive definition»39. Il diritto all’autodeterminazione individuale riflette scelte sulla vita privata che lo Stato deve rispettare anche rispetto a profili che non rientrino direttamente nella sfera di garanzia materiale dell’art. 8 della CEDU40. Non si tratta di un obbligo puramente negativo, poiché lo Stato ha l’obbligo positivo di mettere l’interessato nella condizione di poter esercitare in piena consapevolezza la propria scelta41. Proprio a questo fine, nel campo bio-medico si è sviluppato il vincolo dello Stato ad osservare il principio del “consenso informato” quando si tratta di applicare all’interessato trattamenti terapeutici risolutivi per affrontare e possibilmente risolvere determinate patologie (art. 5 della Convenzione del 1997). L’obbligo di assicurare una piena informazione dell’individuo in relazione a trattamenti medici di qualunque natura è sancito puntualmente dall’art. 7 del Patto sui diritti civili e politici, sia pure per evitare torture o maltrattamenti. Lo stesso principio deve valere come si vedrà nell’ipotesi in cui il trattamento bio-medico sia finalizzato al potenziamento della persona umana, tanto più se suscettibile di determinare effetti irreversibili. Il diritto all’autodeterminazione della persona umana non è però assoluto ancorché sup- portato dal (pieno) consenso informato rispetto a determinati interventi sul proprio corpo. È lo stesso diritto internazionale a porre limitazioni quando richiama valori quali “integrità” e “dignità” della persona umana. Si tratta di valutazioni certo etiche che però si traducono in divieti giuridici quando – come nel caso della clonazione – si vuole deliberatamente evitare un fenomeno ampiamente praticato nel mondo animale e vegetale senza che ciò dia luogo ad una differente valutazione circa l’appartenenza del prodotto locale alla sua specie “naturale”42.

36 Per la puntuale distinzione tra i due profili, Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 13 febbraio 2003, Odièvre, ric. n. 42326/98 § 28. 37 A. Sassi, Autodeterminazione e consenso informato tra diritto interno e fonti europee, in Diritti, principi e garanzie sotto la lente dei giudici di Strasburgo, a cura di L. Cassetti, Napoli, 2012, p. 313. 38 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 10 aprile 2007, cit. § 71. 39 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 19 luglio 2012, Koch, ric. n. 497/09 § 51. 40 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 20 gennaio 2011, Haas, ric. n. 31322/07 § 50; sent. 19 luglio 2012, cit. § 65 ss. 41 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 19 luglio 2012, cit. § 52. 42 Cfr. The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, cit., p. 159 ss.; più in File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

468 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione

4. L’ambito (circoscrivibile) di tutela internazionale per il “fruitore” della bio-tecnologia Il diritto individuale all’autodeterminazione – ancorché informato – riguarda tuttavia scelte che devono misurarsi con il quadro complessivo di valori garantiti dalla stessa CEDU. Talora il contrasto è netto. Ad esempio, la Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo esclude – al momento - che l’art. 2 della CEDU tuteli il diritto al suicidio, in altri termini non vi è – anche per l’assenza di una convergenza degli Stati parti - una libertà completa di scelte della persona umana su tale valore43. La Corte spiega questa limitazione con la stessa natura del diritto alla vita che è un valore assoluto, rectius un “diritto”, sulla cui disponibilità non vi sono i margini previsti da norme che invece garantiscono libertà44. E difatti la Corte ha riconosciuto che il profilo “negativo” operi nel campo della libertà religiosa, della libertà sindacale o dello stesso diritto alla democrazia rappresentativa consentendo appunto di non credere in alcuna religione, di non associarsi ad alcun sindacato ovvero di non esprimere il proprio “diritto” di voto. Ai sensi dell’art. 8 della CEDU esistono vasti margini per l’individuo di “qualificare” lo sviluppo della propria vita, o meglio la propria identità personale. Valorizzando questa esigenza, la Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo ha tra l’altro ricondotto all’art. 8 il diritto dell’individuo a conoscere la propria identità biologica45 e il diritto al transessualismo46. Non si tratta però di una facoltà illimitata. Il Protocollo del 1998 stabilisce il divieto di clonazione di esseri umani; lo stesso divieto è ribadito dall’art. 3 della Carta UE dei diritti fondamentali. Il tono incondizionato di questa prescrizione riflette un valore assoluto da difendere a tutela dell’integrità dell’essere umano. Proprio per la natura di questo limite non sembra che sia vietata l’attività del ricercatore che, per potenziare la propria e l’altrui vita, realizzi un automa, anche se la sua composizione sia in parte cellulare. Si potrebbe pensare, ragionando in termini piuttosto futuribili, ad una creatura in parte meccanica ma funzionale alla “produzione” di tessuti ed organi destinati ad essere impiantati sull’uomo47. Ma si potrebbe anche creare un automa senziente (e sensitivo), generale: K. L. Macintosh, Human Cloning. Four Fallacies and Their Legal Consequences, Cambridge, 2013. 43 Corte europea dei diritti umani: sent. 20 gennaio 2011, cit. § 54 ss.; sent. 19 luglio 2012, cit. § 70. Sulla prospettiva personalista della Costituzione italiana e le sue diverse “letture”: F. Faenza, Profili penali del suicidio, in Trattato di biodiritto, Il governo del corpo, a cura di S. Canestrari, G. Ferrando, C.M. Mazzoni, S. Rodotà, P. Zatti, vol. II, Milano, 2011, p. 1808 ss. E tuttavia non si possono trascurare le interazioni tra CEDU e “sistema Oviedo” (supra, nota 15). Così il diritto alla vita non può essere assoluto dovendo rispettare il divieto di trattamenti umani e degradanti (Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights, cit., p. 391), tra cui non possono essere elusi gli accanimenti terapeutici vietati dalla Convenzione del 1997 in quanto prescindono dal consenso della persona che subisce i relativi interventi. 44 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 29 aprile 2002, Pretty, ric. n. 2346/02, § 39. 45 Corte europea dei diritti umani: sent. 13 febbraio 2003, cit., §§ 29 e 44; 20 dicembre 2007, Phinikaridou, ric. n. 23890/02 § 45; 25 settembre 2012, cit., § 47 ss. 46 Supra. 47 Sulla combinazione tra materia organica ed inorganica: Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, Comitato nazionale per la bioetica, Nanoscienze e nanotecnologie, 9 giugno 2006, p. 24; il testo completo è reperibile su: http://www.palazzochigi.it/bioetica/testi/Nanoscienze_Nanotecnologie.pdf. In questa ipotesi, stabilito se il prodotto unitario sia brevettabile in quanto processo “sintetico”, si tratterebbe di valutare se le parti umane siano scomponibili dal prodotto unitario ed attratte da una valutazione File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 469 in altri termini un robot che non sia un semplice artefatto ma esso stesso artefice cosciente del proprio volere48. È ancora (ma per quanto?) prematuro affrontare la questione di una “digni- tà” del robot quale soggetto giuridico distinto dal suo artefice (e non suo “bene”) benché non lo si potrebbe inquadrare nella categoria definitoria di “essere umano”49. Senza però entrare nel merito di un “diritto alla vita” per il robot senziente, la sua costituzione e composizione bio-meccanica non è di per sé estranea al presente campo di indagine per il possibile impatto dell’autonoma sul “bene” collettivo dell’integrità dell’essere umano50.

5. Limiti internazionali al diritto di autodeterminazione per il potenziamento bio-tecnologico della propria persona L’integrità dell’essere umano limita il diritto di autodeterminazione prefigurabile ai sensi dell’art. 8 della CEDU, ma se ne deve stabilire la portata. Al riguardo va tenuto presente che il diritto allo “sviluppo” della propria vita privata di cui all’art. 8 non pone concettualmente differenze tra l’autodeterminazione dell’individuo a modificare il proprio sesso e un’analoga autodeterminazione che miri a creare condizioni irreversibili di potenziamento della propria persona attraverso l’ausilio bio-tecnologico. In entrambi i casi la tecnologia sovviene a sostegno di scelte individuali non supportate da considerazioni di necessità patologica51. L’art. 8 tutela anche la seconda tipologia di scelte52, ma in modo compatibile con il sistema complessivo di garanzie della CEDU. I limiti al riguardo dipendono dall’impatto che le scelte individuali possono avere a più livelli: sullo stesso individuo che le pratica, su altri individui che nel presente siano a quello variamente collegati o su altri ancora che potrebbero divenirlo in futuro. Nella giurisprudenza più recente l’art. 8 presenta un elevato grado di protezione idoneo giuridica sull’uso “dignitoso” (S. Rodotà, Il corpo “giuridificato”, in Trattato di biodiritto, Il governo del corpo, cit., vol. I, Milano, 2011, p. 56) e – se del caso – avulso dal profitto (art. 3 della Carta dell’UE sui diritti fondamentali). 48 Cfr. F. Grigenti, Ambivalenza prometeica e nanotecnologie, in Forme di responsabilità, regolazione e nanotecnologie, a cura di G. Guerra, A. Muratorio, E. Pariotti, M. Piccinini, D. Ruggiu, Bologna, 2011, p. 27 s. Sul c.d. “post-umano”, vedi S. Rodotà, Il diritto di avere dei diritti, Roma-Bari, 2012, p. 341 ss.; Id., La vita e le regole. Tra diritto e non diritto, Milano, 20122, p. 73 ss. 49 Sulle questioni definitorie, L. Olivieri, Persona ed essere umano: spunti per una nozione giuridica di persona alla sfida delle biotecnologie, in Bio-tecnologie e valori costituzionali. Il contributo della giustizia costituzionale, a cura di A. D’Aloia, Torino, 2005, p. 435 ss. La maggiore riserva rispetto alla considerazione “umanista” del robot è costituita dalla presunta assenza di “libero arbitrio” dell’autonoma senziente, che sarebbe sempre espressione di processi “automatici” indotti. Varrebbe però osservare che l’autonoma, se non ha meccanismi inibitori, ha molte più alternative “matematiche” tutte parimenti attivabili mentre la persona umana ha meno scelte concrete da compiere pur in un quadro di libero arbitrio “assoluto”. Si può peraltro aggiungere che, in assenza di inibitori e sempre che non si riesca a introdurre nel robot indicatori di emotività, l’automa opera sulla base di “pura” razionalità (matematica), là dove la persona umana può anche divergere da una razionalità “oggettiva”: in questa “variabile” l’essenza del libero arbitrio resta solo prerogativa umana. 50 Infra. 51 È il caso delle terapie geniche: C. Faralli, S. Zullo, Terapia genica e diritti della persona, in Trattato di biodiritto. Il governo del corpo, cit., vol. II, p. 520. 52 L. Tomasi, Art. 8, in Commentario breve alla Convenzione europea …, cit., p. 299 s. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

470 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione a sacrificare altri profili pure garantiti dalla CEDU. Così nel diritto alla propria vita familiare l’art. 8 include il diritto ad avere figli anche, se necessario, mediante tecniche di fecondazione assistita che lo Stato ha l’obbligo positivo di assicurare53. Ma nell’art. 8 rientra anche il “diritto negativo”, vale a dire quello di non avere figli. Perciò la Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo fa rientrare nell’art. 8 il diritto di aborto come manifestazione legittima di autodeterminazione della madre: il diritto alla propria vita privata e a un determinato “modello” di vita familiare finisce così col comprimere un potenziale diritto alla vita dell’embrione o del feto soppresso di modo che non ne sussiste il diritto alla vita nei termini dell’art. 2 della CEDU54. Nonostante le implicazioni radicali riconosciute dall’art. 8 al diritto individuale di autodeterminazione sulla propria vita, le relative determinazioni conoscono un primo limite se idonee a privare in modo irreversibile la capacità di autodeterminazione del soggetto che intende fruire del “potenziamento” bio-tecnologico55. In altri termini, il diritto al rispetto della vita privata della persona umana non può spingersi - per la CEDU e strumenti ad essa coordinati quali quelli contenuti nel “sistema Oviedo” - fino al punto da consentire impianti bio-tecnologici che impedirebbero allo stesso individuo di esprimere in futuro altre autonome scelte. Proprio per la natura del “bene” protetto – il diritto individuale sul proprio modello di vita – la CEDU non ne può legittimare atti concreti di disponibilità che pregiudicano in nuce la stessa capacità di autodeterminazione. Per le stesse ragioni la Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo esclude – come si è visto - il diritto al suicidio che altrimenti annullerebbe il valore del diritto alla vita ineludibile presupposto per il godimento di altri diritti56 ovvero autorizza limitazioni anche radicali ai diritti politici e all’attività di formazioni partitiche se tali limitazioni sono necessarie per preservare l’esistenza dello Stato democratico che costituisce l’unico modello costituzionale compatibile con il godimento effettivo dei diritti garantiti dalla CEDU57. Una seconda tipologia di limitazioni discende dalla dimensione relazionale dell’essere umano. La Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo asserisce che l’art. 8 tutela «to a certain degree the right to establish and develop relationships with other human beings»58. Nella logica della persona umana come “animale sociale” la CEDU legittima iniziative limitative della sfera di libertà quando si tratta di preservare l’interesse generale della stessa collettività umana59 ovvero nel caso in cui – ai sensi dell’art. 17 – vi sia un “abuso di diritto” per gli effetti pregiudizievoli derivanti dall’esercizio di un proprio legittimo diritto nella sfera altrui. Le limitazioni indicate non escludono forme di autodeterminazione individuale diver-

53 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 2 ottobre 2012, cit., § 54. 54 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 10 aprile 2007, cit., § 54. Sull’interesse primario della madre, vedi anche Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights, cit., p. 389 ss. 55 «Le nanoparticelle auto-replicanti potrebbero agire con lo stesso sistema di funzionamento del virus di un computer: attivarsi automaticamente e diffondersi fino a distruggere gli elementi basilari per il funzionamento» (Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, Comitato nazionale per la bioetica, op. cit., p. 13). 56 Supra. 57 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 13 febbraio 2003, Refah Partisi, ric. n. 41340/98. 58 Sent. 16 dicembre 1992, Niemietz, ric. n. 13710/88 § 29. 59 Per la Commissione EDU, «the claim to respect for private life is automatically reduced to the extent that the individual himself brings his private life into contact with public life or into close connection with other protected interests» (decisione 12 luglio 1977, Bruggemann, ric. n. 6959/75 § 56). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 471 genti radicalmente dal modello convenzionale di coesistenza tra esseri umani, come la scelta di vivere da eremita. L’autodeterminazione individuale può al più sollevare in tali casi l’esigenza di un controllo diretto sulla persona se la sua condotta, senza che si tratti di un “fuori legge”, sia suscettibile di determinare un pericolo sociale. La CEDU prende in esame (art. 5 § 1) la figura del “vagabondo” o altre categorie affini quali l’alienato, l’alcolizzato o il tossico- mane: lo scopo non è quello di “criminalizzare” questo tipo di scelte ma di giustificare misure limitative della libertà personale degli individui che l’abbiano compiute per proteggere interessi di natura generale come il possibile propagarsi di una malattia contagiosa di cui la persona sia portatore. Da questa disposizione appare dunque chiaramente che la CEDU autorizza gli Stati a prevenire e reprimere quelle condotte frutto di una lecita autodeterminazione individuale ma suscettibili di determinare effetti pregiudizievoli per l’intera collettività umana. Lo scenario di “pericolosità sociale” diventa ovviamente ancora più marcato quanta più vasta e profonda risulta la scelta espressa dall’individuo. Lo sarebbe il potenziamento dell’essere umano conferendogli capacità superiori agli altri. Questa sorta di eugenetica in chiave bio-tecnologica creerebbe un essere umano del tutto inedito60 difficilmente compatibile con il principio di non-discriminazione (art. 14 della CEDU) se questo modello di “dignità di vita” non fosse potenzialmente accessibile a tutti gli esseri umani61. Vi è un’ulteriore e più latente conseguenza insita in questo scenario: l’incidenza delle manipolazioni bio-tecnologiche sul DNA umano con riflessi che potenzialmente riguardano l’intero genere umano. L’effetto di tale “autodeterminazione” prescinde dal tipo di procedimento utilizzato, senza quindi che rilevi se il potenziamento si realizzi con un prodotto presente in natura o realizzato in modo sintetico62. Il processo è palese per quanto riguarda le tecniche del DNA ricombinante, così come l’uso di nanobiotecnologie che “non si limitano a fornire nuove opportunità tecnologiche per la produzione di materiali o di sostanze plastiche e chimiche … ma combinano nanomateriali inorganici e molecole organiche, intervenendo nel metabolismo cellulare per condizionare la produzione di molecole o la trasmissione di informazioni oppure per creare nuove strutture cellulari o supporti per la costruzione di nuove molecole complesse o assemblatori di atomi per la creazione di nuovi assetti molecolari. Avremmo insomma l’intenzionale alterazione di organismi viventi attraverso la manipolazione del DNA per creare moleculesize machines (macchine molecolari), congegni che sintetiz- zano pezzo per pezzo una varietà di macromolecole, penetrando e integrandosi nelle cellule degli organismi viventi”63. Non è agevole delineare i confini giuridici sull’impiego di questa tecnologia o di altre affini in combinazione con la componente cellulare “naturale”. Una discriminante possibile è costituita dalla distinzione netta tra ciò che è funzionale a migliorare la salute e ciò che

60 S. Rodotà, Il corpo “giuridificato”, cit., p. 54. 61 «If dignity is inherent to every human being, it applies equally to all» (R. Adorno, What is the role of “human nature” and “human dignity” in our biotechnological age, in “Amsterdam Law Forum”, 2011, p. 56). Sull’argomento vedi C. Campiglio, Eugenetica e diritto internazionale, in Ordine internazionale e valori etici, cit., p. 453 ss. 62 Ciò non impedisce di rilevare sotto altri aspetti l’esistenza di differenze giuridicamente apprezzabili tra i due profili. In materia di brevetti aventi ad oggetto DNA genomico umano isolato v. US Supreme Court, 13 giugno 2013, n. 12–398 Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, in http:// www.supremecourt.gov. 63 Presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, Comitato nazionale per la bioetica, op. cit., p. 11. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

472 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione invece serve solo a potenziare la vita umana. Ma non è semplice fare concretamente questa distinzione64. Si consideri la “manipolazione” dei gameti che avvenga a scopi strettamente terapeutici, nel rispetto del diritto della coppia a divenire genitori di una creatura “sana”. Il percorso che potrà fare la ricerca scientifica e la sua volontaria applicazione ad opera della persona interessata vanno collocati nel quadro di principi giuridici pertinenti già assumibili dalla disciplina internazionale contemporanea che tutela la dignità umana rispetto a determinati trattamenti medici. Lo impone la circostanza che i confini nell’impiego di tali tecniche, secondo che mirate a curare patologie o a potenziare individui sani, sono sempre più labili man mano che ci si avvicina alla “fonte” primaria dell’esistenza biologica: il DNA. Questo tipo di interventi può incidere sul connotato “naturale” della persona umana e sui suoi dati “innati”. Perciò, anche il giudizio di valore sul piano giuridico non dipende necessariamente dal grado di complessità della manipolazione bio-tecnologica sul corpo umano, quanto dalle sue possibili conseguenze.

6. Limiti imposti dal “sistema Oviedo” alle scelte personali È in questo scenario che va considerata la Convenzione di Oviedo del 1997 con i suoi successivi tre Protocolli addizionali. Come già si è detto, il “sistema Oviedo” rappresenta uno sviluppo ed una espansione di principi già sottostanti alla CEDU ed in particolare al suo art. 865. In specie, l’art. 2 § 3 del Protocollo del 2005 ne configura la rilevanza nella dimensione dell’intervento medico sul corpo umano, che include sia l’intervento “physical”, sia «any other intervention in so far as it involves a risk to the psychological health of the person concerned». Il diritto internazionale si fa quindi carico di preservare l’integrità psico-fisica della persona umana e in definitiva la sua stessa “dignità”. Questa dimensione è sottratta ad apprez- zamenti individuali per essere ricondotta ad una valutazione “oggettiva”66. Manca però una piena convergenza di valutazioni tra Stati parti della CEDU sul modo di intendere la “dignità umana” e a fortiori sul modo in cui vada preservata la “dignità” umana in relazione a scelte di potenziamento bio-tecnologico. Se si considera la vita umana un “dono”, finisce inevitabilmente col prevalere il punto di vista strettamente “conservativo” per cui non andrebbero consentiti interventi che alterano i connotati essenziali del “dono”. Se invece prevale il punto di vista “individualistico”, la “biologia non è più un destino”67 di modo che la vita umana (e le sue componenti biologiche) è un “bene” suscettibile di impiego e quindi di disponibilità in forme giuridicamente lecite. La prima posizione imporrebbe una limitazione concettualmente assoluta ai trattamenti bio-tecnologici; la seconda invece consente l’impiego del corpo umano per migliorarlo e potenziarlo68. Esiste però un punto di convergenza tra le diverse posizioni di pensiero, nel senso che gli Stati convergono nel ritenere che “disponibilità” e “potenziamento” del proprio corpo devono

64 Vedi già C. Faralli, S. Zullo, op. cit., p. 521 ss. 65 Supra. 66 Cfr. in proposito E. Pariotti, I diritti umani: concetto, teoria, evoluzione, Padova, 2013, p. 187. 67 S. Rodotà, Il corpo “giuridificato”, cit., pp. 57 e 59. 68 Cfr. in proposito R. Brownsword, Ethical Pluralism and the Regulation of Modern Biotechnology, in Biotechnologies and international human rights, ed. by F. Francioni, Oxford, 2007, p. 46 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

F. Salerno 473 rispettare il diritto all’autodeterminazione della persona interessata dall’intervento, in particolare con la massima informazione possibile sulle possibili conseguenze in modo da rendere l’individuo consapevole della scelta da esprimere ovvero di revocarla in modo tempestivo69. L’obbligo “positivo” è a carico dello Stato il quale deve assicurare un comportamento conseguente da parte di coloro che siano preposti a curare e potenziare il corpo dell’interessato. La questione centrale attiene tuttavia alla tipologia di interventi suscettibili di essere vietati ancorché autorizzati dall’interessato “pienamente informato”. Se si esclude il già ricordato divieto di clonazione di esseri umani (Protocollo del 1998), gli strumenti convenzionali afferenti al “sistema Oviedo” si limitano a stabilire un criterio generale di “ponderazione di valori”: gli interventi bio-medici devono essere rispettosi dell’integrità dell’essere umano (art. 15 della Convenzione del 1997, art. 1 del Protocollo del 2002), dell’interesse generale del genere umano (art. 2 della Convenzione del 1997, art. 3 del Protocollo del 2005), anche per non compromettere i diritti delle generazioni future (12° considerando del preambolo alla Convenzione del 199770 e, in modo più puntuale, art. 16 della Dichiarazione UNESCO del 200571). Da queste enunciazioni trapela chiaramente il c.d. “principio di precauzione” che nel diritto internazionale limita l’impiego di mezzi scientifici e produttivi nell’incertezza delle conseguenze negative – se non dei danni – che ne potrebbero derivare rispetto a beni o interessi che lo stesso diritto internazionale intende proteggere. Questo principio viene appunto evocato nella prassi in esame per preservare l’identità e l’integrità genetica dell’essere umano in una prospettiva inter-generazionale72. Un simile principio non preclude del tutto ricerca, sperimentazione ed applicazione pratica di innovazioni bio-tecnologiche sul corpo umano, ma ne impone una verifica puntuale e costante per non esporre – in base alle conoscenze attuali – la stessa specie umana al rischio di conseguenze pregiudizievoli imprevedibili73. L’indicazione si allaccia ad altri settori del diritto internazionale nei quali sono ben presenti diritti delle generazioni future (appunto, la quarta generazione dei diritti dell’uomo74), richiamando la responsabilità degli Stati al riguardo. La rilevanza ormai incontroversa, nel

69 Art. 5 della Convenzione di Oviedo del 1997 nonché il rapporto esplicativo che l’accompagna: §§ 37 e 38. 70 «Affirming that progress in biology and medicine should be used for the benefit of present and future generations». 71 «The impact of life sciences on future generations, including on their genetic constitution, should be given due regard». 72 Cfr. E. Seng, Human Cloning; Reflections on the Application of Principles of International Environmental and Health Law and their Implications for the Development of an International Convention on Human Cloning, in “Oregon Review of International Law”, 2003, p. 119 ss.; vedi al riguardo anche R. Molanda, Intervenciones genetico sobre et ser humano y derecho penal, Granada, 2006, p. 272. 73 Sulla necessità di ridurre il grado di imprevedibilità: M. Buiatti, Le biotecnologie, Bologna, 20042, p. 126; sull’esigenza del monitoraggio: G. Battaglino, Regolamentazione delle attività biotecnologiche, in Le biotecnologie: certezze e interrogativi, a cura di M. Volpi, Bologna, 2001, p. 89 ss. Non è in questa sede valutata la disciplina internazionale sui test genetici: vedi in proposito l’art. 12 della Convenzione del 1997 («Tests which are predictive of genetic diseases or which serve either to identify the subject as a carrier of a gene responsible for a disease or to detect a genetic predisposition or susceptibility to a disease may be performed only for health purposes or for scientific research linked to health purposes, and subject to appropriate genetic counseling») e soprattutto le rilevanti indicazioni interpretative che emergono dal rapporto esplicativo alla Convenzione (paragrafi 78 ss.). 74 Supra. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

474 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione campo bio-tecnologico del principio di precauzione va però ricondotta alla natura dell’obbligo che così si configura in capo agli Stati75. Si tratta più specificamente di un obbligo “di condotta” che il singolo Stato deve seguire nei limiti dei mezzi di cui concretamente dispone. In sostanza il diritto internazionale apprezza il rispetto in buona fede dell’obbligo se eseguito secondo la diligenza richiesta a quello Stato. Il bilanciamento di questo principio con le aspettative individuali all’affermazione della propria personalità (principio di autonomia) andrebbe configurato nel senso che il primo si flette a favore del secondo quando si attenua o è assente il rischio nella dimensione intergenerazionale. L’applicazione di tale principio deve inevitabilmente osservare stadi diversi secondo che esso rilevi per la ricerca pura, la sperimentazione o l’applicazione dei risultati76. La prima e la seconda sono difficilmente ineludibili nella stessa prospettiva del principio di precauzione, dal momento che una corretta verifica dei rischi inerenti ad una data attività scientifica dipende dal maggiore grado di conoscenza che se ne può avere. Allo stadio attuale della conoscenza scientifica, lo sviluppo della robotica si presenta concettualmente meno inibito di quanto invece avviene per le manipolazioni sul corpo umano, in quanto il primo non presenta diretti e immediati effetti pregiudizievoli sulla prospettiva inter-generazionale. E ugualmente non manca l’esigenza di contenere un possibile impatto negativo dei robot sulla integrità dell’essere umano, tanto da poter qui ricordare le note “tre leggi” di Asimov miranti ad inserire nella programmazione del robot dati inibitori per evitare che la sua condotta pregiudichi il genere umano77. Gli strumenti convenzionali, piuttosto che individuare rigide linee di confine, hanno preferito enunciare parametri “valoriali” di riferimento la cui concreta verifica è rimessa a procedimenti di controllo sociale (art. 16 della Convenzione del 199778), nei quali diventa decisivo il ruolo di organismi pubblici preposti ad operare precise valutazioni sulla legittimità di talune tecniche di intervento bio-mediche. Il controllo sociale va svolto all’interno degli Stati, i quali – come si vedrà nei due paragrafi seguenti – possono determinare limiti puntuali e pratiche “più favorevoli”. Questa ambivalenza può valere sul duplice versante sia del “fruitore” della terapia bio-tecnologica, sia del ricercatore che deve “scoprirla”. Rientra pertanto in un ampio margine di apprezzamento degli Stati individuare in modo “pubblico” obiettivi della ricerca e relative applicazioni pratiche in relazione a forme legittime di potenziamento umano. Il modello nazionale va ricavato da diversi indicatori che prefigurano il tipo di condotta che lo Stato segue: dai principi costituzionali alle pratiche cliniche definite e consentite79.

75 Per una ricostruzione di questo principio, vedi M. Purdue, Integrated Pollution Control in the Environmental Protection Act 1990: A Coming of Age of Environmental Law?, in “Modern Law Review”, 1991, p. 535 ss. 76 Sulla distinzione tra ricerca scientifica e brevettabilità a fini commerciali dei relativi risultati, vedi Corte di giustizia dell’UE, 18 ottobre 2011, causa C-34/10, Brüstle § 40; per un commento cfr. S. Vezzani, Invenzioni biotecnologiche e tutela dell’ordine pubblico e della morale nel diritto europeo dei brevetti: il caso Brüstle, in “DUDI”, 2012, p. 447 ss. 77 Cfr. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tre_leggi_della_robotica. 78 Nella Comunicazione della Commissione CE su Verso una strategia europea a favore delle nanotecnologie (Bruxelles, 12.5.2004, Bruxelles, 12 maggio 2004, COM(2004) 338 def.), si ritiene «indispensabile che lo sviluppo delle nanotecnologie sia trasparente, tracciabile e verificabile secondo i principi democratici» (§ 3.5.1). 79 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 10 aprile 2007, cit., § 39. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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7. Motivi di interferenze legittime delle autorità nazionali in base alla clausola di salvaguardia L’amplissimo margine di apprezzamento degli Stati parti sul rispetto della vita privata non si traduce nella loro piena libertà di operare ogni genere di iniziative, tanto preclusive che permissive. Nella misura in cui determinazioni del genere afferiscono alla sfera di rispetto della vita privata, il diritto europeo pone in essere una serie di criteri-guida che vanno comunque addotti a giustificazione di qualunque tipo di iniziativa. Tali criteri vanno coordinati ed integrati alla luce del principio di precauzione. Ne discende un coordinamento a livello di regole generali, o se si preferisce di “principi”, che è suscettibile di essere diversamente percepito nei singoli ambiti nazionali. Lo consentono le stesse regole in giuoco ampiamente disposte ad essere flessibili in considerazione vuoi del grado di “due diligence” che ciascuno Stato è in grado di predisporre concretamente, vuoi del tipo di sensibilità “etica” che vi si manifesta. Tuttavia, per quanto si innalzi il livello di autonomia degli Stati, questi restano pur sempre all’interno di un sistema di regole internazionali che ne definisce le coordinate normative. L’interferenza dello Stato deve essere giustificata nel rispetto di un interesse generale della so- cietà, in specie considerando le circostanze richieste dall’art. 8 § 2 della CEDU80. Vale a dire che divieti di qualunque genere devono avere anzitutto una valenza normativa (anche se non necessariamente espressi in un atto di legge), né possono essere discriminatori ad esempio, per ragioni religiose81. Vi rientra la normativa penalistica, in specie per dissuadere “gestori” e “fruitori” della bio-tecnologia dal commettere tentativi che ledono l’integrità della persona umana82. Una fattispecie penale del genere potrebbe riguardare sia l’evento in sé (ad esempio, la clonazione), sia la condotta prodromica al suo verificarsi. Deve però essere sempre rispet- tato il criterio di proporzionalità tra effetti della misura e diritto “compresso”. Vi può anche essere il ricorso alla normativa “premiale” per incentivare quelle forme di potenziamento che risultino coerenti con gli interessi generali.

8. Rilevanza e limiti del trattamento più favorevole su base nazionale o sub-regionale Sia la CEDU che il “sistema di Oviedo” prevedono la c.d. clausola del trattamento più favorevole83. Questa fa salva quella legislazione nazionale – o sovra-nazionale – idonea a determinare condizioni più favorevoli. È prassi diffusa nelle convenzioni internazionali sui diritti umani includere una clausola del genere nell’assunto che le regole ivi contemplate configurano una tutela minima comunque dovuta, consentendo che le leggi nazionali o di altra natura elevino liberamente la soglia di tutela essendo logicamente incontroverso che lo standard minimo sia comunque compreso in quello più elevato. Anche il diritto dell’UE (come denotano il 7° considerando e l’art. 2 § 1 della direttiva n. 2010/63 sulla protezione degli animali utilizzati a fini scientifici) conosce tale approccio tanto da riconoscere, nell’ambito di una normativa materiale di armonizzazione, l’opportunità di preservare le normative

80 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 29 aprile 2002, cit., § 68 ss. 81 Corte europea dei diritti umani, sent. 23 giugno 1993, Hoffmann, ric. n. 12875/87 § 30 ss. 82 Sulla funzione “orientativa” del precetto penale: M. Petrone, Biotecnologie e problemi penalistici, in Le biotecnologie: certezze e interrogativi, cit., p. 160. 83 Art. 53 della CEDU, art. 27 della Convenzione del 1997, art. 34 del Protocollo del 2005. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

476 Tutela internazionale e limiti del diritto all’autodeterminazione

“più favorevoli” preesistenti nei singoli Stati membri84. Ma si tratta di un approccio sempre meno incontrovertibile anzitutto perché il parametro di raffronto normativo proprio del diritto internazionale è costituito più da principi che da norme, di modo che la declinazione regolatoria dei primi diventa autonoma e difficilmente rapportabile a considerazioni di maggiore o minore valorizzazione del bene protetto. La valutazione del trattamento più favorevole è resa ancora più problematica dal momento che il diritto internazionale si mostra in modo crescente propenso a definire esso stesso un determinato equilibrio di valori e dunque una loro ponderazione, talché il trattamento più favorevole in ambito nazionale o sovranazionale potrebbe alterare proprio l’assetto stabilito nel vincolo internazionale. Le diverse sensibilità degli Stati parti della CEDU sulla stessa natura della vita umana, se cioè “dono” o “bene”, finiscono inevitabilmente per far inclinare gli stessi su soluzioni tese a privilegiare ora un approccio assolutamente conservativo sulla dignità umana ora un approccio utilitaristico e quindi a bilanciare gli interventi e le interferenze in un senso o nell’altro. Vi è poi da considerare che gli Stati non dispongono di dati certi ed univoci sull’impatto bio-tecnologico: ne discendono conclusioni diverse anche per il ricorso ad autonomi parametri etici. Così, mancando test epidemiologici accertati, non è del tutto condivisa l’affermazione secondo cui i cambiamenti epigenetici siano ereditati o meno dalla generazione futura85. Per queste diverse ragioni, il parametro di “trattamento più favorevole” diventa alquanto equivocabile nei contenuti se non per la parte in cui si raccorda ai principi incontrovertibili asseriti a livello internazionale a tutela della dignità umana. Non sono controvertibili quei criteri che rendono più rigoroso il principio di precauzione limitando la sperimentazione e l’applicazione suscettibile di determinare effetti irreversibili sulla dignità e l’integrità umana, ovvero imponendo procedure di verifiche più rigorose al riguardo.In tal senso è assolutamente pertinente la formula contenuta nell’art. 27 della Convenzione del 1997: «None of the provisions of this Convention shall be interpreted as limiting or otherwise affecting the possibility for a Party to grant a wider measure of protection with regard to the application of biology and medicine than is stipulated in this Convention»86.

84 In base all’art. 2 § 1 della direttiva, «nel rispetto delle disposizioni generali del TFUE, gli Stati membri possono mantenere disposizioni vigenti al 9 novembre 2010, intese ad assicurare una protezione più estesa degli animali che rientrano nell’ambito di applicazione della presente direttiva rispetto a quella prevista nella presente direttiva». Il settimo considerando della direttiva così spiega la disposizione di deroga: «L’atteggiamento nei confronti degli animali dipende anche dalla percezione nazionale e in taluni Stati membri vi è l’esigenza di mantenere norme in materia di benessere degli animali più ampie di quelle approvate a livello dell’Unione. Nell’interesse degli animali e purché ciò non pregiudichi il funzionamento del mercato interno, è opportuno consentire agli Stati membri una certa flessibilità nel mantenere le norme nazionali miranti ad una protezione più estesa degli animali nella misura in cui esse siano compatibili con il TFUE». Sull’argomento, vedi anche R. Bin, Freedom of Scientific Research in the Field of Genetics, in Biotech Innnovations and Fundamental Rights, ed. by R. Bin, S. Lorenzon, N. Lucchi, Milano, 2012, p. 137. 85 Cfr. V. L. Chandler, Paramutation: From Maize to Mice, in “Cell”, 2007, p. 641 ss. 86 Corsivo aggiunto. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law1

Maria Beatrice Magro

Table of contents: A) Biorobotics, brain-machine interfaces and human strengthening: precautionary philosophy and heuristics of risk contrasting. - 1. Neurosciences, behavioural genetics and criminal law. - 2. Distinction between robotics and biorobotics. - 3. Human, physical and cognitive strengthening: man as, and beyond, the machines. - 4. Legal issues: the case of malfunctioning of the bionic limb. - 5. Human strengthening technology and its distinction from the notion of therapy. - 6. The effects of strengthening technologies: effects limited to the individual and effects extended to environment and future generations. - 7. The effects of strengthening technologies (on the individual, on the environment and on future generations) and the condition of “double epistemic uncertainty”. - 8. Ethical uncertainty: the ethical debate between supporters and detractors. - 9. Scientific uncertainty and the model of regulation. The precautionary principle and the heuristics of risk aversion. - B) Robotics, drones and Artificial Intelligences. - 1. Robotics and (strong or weak) Artificial Intelligence: no difference between robots and the human mind? - 2. Intelligent robots equipped with autonomy to decide. The use of artificial agents in complex organisational- decisional procedures. Fields of application. - 3. The original problem: what is intelligence? The strong A.I. and Turing’s “imitation game”. a) The intelligence as behavioural reactivity. - 4. The confutation of Turing: Searle’s “Chinese room” experiment. The weak A.I. and Intelligence as intentionality and “understanding” of meanings. - 5. Common sense and the sphere of emotions. - 6. The ontological charter of machines and the problem of legal liability for/of intelligent robots’ action. - 7. Criminal liability profiles: the imaginary hypothesis of robots as criminally liable non-human agents, new subjects of criminal law. - 8. If robots are means and not agents. The hypothesis of criminal liability of the programmer or user. - 9. The problem of the predictability of the conducts of intelligent robotic systems. - 10. The liability of the programmer.

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

478 Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law

A. Biorobotics, brain-machine interfaces and human strengthening: precautionary philosophy and heuristics of risk contrasting

1. Neurosciences, behavioural genetics and criminal law In the field of neurosciences, great interest has been raised by the recent studies on molecular biology and behavioural genetics which, acknowledging that the volitional process has a biological basis, aim at studying the influence of the genetic heritage on the behaviour and personality of human beings. In particular, it is held that the presence in the individual of a certain kind of genes, such as the MAOA, meaning that, although in probabilistic and risk-percentage terms, the subjects who have this kind of genes, in particular if they are exposed to stressful situations, have an higher chance to adopt that behaviour. These scientific discoveries dissolve a well-established cultural prejudice in the Western culture: Cartesian dualism that postulates the separation between body and soul, between mind and brain, between rex extensa and res cogitans, or in the most modern formulations, the «property» dualism à la Karl Popper, who stated that body and mind are made of the same matter, but they have different properties. It must be said that rigorous and infallibly reductionist biodeterminist approaches and interpretations are rejected even by the strongest supporters, on the basis of the evidence according to which identical brains do not exist and, consequently, identical persons with an identical behaviour do not exist, and that both neurosciences and behavioural genetics do not acknowledge any scientific experimentation models on human behaviour. The human genome-mapping project proves how the gene sequence of each person is unique and unrepeatable, avoiding any too machinelike conception of our life. However, the discovery of a biochemical base of the decision-making process, together with the philosophical mind studies, brings into question important cornerstones of Western culture and influences important categories of criminal law and procedure. These new scientific methodologies and discoveries enter the criminal trial and call for a reflection about substantial categories: the category of imputability and, even before, the concept of free will, come to play2. Freedom is

2 It is necessary to recall the well-known Libet’s experiment that demonstrates that the individual who acts is conscious of its decision to move a limb only after the brain activated itself to start the movement; the consciousness of an action begins about half a second after the “readiness potential” is set; the volitional process starts subconsciously and the action starts before the individual gains consciousness of it. According to Libet, free will does not depict a voluntary decision-making process, but expresses itself by controlling the result; therefore “conscious and voluntary decisions” are not determinations to action, but conscious veto functions as opposed to impetuses with of instinctive and biological nature. On this issue, from a penal point of view, see A. Manna, Diritto penale e neuroscienze: un’introduzione, in Diritto penale e neuroetica, edited by O. Di Giovine, Padova, 2012, p. 3; M. Ronco, Sviluppi delle File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 479 interpreted as a limited, weak, ever-changing notion and the concept of free will itself is intended as the result of three different levels: the genetic makeup, its psychophysical development, the environmental influence. The decision-making process does not proceed in accordance to algorithmic and deterministic physics, but abides by unknown laws that operate through “jumps” and “gaps” that break causal determinism.3 From this acknowledgement a concept of self determination as a “veto power”, as a capability to moderate compulsive behaviour, has been developed, therefore a “social” and “adaptive” concept of free will, that is a result and outcome of a rational process of cultural influence, an interaction between genetic and environmental elements that work on different levels. This results in a definition of the ability to take action as an ability to control motor impulses and of the ability to understand as comprehensive of empathy, moral thinking and counterfactual reasoning; thus, a different understanding of the categories of intent and negligence arises, corroborating that conception of culpability in a normative sense, other than that of culpability in the psychological sense, which seems to be more entrenched on a biological substratum; there are also important effects on the measure and on the function of punishment whereas the general preventive conception of punishment expresses a function of inhibition, cultural orientation and veto that has a neurological effect on the control functions; moreover, these studies are useful to assess the capacity to be a party to legal proceedings and the declaratory evidence; with regard to some categories of crimes concerning drug addiction, the acquisitions of neurosciences allow to conveniently manage special-preventive functions, in the phase of the execution of punishment.

2. Distinction between robotics and biorobotics The field of robotics and biorobotics is by definition inter-disciplinary, as computer science, engineering, electronic mathematics, neurosciences and biology researches converge in it. Robotics also encompasses the study of Artificial Intelligence, that is, the making of machines capable of feeling, of adapting themselves to the environment, of learning, of evolving and even “capable of empathy”. These machines have the following characteristics: they are interactive, reactive to the environment and they act in an autonomous, unpredictable, non-predetermined, flexible and neuroscienze e libertà del volere: un commiato o una riscoperta?, in Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., p. 57; M. Bertolino, L’imputabilità penale fra cervello e mente, in Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., p. 83. 3 J.R. Searle, The Mystery of Consciousness, in “The New York Review of Books”, 1998, p.65. Searle identifies at least three gaps in the human decision-making process: 1) between the possible decisions and the chosen one; 2) between decision and action 3) between the start of the action and the continuation of the action. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

480 Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law easily influenced way, thus, they are given with autonomy, adaptability, inasmuch as they are able to improve their own performances. The most topical and practically relevant aspect of robotics concerns biorobotics, that is the combination of robotic parts within the human body (wearable computers, computer implants in the body, artificial bionic limbs, human-machine interfaces and the strengthening of human attentive and mnemonic capabilities through brain implants on healthy individuals for medical or ameliorative purposes). The interrelation between man and machine follows two different paths: in the first one, concerning bionics and biorobotics, the man incorporates the machine in the second one, regarding robotics and artificial intelligences, the machine tends to reproduce human features. A new aspect is that of synthetic biology, or the use of new technologies in wich natural and synthetic molecular components are combined together and reorganised so to create genetic circuits and therefore new organisms (so-called artificial neural networks). Biorobotics consists in the phenomenon of man-machine hybridization or in the graft in the human body of electronic storage devices, hardware, software inner brain computers and robots for therapeutic and strengthening purposes, directly controlled by brain activity, through electrodes stably implanted in the brain. The surprising element, which distinguishes man-machine hybridization from other non- cybernetic prostheses, is precisely the interaction between nervous system, cerebral impulses and the prosthesis’ animation, with the possibility to activate not only exiting fluxes (brain-nerve endings-chip-robotic arm), with the aim to control the motion of arm’s prosthesis through cerebral pulses, but also incoming fluxes (robotic arm, chip, nerve endings, brain), with the aim of restoring the subject’s perception of movement. Indeed, biorobotics makes use of the so-called man-machine interfaces: channels that offer the possibility to influence the state of mind or of consciousness of a person and to send out electrical external signals directly to the brain. The bionic limb is able to recognise the will of the subject and to fulfil in real time a motor order of the brain. The interfaces between the human brain and the machine allow to read and use the neural signals associated to the cognitive activity in order to control an artificial limb or the trajectory of a mobile robotic platform4. These bionic researches especially intend to reactivate or substitute lost sense- motor functions, but they pave the way to the strengthening of sense-motor and cognitive apparatuses that are functioning properly.

4 There are also brain-machine interfaces that, by carrying signals to the central or peripheral nervous system of a human being, modify its activity, just as it happens in the case of interfaces used to control tremors in individuals suffering from Parkinson’s disease. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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3. Human, physical and cognitive strengthening: man as, and beyond, the machines The issue of human enhancement concerns the techniques to strengthen both the cognitive-intellectual qualities and the physical qualities (aesthetic, physical or in life expectancy). Cognitive enhancement is defined as amplification, extension or strengthening, internal or external, of mental and neurological systems and processes of storage, organization and elaboration of information. Therefore, it affects perception, attention, comprehension and memory. As cognitive neurosciences advance, the chances of enhancing typically human cognitive capabilities are constantly expanding. Still, until now it was the new computing and computer technologies that generated great performances on the capacity to elaborate information. Hardware and software are able to provide the human beings with cognitive abilities that in many respects overtake those of biological brain. We are used to resort to external hardware in order to strengthen our cognitive capabilities through calculators and personal computers that carry out for us routine tasks in order to make intelligible an amount of data that could not possibly be processed by human perceptual systems. Today the new challenge is to improve human physical and cognitive capabilities and to update them to the computer abilities of machines, in order to overcome the limits of the human brain and body. Electronic storage devices equip our brain with a sort of external extension, allowing us to store everything that we could not store, and to focus on tasks more complex than the storage of information, just like and maybe better than machines.

4. Legal issues: the case of malfunctioning of the bionic limb The emergence of cybernetics and man-machine hybridization raises quite relevant legal issues. Among these issues there is also the (civil and criminal) liability towards third parties for the functioning and the malfunctioning of the results of hybridization of a subject who has bionic parts controlled neurologically. The actual existence of man-machine hybridization phenomena (cyborg) should really make us reflect also on the legal problems connected to the legal regime of liability for harms caused to the hybridized ones and to third subjects. The criminal liability profile, whenever crimes have been committed, raises the following questions: is it possible to affirm if the accident has been caused by a problem of control of artificial limbs on the basis of a scientific reconstruction of the working modes of the bionic limbs? Who should be held responsible for the death of third parties, if it is not possible to ascertain a manufacturing or functioning fault of the biological limb? Can the “action” carried out through an artificial limb be considered “conscious and voluntary”? In that respect, many are the problems, which will be debated later, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

482 Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law concerning the predictability of the outcomes of the bionic intervention and of automatic learning. At the heart of this matter there are the usual issues concerning the boundaries of the disposability of the human body and of physical integrity, interlacing this theme with the distinction between therapeutic treatment (and the connected epistemological status) and non-therapeutic ameliorative treatment.

5. Human strengthening technology and its distinction from the notion of therapy So-called enhancement technologies, that is, biomedical technologies, are not aimed at treating a disease but at enhancing the normal physiological functions of human beings. This gives rise to the problem of distinguishing between medical enhancement, that is, for therapeutic purposes, and pure strengthening, not merely from a practical standpoint, but rather from a bioethical and legal perspective. An intervention aiming at correcting a specific pathology, a dysfunction or a deficiency of the cognitive subsystem can be described as therapeutic. On the other hand, an enhancement is not an intervention needed to remedy to a specific dysfunction. A cognitively enhanced person is someone who has benefited from an intervention that enhances the performances of a subsystem without correcting any peculiarities identifiable as pathologies or as dysfunctions of the subsystem. Enhancement, by definition, goes beyond the aims of medicine and of its epistemological status (consensus, information, disposability of the state of health). This raises serious concerns about its justifying foundation: the therapeutic model benefits from a trust rooted in society, also when it concerns experimental therapies, due to the lack of valuable therapeutic alternatives, to the existence of an informed consent, and proportionally to the chances of success of the therapy, differently from the enhancement technologies that seem to be lacking of that justifying model based on art. 32 of the Italian Constitution5. The point is that it is extremely difficult to trace a conceptual distinction between therapy and enhancement, and one could even maintain that such a distinction lacks of practical importance. Moreover, any therapy entails enhancement: in fact, it is possible to affirm that the goal of medical science is to enhance the human condition. Also the objective meaning of the notion of health, as synonym of a complete (and utopian) well-being, inclusive not only of the physical dimension but also of the psychic one, seems to annihilate the conceptual distinction between therapy and pure non-therapeutic enhancement: the aim of reaching a psychic well-being

5 O. Eronia, Potenziamento umano e diritto penale, Milano, 2013; V.A. Amodio, Sui potenziamenti cognitivi: fra trattamento terapeutico ed effetto dopante. Interrogativi etici e scientifici, in Neuroscienze e persone. Interrogativi etici e scientifici, edited by L. Renna, Ed- Dehoiane, 2010, p. 271; A. Nisco, La tutela penale dell’integrità psichica, Torino, 2012, p.138. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 483 capable of enhancing human relations, work performances and, in general, one’s own personal relationships, is an aim pursued by our Constitution and by scientific evolution, as an instrument of development of the human personality. Therefore, on a practical level there are great difficulties to differentiate between recovery of lost capabilities and expansion of capabilities. The standard of contemporary medicine involves many practices that do not aim at treating diseases or lesions: for instance, preventive medicine, palliative cures, sports medicine, plastic and cosmetic surgery, contraceptive devices and fertility treatments. In addition, it is unclear how to classify interventions that reduce the probability of disease or death: vaccination can be seen as an enhancement of the immune system or, as an alternative, as a preventive therapeutic intervention; similarly, an intervention that slows down the ageing process can be considered both as an enhancement and as a preventive therapeutic intervention reducing the probability of disease and disability6.

6. The effects of strengthening technologies: effects limited to the individual and effects extended to environment and future generations There are typologies of enhancement, such as the implantation of neural cells and biorobotics, that have effect only on those who are directly involved, even if permanently (for instance neural implants, or all the medical or biological operations on phenotypes that are not transmitted to heirs; transcranial magnetic stimulation, which operates by stimulating the cerebral cortex electrically, in this way enhancing motor, coordination and memory performances; biorobotics). Moreover, some enhancers’ technologies have effects that reach out to the environment and that modify the genetic structure of future individuals permanently, as they affect the individual’s genetic inheritance (for example, genetic enhancements). In regard to this typology there are pressing problems of governance and regulation of situations characterised by a deep uncertainty over the consequences of human action from the point of view of their interactions with other individuals and the environment.7

7. The effects of strengthening technologies (on the individual, on the environment and on future generations) and the condition of “double epistemic uncertainty”

6 Amongst the strong supporters of the moral sustainability of human strengthening technologies, N. Bostrom, A. Sandber, Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics, Regulatory Challenges, 2009, in www. nicckbostrom.com; N. Bostrom, J. Savulescu, Human Enhancement Ethics. The state of the Debate, 2008, in www.nickbostrom.com. 7 Comitato nazionale per la Bioetica, opinion Neuroscienze e potenziamento cognitivo farmacologico: profili bioetici, 13 March 2013, www.governo.it/bioetica/pareri_abstract/Enhancement_cognitivo_13032013. pdf. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

484 Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law

The issue of enhancement opens up a new frontier of bioethical debate, raising a series of ethical concerns due to the situation of dual epistemic uncertainty that characterises it. The effect of neurological stimulation on the control of the individual on the cerebral activity is still being investigated and experimentation and no guidelines or scientific models have been experimented and corroborated at a high degree of acceptance and recognition within the scientific community. Therefore, the first level of epistemic uncertainty is a scientific one. In fact, most of such techniques – of which some could be achieved in the future, others are still undergoing the first experimentation – are relatively new, so that there is no certainty or, better, there is no statistical evidence of their possible use in terms of effectiveness, safety, both on the short and long term. On the contrary, we must clarify that at the moment the debate is based more on the promises of genetic engineering than on the actual possibilities of intervention. Also scientific studies on the use of pharmacological therapies are not confirmed by a significant number of clinical cases and, consequently, they are not reliable, which makes scientific literature on the topic very ephemeral. Thus, science is in a condition of uncertainty as regards the possible beneficial effects (both on the short and long term) on the individual and in a condition of total incapability of predicting long-term prejudicial effects on human health in general. The more such technologies are addressed to affect directly the individual’s cerebral and physical skills, sometimes with permanent effects, sometimes with effects limited in time, the more doubts are bound to increase. Science loses its role of knowledge inspiring politics and law and, on the contrary, scientific and technological practices are reasons for uncertainty, since they produce innovations whose side effects can be negative and unexpected, but also beneficial.

8. Ethical uncertainty: the ethical debate between supporters and detractors The second level of uncertainty concerns the assessment, on a moral and ethical level, of the effects on individuals, future generations and environment. This gives rise to the problem of how to evaluate, in ethical terms, the refinement of enhancing techniques. The question is whether the choice of altering our own state of mind, our own body, in order to improve ourselves and our performances, is morally and legally acceptable; whether the authenticity (is the life of an individual who improved his potentialities more authentic?), even before human dignity, is a value endangered by these technologies. Indeed, on a bioethical and philosophical level, the technological evolution calls into question the notions of “human” and “humanity”. On one side, there are the techno-determinists and pessimists, hostile to a world dominated by technology, as opposed to these, on the other side, there are the technocrats, who, on the contrary, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 485 believe in an unlimited supremacy of science. In any case, apart from these contrasts, there is the need to acknowledge that technology causes cultural conditioning, that it solves problems but it creates new ones, that it affects the human vision of the world and interferes with the systems of interpersonal interaction. Technology is not neutral: for this reason it is necessary to deal with the issue of formation, information and responsibility in the use of technologies. The reconstruction of the standards of the definition of the concept of “human” and its possible transcendencies started a few years ago as a process within the field of doping in sports and currently within the field of research and combination of human parts and machine parts, and thus within the creation of cyborgs and hybrids. We should ask ourselves whether it is in our disposability to modify our “natural” equipment of sense-motor and cognitive capabilities through bionic operations. An affirmative response to this question raises in turn questions about the persistence of personal identity, before and after the bionic operation. More specifically: can a modification of mental, sensorial and motor functions, made possible by bionic systems, produce a modification of personal identity? What alterations of the continuity of mental/cerebral conditions of an individual can be acceptable from the point of view of the protection of personal identity? The contemporary philosophical debate on the psychological or physical conditions of persistence of personal identity provides conceptually relevant tools to deal with these ontological issues. The concept of human existence and human identity is interpreted in evolutionist terms. The evolution-enhancement becomes the metaphor of human existence. Within the evolutionary model, what we conceive as human is a mere artefact of a given moment in time. In the current debate supporters who elaborate theories and arguments in defence of enhancements (libertarian theory, utilitarian theory, of the so-called “technophiles”: Nicholas Agar, Allen Buchanan, Nick Bostrom, John Harris, Julian Savulescu) confront detractors or the so-called “bionconservatives”, who analyze the possible threats for the human being and future generations. In this perspective the problem of enhancement is faced within the field of the theories of justice, with a specific reference to the problem of inequality (enhanced/unenhanced), of possible repercussions of the access to enhancement on non-acceptance of disability (considering the constantly growing gap between the dis-abled, the able, the super- able or the enhanced)8. The question is: what will the social consequences be in terms of inequality, of centralisation of power and of technocratic power in the long run? Do these technologies accentuate or create social inequalities or do they reach a target of moral and social improvement? Would disabled people, those who a are less gifted cognitively be even more discriminated compared to enhanced individuals? And if

8 Amongst these: Francis Fukuyama, Leon Kass, Jurgen Habermas, Georige Sandel. In this regard, J. Habermas, The future of Human Nature, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2003; M. Sandel, What’s Wrong with Enhancement, in www.bioethics.gov, 23 December 2002. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

486 Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law these technologies would be available to everybody, would there be the opposite risk of levelling conditions?

9. Scientific uncertainty and the model of regulation. The precautionary principle and the heuristics of risk aversion If we hypothesise that the effects of bionic and biorobotic enhancement are detrimental (to the individual, to future generations and to the environment), or partly beneficial to the individual but detrimental to future generations and the environment, then we must admit that the possible criminalisation of the technologies of biorobotic human enhancement finds its foundation in the classic paradigm of legitimisation of the prohibition to harm third parties or ourselves. However if, as we said, there is a total scientific uncertainty about the harmfulness of those interventions, and their beneficial effects are ascertained only from a physio- psychic point of view, on the individual subject to the intervention. Thus, the hypothetical and possible criminalisation of these technologies in this case would reflect an inversion of the paternalistic paradigm strong and weak: what is good for the human being is prohibited on the assumption that enhancement is a display of trivial reasons. This would go beyond the prohibition to harm others or ourselves: it is a glimpse of a norm of ultra-prudential prohibition that goes beyond the model of justification of strong paternalism and that acknowledges the heuristics of strong precaution. The precautionary principle postulates a strategy of management of risk analysis in situations of uncertainty, complexity of choice and limits of the human knowledge on the possible effects of technology. If interpreted in a strong sense, the precautionary philosophy imposes the rule of total abstention whenever there is any potential risk factor having uncertain consequences of uncertain extent, paralysing any decision not reduced to a nihil agere, until there is no evidence of the total safety of the activity undertaken. If interpreted in a less strong sense, the precautionary principle forces to adopt all the measures necessary to eliminate or contain the risks connected to the execution of an activity, especially when they concern goods of prime importance, like human health or environment. The strong European normative production over the last few years seems to be inspired, in different contexts at risk, to the realisation of a “high level of protection”. The best instrument for achieving such an objective is represented by a progressive extension of the application of the precautionary principle to increasingly wider fields of protection in addition to the original field of environmental protection, making it applicable to matters affecting the protection of human health. The precautionary norm, adopting an heuristics of loss aversion, heads towards a prohibition or restriction of the activity, pushing for the decision that minimises File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 487 the risk of harm, rather than that emphasising the risk of benefits, regardless of any scientific judgment about the chance for the action to reduce or exclude the realisation of the harm. This way, the precautionary principle cautiously forbids what, maybe and later, will turn out to be totally harmless (if not useful and beneficial). The philosophy of thought and of public regulation inspired by the precautionary principle concerns situations in which it is impossible to determine any chance of a specific harm, by entering the moment of risk assessment, or management and risk perception policies and the requests of social safety, therefore unhooking the precautionary intervention from basis of truth-need and guiding it to a choice of protections appropriate for a risk control (which is only presumptively supposed) considered to be at a juridically acceptable level. The application of the precautionary method plays the role of guiding principle for decisions made in conditions of uncertainty, directed towards the prevention of the worst consequences amongst all the available options and towards risk control, when scientific knowledge does not allow to exclude, but neither to prove, the harmful nature of the activity carried out9.

B) Robotics, drones and Artificial Intelligences

1. Robotics and (strong or weak) Artificial Intelligence: no difference between robots and the human mind? The making of machines capable of human-like performances represents one of the most complicated cruxes of science. In this perspective of research is set the regulation of Artificial Intelligence. The expression “Artificial Intelligence” (A.I.) was coined in 1956 by McCarthy during an inter-disciplinary seminar. It stands both for a term and for a discipline, and expresses the idea that every aspect of human intelligence can be reproduced. Even though many, sometimes also contradictory, definitions have been suggested, the feature that combines all of them and characterises the essence of A.I. is to duplicate, reproduce through electronic devices the human brain activity, that is the activity representing the most essential human faculty. Indeed the idea that machines can perform operations typical of human intelligence, or at least some of its functions, dates back from the Sixteenth century and today appears in form of computers, as an incarnation of “thinking machines”.

9 In this regard M.B. Magro, Enhancement cognitivo, biases ed euristiche: politiche di regolazione pubblica e principio di precauzione, in Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., 2012, p.139. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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2. Intelligent robots equipped with autonomy to decide. The use of artificial agents in complex organisational-decisional procedures. Fields of application In complex organisations there are intelligent technological and information systems capable of taking autonomous decisions (decisions that do not require of any explicit authorization by a human being) and that serve as a support to managers especially in the management of high-risk technological infrastructures. Artificial organizations are structures replicating the human ones, within which every intelligent agent, named personoid, has a very specific role (entailing access to information, duties and responsibilities) and activates different decision-making processes. Decision-making is a reasoning activity implying the need to take a choice, caused by an information received; it is an organisational process guided by information, knowledge and preferences in order to reach a predefined goal. Presently A.I. are employed in robotics, that is in the making of intelligent machines capable of interacting physically with the outside world and of handling objects, often equipped with an expert system, namely computational systems provided with a specialized knowledge. But even in the most sophisticated and advanced applications, A.I. showed some fundamental limits that we will analyse later. Areas of application. The areas of application of Artificial Intelligences are the most disparate: from artificial agents and artificial neural networks in the economic field (robots act like intelligent and emotionless economic agents, and therefore they realise the conditions of competitive balance between demand and supply, that is, the model of perfect allocative efficiency), to the creation of service and assistance robots (robot carers). In medical science, with the emergence of minimal invasive surgery, robots are used in the so-called telesurgery. Very wide applications can be found in the military field, with the use of drones as weapons and robot soldiers. In this respect it is important to recall the exhortations of many scientists to forbid the use or to be cautious in using lethal autonomous robots, such as intelligent military systems capable of deciding autonomously, with possible devastating consequences. These robot weapons can trigger lethal weapons without a human intervention in the decision-making process, and, therefore, the international criminal Court declared them illegal.

There are applications in working environments, but also in the domestic environment, like service or recreational robots (an example of this emotional projection-attribution can be by the robot dog Aibo, which Sony stopped producing after having manufactured, between 1999 and 2006, over 150.000 specimens).

Within the teaching environment, intelligent machines capable of “reading” human emotions have been built (so-called affective computing). These cases give rise to problems concerning mainly the protection of privacy and human dignity. Affective computing is a system which has access to several clues of the users’ emotional state, calculated both on biometric data related to emotional responses (perspiration, pupil enlargement and so on), and on the analysis of gestures, postures, and other evident File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 489

behaviours of the subjects. The system evaluates the entirety of this information to understand whether an individual is interested to an argument, whether he is distracted, or whether he is discouraged. On the basis of these assumptions, the system will choose the form of interaction with its user that is contextually more appropriate to facilitate the learning process. It is not possible to exclude that such a system, once developed, will be maliciously used unbeknown to users, with the aim of collecting an emotional profile and to use the emotional responses generated on the basis of the collected information for commercial purposes. We should, therefore, ask ourselves in what circumstance the personal data collection and elaboration by robots is legitimate or it is a threat to the dignity of users, violating their rights to safety and privacy.

Finally, a very important area of application is the employment of A.I. as a technological support in large complex organizations aimed at taking decisions and, in the economic field, even at carrying out economic operations and transactions. In the economic field some object that it is not the ability of the artificial agent to realise the balance of the market, but the implicit intelligence of the mechanism and of the market rules that realise the balance, if not obstructed by external factors10. The debate on A.I. answers to the following questions: can machines think? Is it possible to replicate human intelligence? Can thought take place outside a human cranium? And again: are Artificial Intelligences, as provided with autonomy, subjects capable of really displaying their “own” intentionality and consequently their own acting? Are they subjects capable of expressing decisions and do they have free will? Are they capable of feeling emotions? The basic theoretical paradigm is the mind-computer analogy and the mind- computer isomorphism, which need not to be intended in an ontological-structural sense, but in an analogical and functional sense. Various philosophers of mind of the last fifty years discussed on these issues, opposing a functionalistic approach, which endorses the functions carried out by human mind and machines, as able to carry out symbolic-computational functions to a more incisive and structuralist approach.

3. The original problem: what is intelligence? The strong A.I. and Turing’s “imitation game”. a) The intelligence as behavioural reactivity What are the characters connoting (also non-human) subjectivity? The Turing test, also called “the imitation game”, is used to determine whether a machine is intelligent. The Turing test demonstrates that a computer is not only a computational system (a software plus a possible hardware support) that interacts with the surrounding environment, that reacts to the stimulations of that environment (reactive); capable of taking decisions and, consequently, of acting, autonomously, of reaching a specific predefined or negotiated goal (proactive); capable of communicating (coordinate

10 M. Sundel, Behavior Change in the Human Services, Behavioral and Cognitive Principles and Applications, SAGE Pubblications, 2004. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

490 Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law itself, cooperate, negotiate) with other agents and/or human beings (capability of social interaction). If we assume a conception of intelligence of a behavioural and interactive kind (according to which behaviour is susceptible of analysis and interpretation in terms of behavioural constructions such as stimulus, answer, impulse, saturation), then we could say that calculators and A.I.s obey to psychological laws and they are intelligent agents inasmuch as they manipulate and use symbols in a formal and abstract way. Alan Turing is the founder of the school of thought called strong artificial intelligence that maintains that computing machines are capable of expressing a genuine thought and of generating intellectual processes identical to the human ones11. There would not be any ontological-qualitative difference between human brain and electronic brain and between human intelligence and artificial intelligence, other than that concerning their location and physical support: the human head being made of flesh, bones and other biological materials and the computing structure being made out of metal and energy. An integral part of this functionalistic perspective is the assimilation of brain to hardware (hard material: the mechanical pats) and of mind to software (soft materials: programs and instructions). It is not the structure that matters, but the function regardless of its physical location (brain- machine). Therefore, a computer can be compared with a human being as for its intelligence, if the performances carried out by a computer cannot be distinguished from those carried out by human beings (functionalist theory). In other words: the same software can be realized by different kind of hardware, the biological and the mechanical one12. Let us remember that there are researches aimed at providing robots with artificial emotions and artificial conscience, making them increasingly similar to us. It is possible to say that an artificial agent expresses emotions when it behaves in ways that, in human beings, presume emotions? Emotions are a constitutive and fundamental feature of human beings, inseparable from our other characteristics as they are deeply grafted in our body, meant both as a combination of organs and as a custodian of our identity, of our memories and of our history and experience. Following this perspective, some have even pursued the cognitive purpose to study, through the construction of intelligent machines, the human mind and its operations. Human mind works as a formal and abstract entity and states of mind are qualified by their function and not by their material peculiarity. Therefore it is possible to presume that states of mind are untied from the neural organic

11 A.M. Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in “Mind”, 59, 236, 1950; A.M. Turing, Calcolatori e intelligenza, in D. R. Hofstadter, D. C. Dennett (edited by), L’io della mente, Adelphi, 1985, pp. 61-100. 12 H. Putnam, I robot: macchine o vita creata artificialmente? in Mente, Linguaggio e Realtà, Milano, Adelphi, 1987, pp. 416-438. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 491 system and that the same neural system is reproducible. It has been developed the connective paradigm of “neural networks” and the innovative attempt of cybernetics to artificially reproduce the neural architecture of the human nervous system: if intelligence is a manifestation of neural activity, then the artificial reproduction of that activity would reproduce intelligence. However, supporters of weak A.I. affirm that the construction of robots capable of interacting emotionally obviously does not entail that they have a conscience. These machines do not feel “true” emotions; they do not go beyond a simulation of feelings supported by our projection. Turing machines are psychologically isomorphous to human being, that is, they have an identity as functional organization, but from this fact it is not possible to believe that they have a conscience or an awareness of their acts. To have states of mind detectable ab extra does not mean to own an authentic awareness of actions. Also the use of an anthropomorphic vocabulary when describing characteristics, properties and functioning of Artificial Intelligences and of computerized systems does not concern the machine (the calculator) in itself, but the way we see the machine, and indirectly ourselves13.

4. The confutation of Turing: Searle’s “Chinese room” experiment. The weak A.I. and intelligence as intentionality and “understanding” of meanings The other theory, that of weak artificial intelligence, based on the non-authenticity of mechanic thought and of the ontological diversity between artificial intelligence and natural intelligence, has been supported by many renowned scholars. Pursuant to weak A.I., machines simulate and reproduce only intellectual human processes. They affirm a concept of intelligence as wilfulness (essential dimension of conscience): this characteristic distinguishes some states of mind, like beliefs, desires and intentions and it distinguishes the human being from machines14. The fundamental assumption is the impossibility for a computational machine to express the intentionality that characterizes human beings and, even if in different ways, animals. On the contrary, according to Searle, intentionality is an empirical matter of fact that does not tell much about the causal relations between mind and brain, and allows only to affirm that some cerebral processes exist; however an execution of a program based on a given input is not in itself a sufficient condition for intentionality. The Chinese room test shows that a computer can be an excellent formal manipulator of symbols, but this activity does not include the activity of “comprehension” of meaning

13 On the contrary, Minsky claims the legitimacy/usefulness of the use of anthropomorphic terms. 14 J. Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, W.H. Freeman, 1976. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

492 Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law of that symbols and consequently it does not coincide with human intelligence, which is always intentional and aware. The symbolic-computational system behaves as “if” it would understand Chinese, but it does not reproduce a human activity, it simulates it because it lacks of the conscience of meanings15. Searle takes into consideration the works on the simulation of human capability to understand narrations, which requires a capability to answers to questions concerning information not explicitly given by the narration, but deducible from it using general knowledge. Result: the capability (of a human/of a machine) to handle information received according to well-defined formal rules is not sufficient to explain the process of understanding. It has been claimed the unintentional and, therefore, semantically empty nature of symbols elaborated by an artificial system and, in conclusion, it has been denied that mental processes can be reduced to computational processes operating on formally defined elements. Intelligent robots do not have connection and critique capabilities, in other words they do not have conceptual categories, they lack a thinking self.

5. Common sense and the sphere of emotions Moreover, it is important to point out that robots provided with artificial intelligence and high-specialized knowledge lack, below this level of knowledge, a level of common knowledge, so-called “common sense”, which every human being has without having made any particular studies. Common sense is the sense that allows us to connect different fields of specialized knowledge and to face problems and solve them without the typical rigidity of the symbolic approach of intelligence. Often an intelligent reaction to a particular situation is that which does take into account the context, but which is not able to select which aspect of the context is relevant. This kind of knowledge and approach corresponds to a concept of emotional intelligence oriented toward “common sense”: hence the paradox that machines are capable of reproducing the highest logic rigour but they cannot be programmed on a minimum level of common intelligence (let us not forget Golemann’s studies about the role of emotions in the decision-making process and about emotional intelligence). Conclusion: against functionalists, it is necessary to affirm structuralism. What is important is not the function but the structure, the location where brain activity is carried out and not how it is carried out. Wilfulness is located into the brain; the mind is a causal effect of the brain. Consequently, any mechanism capable of

15 J. R. Searle, Minds, Brains and Programs, in The Behavioral and Brains Sciences, 3, Cambridge University Press, 1980; J. R. Searle, Menti cervelli e programmi in D. R. Hofstadter, D. C. Dennett, cit., pp. 341-375. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 493 generating wilfulness should necessarily have causal powers similar to those of the brain, and that is impossible. The theory according to which programs are not minds implies a stand against the functionalist paradigm and its way to set up the mind-body problem. In fact, the functionalist hypothesis, according to which mind is conceptually and empirically detachable from the brain, is dangerously dualistic: a form of dualism that does not follow faithfully the traditional Cartesian one, which states that there are two categories of substances, but Cartesian inasmuch as what it is specifically mental does not have any intrinsic connection with the properties of the brain16.

6. The ontological charter of machines and the problem of legal liability for/of intelligent robots’ actions Two opposite conceptions originate from the different visions and conceptions of Artificial Intelligence (structuralist and functionalist). According to the structuralist theory, intelligent robots are in any case instrumental objects and therefore, on a moral and juridical level, they are worthy of protection only for their value; according to the functionalist theory, they could be considered as “subjects”, as such worthy, on a philosophical, moral and legal level, of possible protection for their subjectivity. This poses the problem of the ontological theoretical status of the so-called A.I., that is, particularly advanced artefacts: are they only simple objects or do they meet the minimum requirements necessary for a recognition of a certain level of subjectivity17? Therefore, the problem is to determine whether modern technology has created a new type of subject, the non-human subject, a non-human agent that can be addressed with a special declination of the legal language of rights and responsibilities18. Obviously from the answer to these questions descends also the type of ‘law’ and the type of ‘protection’ applicable to these artificial and intelligent systems (in that case they can be subject to protection either under the aspect of penal protection of patents or under the aspect of the protection of assets). Two are the paradigms that in our culture found the expectation of a protection, the value that we suggest to understand as highness-complexity of functions, and/or practical usefulness, and/ or rarity-originality and the subjectivity meant as a growing emotional sensitivity, imagination and creativity, intellection as a logical thought, wilfulness, conscience,

16 Literature about A.I. includes many statements against classic dualism, because it suggests a new dualism pretending to free cognitive processes from the concrete biochemistry of their material origins. G. Fornero, Intelligenza artificiale e filosofia, in N. Abbagnano, Storia della filosofia, vol. IV, Torino, 1994, p. 514. 17 G. Taddei Elmi, Soggettività artificiali e diritto, report available on www.altalex.it. 18 A. Narayanan, D. Perrott, Can computers have legal rights? in Artificial Intelligence. Human Effects, New York, Ellis Horwood, 1884, pp. 52-6. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

494 Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law self-conscience and self-determination.

7. Criminal liability profiles: the imaginary hypothesis of the robots as criminally liable non-human agents, new subjects of criminal law Let’s go back to the basic question: is the robot acting or being acted? Is it, from a legal point of view, an object-instrument or a, even if indirect, subject or a “new” subject? Are artificial Intelligences and intelligent robots provided with an autonomous subjectivity, like collective entities, and therefore are they responsible subjects, imputable and equipped with free will? This hypothesis raises various problems concerning the definition of subjective capacity, of the notion of action, of the notion of culpability: can robots be blamed and motivated? Do they express their own will? May they be considered “offenders” and may their actions be considered aware and voluntary? Therefore, it is all about defining whether these machines are capable of acting and understanding to whom those actions, and the consequences of those actions, can be attributed. This topic presents an analogy with that concerning the administrative and penal liability of collective entities and clashes with an anthropomorphic conception of criminal law: collective entities have no body nor soul, but they are still “subjects”, that is, offenders for the criminal law; robots have a “body”, a matter on which it is possible to enforce a penal sanction (for example, the deactivation of the machine or its destruction), but they do not have a soul, even if they are provided with an autonomous decision-making capability and they are able to interact with the surrounding environment19.

8. If robots are means and not agents. The hypothesis of criminal liability of the programmer or user If we believe that robots are not agents in a strict sense, then we have to face the problem of the all-human liability of the programmer or of the user. How can liability be ascribed to a human being, if we assume that the intelligent computer system is a decision maker? As we said, it is assumed that intelligent robots act in an unplanned and unpredictable way and that this unpredictability raises problems concerning the criminal liability of programmers, manufacturers and users. If robots and Artificial Intelligences are artefacts able to improve the capabilities of human beings, means of support and communication, then there is a inverted problem of penal imputation: the non-human agent acts, while the natural person answers for it.

19 G. Hallevy, The Criminal Liability of Artificial Intelligence Entities- from Science Fiction to Legal Social Control, in “Akron Intellectual Property Journal”, 2010, p. 271. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 495

However, the problem is to identify the subjective title of the charge against the natural person. Excluding the cases of intentional misconduct, because a “voluntary” action of a non-human agent imposes a liability on the human being and because the robot’s action identifies itself with and represents the long arm of the human being, there remains the cases of negligence, identified in a programming, manufacturing, use, maintenance or functioning fault of an intelligent robot20.

9. The problem of the predictability of the conducts of intelligent robotic systems In 1950 Isaac Asimov developed the three fundamental laws of robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. From these laws it is possible to deduce the prohibition of creating robots that do not comply with the three laws by Asimov. However, these three fundamental laws contradict each other: what happens if someone orders a robot to harm a man for the sake of another man? What happens if the commander orders a police robot to arrest a suspect who is resisting the arrest? And moreover what happens if a surgery robot persists on carrying out a lifesaving surgery against the will of a patient? Are the laws of robotics regulating overall the behaviours of robots or is there a margin of unpredictability in their behaviour? The problems of comprehension and predictability of the outcomes of a bionic intervention reveal a particular aspect of our limited capability to predict the behaviour of robotic machines and artificial intelligence. These provisional limitations were primarily discussed in relation to the general formulation of theories of algorithmic undecidability; new cues for an epistemological reflection originate from more recent studies in the field of machine learning. Bionic brain-machine interfaces, to which we hinted earlier, require a training process to classify and identify the neural signals associated to a human cognitive activity. It is not realistic to think to equip a robot with a sufficiently detailed statement of what it has to do or of what it is expected to encounter in the not well-defined spaces of a house, of an office or of other environments where our everyday life flows. For this reason, in order to be sufficiently autonomous and adaptable to take care of an elderly man in his apartment, a robot needs to be capable of learning from experience. But this

20 In civil law the problem concerns the contractual liability for faults and the consequences connected to the planning, construction and use of a robot; and of the tort liability of programmer, constructor and user for the damages cause to third parties and not only to the contract counterparts. The recalled schemes are those regarding legal representation, mandate, insurance contract, certification forms, contractual and tort liability. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

496 Biorobotics, robotics and criminal law requirement has to face the fact that not always automatic learning techniques allow us to understand if a robot has really learnt (or at least it got sufficiently closer to) what we wanted to teach it. This in fact gives rise to problems of evaluation of the results obtained from automatic learning processes by robots. Thus, the epistemological reflection on automatic learning finds place within the more general framework of the problems concerning the predictability of robotic systems’ behaviours21. The studies of formal methods of software verification arise from the need to verify whether for a calculator every execution of a specific program satisfies some fundamental requirements. More recently, these methodologies have been extended to the problem of specifying and verifying the properties of the systems, usually called “hybrids”, which include several types of robotic systems. Some restrictive results obtained with regard to hybrid systems reveal that, in general, these methodologies do not allow to verify whether a robotic system satisfies or not specific spatial or temporal boundaries during the execution of a given task. Thinking robots do not act in a predictable way since their learning capability outlines a space of unpredictability independent from scientific laws. Therefore it is assumed that robots act unpredictably, in a way which is not regulated by strict scientific laws, since Artificial Intelligences are capable of learning, of adapting themselves to the surrounding environment, of deciding and of being creative, which provides them with a quid pluris in comparison to the initial programming. Moreover, the interaction between an open and conditioned learning system typical of Artificial Intelligences and its surrounding environment (asynchronous communication) is often subject to temporal bonds that do not permit to ensure the participation of a human being to the control cycles. Consequently, Artificial Intelligences, drones and intelligent robots cannot be totally controlled by men. There are, therefore, insurmountable problems concerning the establishment of liability within the legal order. The characteristics of these computerized and expert systems is that they are able to react to expected and predictable situations, but not to situations that, not being predictable by a human being, cannot have been foreseen within the program or in the rules built by a human being and constituting artificial intelligence. Is not perhaps their alleged “unpredictability” or action causality – being they machines and not human beings – predictable by the manufacturer who can program a limited series of choices? These are the normative implications of the epistemological considerations about our limited capability to predict the behaviour of a fully-developed artificial agent provided with a margin of creativity and decision-making ability without any

21 U. Pagallo, The Laws of Robots: crimes, contract and Torts, Springer, 2013; M. Durante, U. Pagallo, Manuale di informatica giuridica e diritto delle nuove tecnologie, Torino, 2012. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 497 apparent defect of control, use and maintenance by the manufacturer or by the programmer. 10. The liability of the programmer Sartor holds that the effects produced by the agent refers to the user not because he wanted them but because he relied in a rational behaviour of the agent and because he trusted the intentions of the agent which declared to aim to certain targets22. In terms of criminal law, it is appropriate to refer to the negligence of the programmer, that is, to the lack of diligence for not having predicted, during the programming phase, a similar behaviour of the robot. The abstract and general predictability of future, and not yet identified, harms is connected to liability for negligence, also when all the links of the causal process are not known. Predictability works as a component of negligence, also on the basis of scientific laws not verified by studies nor consolidated, or in the total ignorance of causally explainable scientific laws, with the risk of identifying negligence with precaution and prudentialism. Anglo-Saxon literature speaks about predictability and logical and predictable development, similarly to art. 116 of the Italian penal code which regards the liability of the accomplice for a different, more serious but unwanted event, as long as predictable, and even if all the links of the causal chain of production of the event are not perfectly known. The difference is that the programmer or the user does not contribute to the realization of a base-crime and therefore the rule of versari in re illicita cannot apply, because the conduct of the physical person creates a condition of lawful and tolerated risk. Therefore, there is a need to develop a new normative concept of culpability capable of allowing the elaboration of a concept of “programming negligence”, where it is possible to hypothesise a cause for excluding culpability consisting in the provision of security measures capable to prevent the perpetration of crimes by intelligent robots (basically implementing the three laws of robotics of Asimov), in addition to the classic clauses of exoneration of penal liability for defective products, like for example the improper use of a robot, or the cas fortuit or force majeure.

22 G. Sartor, L’intenzionalità dei sistemi informatici e il diritto, in “Riv. trim. dir. proc. civ.”, 2003, 1, pp. 23-51; Id., Intelligenza artificiale e diritto, Milano, 1996. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale

Maria Beatrice Magro

Sommario: A) Biorobotica, interfacce cervello-macchina e potenziamento umano: filosofia precauzionale e euristica di avversione al rischio. − 1. Neuroscienze, genetica comportamentale e diritto penale. − 2. Distinzione tra robotica e biorobotica. − 3. Potenziamento umano, fisico e cognitivo: l’uomo come e oltre le macchine. − 4. Le questioni giuridiche: il caso del cattivo funzionamento dell’arto bionico. − 5. Le tecnologie di potenziamento umano e la distinzione dal concetto di terapia. − 6. Gli effetti delle tecnologie di potenziamento: effetti isolati all’individuo ed effetti estesi all’ambiente e alle generazioni future. − 7. Gli effetti delle tecnologie di potenziamento (sull’individuo, sull’ambiente e sulle generazioni future) e la condizione di “doppia incertezza epistemica”. − 8. L’incertezza sul piano etico: il dibattito etico tra sostenitori e detrattori. − 9. L’incertezza scientifica e il modello di regolazione. Il principio di precauzione e l’euristica dell’ avversione al rischio. − B) La robotica, i droni e le Intelligenze Artificiali. − 1. La robotica e l’intelligenza artificiale (forte o debole): nessuna differenza tra robot e mente umana? − 2. Robot intelligenti dotati di autonomia decisionale. L’utilizzo di agenti artificiali nei processi organizzativi-decisionali complessi. I campi di applicazione. − 3. Il problema a monte: cos’è l’intelligenza? La IA forte e il “gioco dell’imitazione” di Turing. a) Intelligenza come reattività comportamentale. − 4. La confutazione di Turing: il test della “stanza cinese” di Searle. La IA debole e l’Intelligenza come in- tenzionalità e come “comprensione” di significati. − 5. Il senso comune e la sfera della emotività. − 6. Lo statuto ontologico delle macchine e il problema della responsabilità giuridica per l’agire o dell’agire dei robot intelligenti. − 7. I profili di responsabilità penale: l’ipotesi fantastica del robot come agente non-umano responsabile penalmente, nuovo soggetto di diritto penale. − 8. Se i robot sono mezzi e non agenti. L’ipotesi della responsabilità penale del programmatore o utilizzatore. − 9. Il problema della prevedibilità dei comportamenti dei sistemi robotici intelligenti. − 10. La colpa del programmatore. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

500 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale

A. Biorobotica, interfacce cervello-macchina e potenziamento umano: filosofia precauzionale e euristica di avversione al rischio.

1. Neuroscienze, genetica comportamentale e diritto penale Nell’ambito delle neuroscienze, molto interesse suscitano recenti studi di biologia molecolare e di genetica comportamentale che, riconoscendo una base biologica al processo volitivo, sono volti a studiare l’influenza del patrimonio genetico sul comportamento e sulla personalità dell’uomo. In particolare si ritiene che la presenza nell’individuo di un certo tipo di geni, come il MAOA, esercita un‘influenza sul comportamento criminale, nel senso che se pure in termini probabilistici e di percentuali di rischio, i soggetti che li possiedono, specie se sottoposti ad esperienze stressanti, hanno una probabilità maggiore di svilupparlo. Queste scoperte scientifiche dissolvono un pregiudizio culturale assai radicato nella cultura occidentale: il dualismo cartesiano che postula la separazione tra corpo e anima, tra mente e cervello, tra res extensa e res cogitans o, nelle formulazioni più moderne, il dualismo “di proprietà” alla Karl Popper, secondo cui corpo e mente hanno la stessa materia, ma diverse proprietà. Occorre dire che vengono rifiutati approcci ed interpretazioni rigorosamente e infalli- bilmente riduzioniste e biodeterministe anche dai più accesi sostenitori, sulla base dell’argomento secondo cui non esistono cervelli identici e quindi individui identici che agiscono in modo identico, e che sia le neuroscienze che la genetica comportamentale non conoscono modelli di sperimentazione scientifica sul comportamento umano. Il progetto di mappatura del genoma umano dimostra come la sequenza genetica di ciascun individuo sia unica ed irripetibile. Ciò dovrebbe mettere al riparo da ogni riduzionismo e da una concezione troppo meccanica della nostra vita. In ogni caso, la scoperta di una base biochimica del processo decisionale, insieme a studi di filosofia della mente, mette in discussione importanti caposaldi della cultura occidentale ed incide su importanti categorie del diritto e del processo penale. Queste scoperte e nuove metodologie scientifiche entrano nel processo penale ed impongono un ripensamento delle categorie sostanziali: viene in rilievo innanzitutto la categoria della imputabilità e, a monte, il concetto di libero arbitrio1. La libertà è intesa come concetto limitato, fragile, diseguale nel tempo e il concetto stesso di libero arbitrio è inteso come la risultante di almeno tre livelli: il

1 Occorre richiamare il celeberrimo esperimento di Libet il quale dimostra che il soggetto agente è consapevole della decisione di muovere un arto solo dopo che il cervello si è attivato per avviare il movimento; la consapevolezza dell’azione avviene circa mezzo secondo dopo l’instaurarsi del “readiness potential” (potenziale di prontezza); il processo volitivo si avvia inconsciamente e l’azione inizia prima che l’individuo ne acquisti consapevolezza. secondo Libet il libero arbitrio non descrive un processo decisionale volontario, ma si esprime nel controllarne il risultato; quindi le “decisioni coscienti e volontarie” non sono determinazioni all’agire, ma funzioni coscienti di veto rispetto ad impulsi di natura istintiva e biologica. Sul tema, sotto il profilo penalisticoA. Manna, Diritto penale e neuroscienze: un’introduzione, in Diritto penale e neuroetica, a cura di O. Di Giovine, Padova, 2012, p. 3; M. Ronco, Sviluppi delle neuroscienze e libertà del volere: un commiato o una riscoperta?, in Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., p. 57; M. Bertolino, L’imputabilità penale fra cervello e mente, in Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., p. 83. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 501 corredo genetico, il suo viluppo psico-fisico, l’influsso ambientale. Il processo decisionale non si muove secondo la fisica algoritmica e deterministica ma risponde a leggi sconosciute che funzionano per “salti” e “lacune” che spezzano il determinismo causale2. Da questa presa d’atto si elabora un concetto di libero arbitrio come “potere di veto”, come capacità di inibire il comportamento impulsivo, quindi un concetto “sociale” e “adatti- vo” di libero arbitrio, ovvero frutto e risultato di un processo di condizionamento culturale, razionale, una interazione tra componenti genetiche ed ambientali che operano a diverso livello. Ne deriva una definizione della capacità di volere come capacità di controllare l’impulso motorio e della capacità di intendere come comprensiva di empatia, di pensiero morale e di ragionamento controfattuale; ne discende una diversa comprensione della categorie del dolo e della colpa avvalorando quella concezione della colpevolezza in senso normativo, oltre quella della colpevolezza in senso psicologico, che sembra più radicata su un sostrato biologico; ripercussioni importanti vi sono anche a livello di commisurazione della pena, e di finalità della pena, laddove la concezione general preventiva della pena esprime quella funzione inibitoria, di orientamento culturale e di veto che agisce a livello neurologico sulle funzioni di controllo; ancora, tali studi sono proficui al fine della valutazione della capacità a stare in giudizio, della valutazione della prova dichiarativa; rispetto certe categorie di reati legati alla dipendenza da sostanze, le acquisizioni delle neuroscienze consentono di diversamente calibrare le finalità di special prevenzione, nella fase esecutiva della pena.

2. Distinzione tra robotica e biorobotica Il campo della robotica e della biorobotica è per eccellenza interdisciplinare, in quanto in esso convergono ricerche d’informatica, di ingegneria, di matematica elettronica, neuroscienze, biologia. La robotica comprende anche lo studio delle Intelligenze Artificiali, ossia la costruzione di macchine capaci di sentire, adattarsi all’ambiente, di imparare, dotate di capacità evolutiva e persino “capaci di empatia”. Queste macchine presentano le seguenti caratteristiche: sono interattive, reattive all’ambiente, agiscono in modo autonomo e imprevedibile e non determinato, flessibile e influenzabile; sono quindi dotate di autonomia, adattabilità, in quanto sono in grado di migliorare le loro performance. L’aspetto più attuale e con maggiori risvolti pratici della robotica riguarda la biorobotica, ovvero la combinazione di parti robotiche nel corpo umano (computer indossabili, impianti di computer nel corpo, arti bionici artificiali, della interfacce uomo-macchina e del potenziamento delle facoltà attentive e di memoria dell’uomo mediante impianti cerebrali su soggetti sani a scopi terapeutici o migliorativi). L’interrelazione uomo macchina segue due percorsi diversi: quello della bionica o biorobotica, ove l’uomo ingloba in sé la macchina, e quello della robotica o delle intelligenze artificiali, in cui la macchina tende a riprodurre le caratteristiche umane. Un aspetto nuovo è quello della biologia sintetica, ovvero dell’uso di nuove tecnologie in cui componenti molecolari naturali o sintetiche sono combinate e riorganizzate in modo da creare circuiti genetici

2 J. R. Searle, The Mystery of Consciousness, in “The New York Review of Books”, 1998, p. 65. Searle individua almeno tre lacune nel processo decisionale umano: 1) tra le possibili decisioni e quella scelta; 2) tra la decisione e l’azione; 3) tra l’inizio dell’azione e la prosecuzione dell’azione. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

502 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale nuovi e quindi nuovi organismi (le c.d. reti neurali artificiali). La biorobotica consiste nel fenomeno della ibridazione uomo-macchina ovvero dell’ innesto nel corpo umano supporti informatici, hardware, software, brain computer interni e robot incorporati nell’uomo, controllati direttamente attraverso l’attività cerebrale, attraverso elettrodi impiantati stabilmente nel cervello, con finalità terapeutiche o di potenziamento -fi sico. Il dato sorprendente, che distingue l’ibridazione uomo-macchina dalle altre protesi non cibernetiche, risulta proprio nell’interazione tra sistema nervoso, impulsi cerebrali e anima- zione della protesi, con possibilità di innescare flussi non solo in uscita (cervello-terminazioni nervose-chip-braccio robotico), al fine di comandare il movimento della protesi attraverso gli impulsi cerebrali, ma anche in entrata (braccio robotico, chip, terminazioni nervose, cervello), al fine di restituire al soggetto la percezione del movimento. La biorobotica si avvale infatti delle c.d. interfacce cervello-macchina: canali che offrono la possibilità di influenzare gli stati mentali/di coscienza di una persona e che permettono di trasmettere direttamente al cervello dei segnali elettrici esterni. L’arto bionico è in grado di riconoscere la volontà del soggetto ed eseguire gli ordini motori del cervello in tempo reale. Le interfacce tra cervello umano e macchina consentono di leggere e utilizzare i segnali neurali associati all’attività cognitiva per controllare un arto artificiale o la traiettoria di una piattaforma robotica mobile3. Queste ricerche bioniche si propongono soprattutto di ripristinare o di vicariare funzioni senso- motorie perdute, ma aprono la strada al potenziamento di apparati senso-motori e cognitivi che funzionano regolarmente.

3. Potenziamento umano, fisico e cognitivo: l’uomo come e oltre le macchine Il tema dell’enhancement umano concerne le tecniche di potenziamento sul piano cognitivo - intellettivo e sul piano fisico (del miglioramento estetico, fisico o delle aspettative di vita). L’enhancement cognitivo si definisce come una amplificazione, un’estensione, o un potenziamento, interno o esterno, dei sistemi e processi mentali e neurologici di immagazzinamento, organizzazione ed elaborazione delle informazioni; incide quindi su percezione, attenzione, comprensione e sulla memoria. Con l’avanzare delle neuroscienze cognitive, le possibilità di miglioramento delle capa- cità cognitive proprie dell’uomo è in costante espansione. Eppure fino ad oggi, sono state le nuove tecnologie di computing e informatiche a produrre ottime performance sulla capacità di elaborare informazioni. Hardware e software sono in grado di dare agli esseri umani abilità cognitive che per molti aspetti superano di gran lunga quelli del cervello biologico. Siamo abituati a ricorrere a hardware esterni per potenziare le nostre capacità cognitive, facendo uso di calcolatrici, personal computer, che eseguono per noi compiti di routine per rendere affer- rabili una quantità di dati che i sistemi percettivi umani non potrebbero gestire. La nuova sfida è oggi quella di migliorare le capacità fisiche e cognitive umane e di metterle al passo con quelle informatiche delle macchine, in modo da superare i limiti della mente umana e del corpo umano. I supporti informatici forniscono una sorta di estensione

3 Esistono interfacce cervello-macchina che, convogliando segnali verso il sistema nervoso centrale o periferico di un essere umano, ne modificano significativamente l’attività, come avviene nel caso delle interfacce usate per il controllo del tremore in soggetti affetti dal morbo di Parkinson. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 503 esterna della nostra mente, consentendoci di conservare tutto ciò che non potremmo conservare, e di dirigere i nostri sforzi in compiti più complicati rispetto all’immagazzinamento delle informazioni, come e forse meglio delle macchine.

4. Le questioni giuridiche: il caso del cattivo funzionamento dell’arto bionico L’avvento della cibernetica e l’ibridazione uomo-macchina solleva problemi giuridici di non poco conto. Tra questi v’è anche il profilo delle responsabilità verso terzi (civili e penali) per il funzionamento o disfunzionamento dei risultati dell’ibridazione da parte di un soggetto che ha parti bioniche controllate a livello neurologico. La reale presenza dei fenomeni ibridativi uomo-macchina (cyborg) deve farci riflettere anche sui problemi giuridici connessi al regime giuridico di responsabilità per danni arrecati agli stessi soggetti ibridati, ma anche a soggetti terzi. Il profilo di responsabilità penale, qualora siano stati realizzati reati, solleva i seguenti interrogativi: è possibile affermare se l’incidente sia stato causato da un problema di controllo degli arti artificiali sulla base di una ricostruzione scientifica delle modalità di funzionamento degli arti bionici? A chi attribuire la responsabilità qualora venga cagionata la morte di un terzo, se non è possibile accertare un vizio di costruzione o funzionamento dell’arto biologico? L’ “azione” compiuta con un arto artificiale può essere considerata “cosciente e volontaria”? Sotto questo profilo si individuano problemi di prevedibilità degli esiti dell’intervento bionico e dell’apprendimento automatico, che verranno trattati oltre, a cui rinviamo. Più a monte, si collocano i soliti profili relativi ai limiti alla disponibilità del corpo e della integrità fisica, ove il tema si intreccia con la distinzione tra intervento terapeutico (e relativo statuto epistemologico) e intervento migliorativo a scopo non terapeutico.

5. Le tecnologie di potenziamento umano e la distinzione dal concetto di terapia Le c.d. enhancement technologies, ovvero le tecnologie biomediche, sono volte non già a curare una malattia ma a potenziare le normali funzioni fisiologiche dell’essere umano. Si pone quindi, non tanto sotto il profilo pratico, ma quello bioetico e giuridico, il problema di distinguere tra enhancement medica, cioè a scopi terapeutici, e potenziamento puro. Un intervento che mira a correggere una specifica patologia, una disfunzione, o un difetto di un sottosistema cognitivo può essere definito come terapeutico. Un miglioramento invece non è un intervento che serve a porre rimedio ad una disfunzione specifica. Una persona cognitivamente potenziata, è qualcuno che ha beneficiato di un intervento che migliora le prestazioni di un sottosistema senza correggere alcune specificità identificabili come patologia o come disfunzione del sottosistema. Il potenziamento, per definizione, va quindi oltre gli scopi della medicina e il suo statuto epistemologico (consenso, informazione, disponibilità dello stato di salute). Il che suscita serie perplessità in ordine al suo fondamento giustificativo. Il modello terapeutico gode di una giustificazione radicata nella società, anche qualora si tratti di terapie sperimentali, in ragione dell’assenza di valide alternative terapeutiche, della presenza di un consenso informato, e proporzionalmente alle probabilità di successo della terapia, diversa- File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

504 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale mente dalle tecnologie di potenziamento che parrebbero sfornite di tale modello giustificativo fondato sull’art. 32 Cost.4. Il punto è che è assai difficile concettualmente tracciare una distinzione tra terapia e potenziamento, e si potrebbe perfino sostenere che essa manca di significato pratico. Inoltre, ogni terapia comporta un miglioramento, anzi si può affermare che obiettivo della scienza medica è migliorare la condizione umana. Anche l’accezione del concetto di salute in senso soggettivo, come sinonimo di completo (ed utopico) stato di benessere, comprensivo non solo di una dimensione fisica ma anche psichica, sembrerebbe annullare la differenziazione concettuale tra terapia e potenziamento puro non terapeutico: l’obiettivo del raggiungimento di uno stato di benessere mentale, tale da migliorare le relazioni umane, le proprie prestazioni lavorative, in generale i propri rapporti personali, è un obiettivo della nostra Costituzione e dell’evoluzione scientifica stessa, quale strumento di valorizzazione della personalità umana. Vi sono quindi grandi difficoltà sul piano pratico a differenziare trarecupero di capacità perse e ampliamento di capacità esistenti. Lo standard della medicina contemporanea include molte pratiche che non mirano a curare le malattie o lesioni: per esempio, la medicina preventiva, le cure palliative, la medicina dello sport, la chirurgia plastica ed estetica, dispositivi contraccet- tivi e i trattamenti di fertilità. In secondo luogo, non è chiaro come classificare gli interventi che riducono la probabilità di malattia e di morte: la vaccinazione può essere vista come un potenziamento del sistema immunitario o, in alternativa, come intervento terapeutico preventivo; analogamente, un intervento che rallenta il processo di invecchiamento può essere considerato sia come un miglioramento o come intervento terapeutico preventiva che riduce il rischio di malattia e invalidità5.

6. Gli effetti delle tecnologie di potenziamento: effetti isolati all’individuo ed effetti estesi all’ambiente e alle generazioni future Vi sono tipologie di potenziamento, quali l’impianto di cellule neuronali, la biorobotica, che hanno effetto solo sul soggetto direttamente coinvolto, anche se in modo permanente (ad esempio gli impianti neuronali, ovvero tutti quegli interventi medici o biologici dei fe- notipi che non si trasmettono agli eredi; la stimolazione magnetica transcranica, che agisce stimolando elettricamente la corteccia cerebrale, così migliorando le prestazioni motorie, di coordinamento, della memoria; la biorobotica). Vi sono inoltre tecnologie di enhancers con effetti che si estendono sull’ambiente e che modificano l’assetto genetico di individui futuri in modo permanente, in quanto incidono sul patrimonio genetico dell’individuo (ad esempio i miglioramenti genetici). Rispetto questa tipologia si pongono in modo più stringente problemi di governance e di regolamentazione

4 O. Eronia, Potenziamento umano e diritto penale, Milano, 2013; V.A. Amodio, Sui potenziamenti cognitivi: fra trattamento terapeutico ed effetto dopante. Interrogativi etici e scientifici, in Neuroscienze e persone. Interrogativi etici e scientifici, a cura di L. Renna, Ed- Dehoiane, 2010, p. 271; A. Nisco, La tutela penale dell’integrità psichica, Torino, 2012, p.138. 5 Tra i convinti assertori della sostenibilità morale delle tecnologie di potenziamento umano, N. Bostrom, A. Sandber, Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Rthics, Regulatory Challenges, 2009, in www. nicckbostrom.com; N. Bostrom, J. Savulescu, Human Enhancement Ethics. The state of the Debatte, 2008, in www.nickbostrom.com. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 505 di situazioni caratterizzate da profonda incertezza sulle conseguenze dell’agire umano sotto il profilo delle loro interazioni rispetto gli altri individui e rispetto l’ambiente6.

7. Gli effetti delle tecnologie di potenziamento (sull’individuo, sull’ambiente e sulle generazioni future) e la condizione di “doppia incertezza epistemica” Il tema del potenziamento apre una nuova frontiera del dibattito bioetico, destando una serie di preoccupazioni etiche dovute alla situazione di doppia incertezza epistemica che lo connota. L’effetto della stimolazione neurologica sul controllo dell’ attività cerebrale da parte del soggetto è ancora oggetto di studio e sperimentazione e non vi sono linee guida o modelli scientifici sperimentati e corroborati ad un grado di accettazione e di alto riconoscimento nell’ambito della comunità scientifica. Dunque, il primo livello di incertezza epistemica è di tipo scientifico. Infatti, si tratta per lo più di tecniche relativamente nuove, alcune futuribili, altre allo stadio di prima sperimentazione, pertanto non vi è certezza o meglio, non vi è alcuna prova statistico scientifica sui loro possibili utilizzi in termini di efficacia, sicurezza, sia nel breve che nel lungo periodo. Anzi, deve dirsi che, al momento, il dibattito si fonda più sulle promesse dell’ingegneria genetica che sulle reali possibilità di intervento. Anche gli studi scientifici sull’uso di terapie farmacologiche non sono corroborati da un numero consistente di casi clinici e quindi sono privi di attendibilità e ciò rende la letteratura scientifica sul tema una guida assai labile. Vi è quindi una condizione di incertezza della scienza circa i possibili effetti benefici (sia nel lungo che nel breve termine) sul singolo individuo e una totale incapa- cità di previsione di quelli dannosi per la salute umana in genere nel lungo termine. I dubbi aumentano quanto più tali tecnologie sono destinate ad incidere direttamente sulle facoltà cerebrali e fisiche dell’individuo, a volte con effetti permanenti, a volte con effetti limitati nel tempo. La scienza perde il suo ruolo di sapere informatore della politica e del diritto e al contrario, le pratiche scientifiche e tecnologiche sono fonti di incertezza, in quanto produttrici di innovazioni, i cui effetti collaterali possono essere negativi ed inaspettati, ma anche benefici.

8. L’incertezza sul piano etico: il dibattito etico tra sostenitori e detrattori Il secondo livello di incertezza concerne la valutazione sul piano morale ed etico degli effetti sull’individuo, sulle generazioni future e sull’ambiente. Si pone il problema del come valutare, sotto il profilo etico, l’affinarsi di tecniche di potenziamento. Ci si chiede se la scelta di alterare il proprio stato mentale o il proprio corpo nella ricerca di un sé più appagante, di migliorare se stessi, le proprie prestazioni, sia moralmente e giuridicamente accettabile e rientri nella disponibilità dell’individuo; l’autenticità (è più autentica la vita di un individuo che ha migliorato le proprie potenzialità?), prima ancora della dignità umana, costituisca un valore messo a repentaglio da queste tecnologie. Invero, sul piano bioetico e filosofico, l’evoluzione tecnologica mette in discussione il

6 Comitato nazionale per la Bioetica, parere Neuroscienze e potenziamento cognitivo farmacologico: profili bioetici, 13 marzo 2013, reperibile su www.governo.it/bioetica/pareri_abstract/Enhancement_ cognitivo_13032013.pdf. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

506 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale concetto di “umano” e di “umanità”. Si schierano, contrapponendosi, da un lato i tecnodeter- ministi e pessimisti, avversi ad un mondo dominato dalla tecnologia, dall’altro i tecnocratici che viceversa professano un illimitato dominio della scienza. In ogni caso, a prescindere da queste contrapposizioni, occorre prendere atto che la tecnologia provoca condizionamenti culturali, che risolve problemi ma ne crea di nuovi, che incide sulla visione umana del mondo e che interferisce nei sistemi di interazione interpersonale. La tecnologia non è neutrale: perciò occorre porre una questione di formazione, informazione e responsabilità nell’uso delle tecnologie. La ricostruzione dei parametri di definizione del concetto di umano e le sue possibili trascendenze è iniziata come processo qualche anno fa nell’ambito del doping sportivo e attualmente nella ricerca e combinazione di parti umane e parti macchine e quindi nella creazione di cyborg o ibridi. È opportuno chiedersi se sia nella nostra disponibilità modificare la nostra dotazione “naturale” di capacità senso-motorie e cognitive attraverso interventi bionici. Una risposta positiva a tale quesito suscita a sua volta domande sulla persistenza dell’identità personale, prima e dopo l’intervento bionico. Più specificamente: una modifica delle funzioni mentali, sensoriali o motorie resa possibile dai sistemi bionici può indurre una modifica dell’identità personale? Quali alterazioni della continuità degli stati cerebrali/mentali di un soggetto possono essere accettabili da un punto di vista della tutela della identità personale? Il dibattito filosofico contemporaneo sulle condizioni psicologiche o fisiche di persistenza dell’identità personale fornisce strumenti concettualmente rilevanti per affrontare questi problemi ontologici. Il concetto di esistenza umana e di identità umana viene interpretato in termini evoluzionistici. L’evoluzione- miglioramento diviene la metafora dell’esistenza umana. All’interno del modello evolutivo, quello che noi consideriamo umano è un mero artefatto di un dato momento storico. Il dibattito attuale vede fronteggiare sostenitori che articolano teorie e argomentazioni a difesa del potenziamento (teoria libertaria, teoria utilitarista, dei c.d. “tecnofili”: Nicholas Agar, Allen Buchanan, Nick Bostrom, John Harris, Julian Savulescu) e d’altro lato detrattori o c.d. “bioconservatori” che analizzano le possibili minacce aperte all’uomo e alle generazioni future. In questa prospettiva il problema del potenziamento viene affrontato nell’ambito delle teorie della giustizia, con specifico riferimento al problema della disuguaglianza (potenziati/non potenziati), delle possibili ripercussioni dell’accesso al potenziamento sulla non accettazione della disabilità (dato il divario sempre crescente tra dis-abili, abili, super-abili o potenziati)7. Ci si chiede: quali le conseguenze sociali, in termini di disuguaglianza, di accen- tramento di potere, di potere tecnocratico, nel lungo periodo? Queste tecnologie accentuano o creano diseguaglianze sociali o realizzano un obiettivo di miglioramento morale e sociale? I disabili, coloro che sono meno attrezzati cognitivamente verrebbero ancor più discriminati rispetto ad individui potenziati? E se tali tecnologie fossero accessibili a tutti, non si correreb- be il rischio opposto di un livellamento delle condizioni?

7 Tra questi si annoverano Francis Fukuyama, Leon Kass, Jurgen Habermas, Georige Sandel. In proposito, J. Habermas, The future of Human Nature, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2003; M. J. Sandel, What’s Wrong with Enhancement, in www.bioethics.gov, 23 dicembre 2002. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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9. L’incertezza scientifica e il modello di regolazione. Il principio di precauzione e l’euristica dell’avversione al rischio Se ipotizziamo che gli effetti delle tecnologie di potenziamento bionico e biorobotico sono dannosi (per l’individuo, per le generazioni future o per l’ambiente), o in parte benefici per l’individuo ma dannosi per le generazioni future e per l’ambiente, dobbiamo riconoscere che l’eventuale penalizzazione delle tecnologie di potenziamento umano di biorobotica trovi fondamento nel paradigma classico di legittimazione del divieto di cagionare danno a terzi o a se stessi. Tuttavia, come si diceva, vige una totale incertezza scientifica sulla dannosità di tali interventi, di cui vi è prova solo della beneficialità sotto il profilo fisico-psichico sul singolo individuo su cui vengono praticate, e nel breve termine. Pertanto, una ipotetica e futuribile penalizzazione di queste tecnologie rifletterebbe una inversione del paradigma paternalistico forte e debole: si vieta ciò che è bene per l’uomo sul presupposto che il potenziamento è espressione di motivi futili. Si va oltre il divieto di cagionare danno a se stessi o ad altri: si intravede una norma di divieto ultraprudenziale che va oltre al modello di giustificazione del paternalismo forte e che recepisce l’euristica di precauzione forte. Il principio di precauzione postula una strategia di gestione di analisi del rischio nelle situazioni di incertezza, di complessità della scelta e di limiti della conoscenza umana sui possibili effetti della tecnologia. Intesa in senso forte, la filosofia precauzionale impone la regola della totale astensione in presenza di qualunque fattore di rischio potenziale, riguardo al quale non si abbia certezza delle conseguenze, né della loro portata, paralizzando qualunque decisione che non si risolva in nihil agere, finché non venga addotta la prova della totale innocuità dell’attività intrapresa. In senso meno forte, il principio di precauzione impone di adottare tutte le misure necessarie per azzerare o contenere i rischi connessi allo svolgimento di un’attività, soprattutto se relativi a beni di rilevanza primaria, quali la salute umana o l’ambiente. L’ intensa produzione normativa europea degli ultimi anni appare ispirata, in diversi contesti di “rischio”, alla realizzazione di un “elevato livello di tutela” prossimo a zero. Il miglior strumento perla realizzazione di questo obiettivo è costituito dalla progressiva estensione dell’applicazione del principio di precauzione ad ambiti di tutela sempre più ampi e ulteriori rispetto al settore originario della tutela ambientale, trovando applicazione nelle materie incidenti sulla tutela della salute umana. La norma precauzionale, recependo una euristica di loss aversion, si dirige in direzione del divieto o della limitazione della attività, sollecitando la decisione che minimizza il rischio di danno, piuttosto quella che valorizza il rischio di benefici, a prescindere da un giudizio scientifico circa la probabilità che la misura riduca o escluda la verificazione del danno. In tal modo il principio di precauzione vieta cautelativamente ciò che, forse e successivamente, si rivelerà del tutto innocuo (se non addirittura utile e benefico). La filosofia di pensiero e di regolazione pubblica ispirata al principio di precauzione concerne situazioni in cui è impossibile stabilire alcuna probabilità di verificazione di un determinato danno, incuneandosi nel momento della valutazione dei rischi, ovvero nelle politiche di gestione e di percezione del rischio e nelle richieste di sicurezza sociale, e così sganciando l’intervento prudenziale da un sostrato di verità- necessità ed orientandolo verso la scelta di cautele adeguate di contenimento di un rischio (che è solo presuntivamente supposto) ad un livello ritenuto giuridicamente accettabile. L’applicazione del metodo precauzionale svolge il ruolo di criterio guida delle decisioni assun- File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

508 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale te in condizioni di incertezza, in direzione della prevenzione delle conseguenze peggiori tra tutte le opzioni disponibili e del contenimento del rischio, quando le conoscenze scientifiche non consentano di escludere, ma nemmeno provano, il carattere dannoso dell’attività svolta8.

B)La robotica, i droni e le Intelligenze Artificiali

1. La robotica e l’intelligenza artificiale (forte o debole): nessuna differenza tra robot e mente umana? La costruzione di macchine dalle prestazioni human like si configura come uno dei nodi più difficili della scienza. In questa prospettiva di ricerca si colloca la disciplina delle Intelli- genza Artificiale. L’espressione “Intelligenza Artificiale” (IA) è stata coniata nel 1956 da Mc- Carthy durante un seminario interdisciplinare. Essa indica sia un termine che una disciplina, ed esprime l’idea che si possa emulare ogni aspetto dell’intelligenza umana. Sebbene siano state proposte parecchie, talora anche contraddittorie, definizioni di tale disciplina, ciò che le accomuna e connota lo spirito della IA è quello di imitare, riprodurre per mezzo di macchine elettroniche l’attività mentale umana, ovvero quella che costituisce la facoltà più essenziale dell’uomo. Invero l’idea che le macchine possano compiere operazioni proprie dell’intelligenza umana, o almeno alcune funzioni di essa, risale al seicento ed oggi si presenta nella forma del computer, quale incarnazione di “macchine pensanti”.

2. Robot intelligenti dotati di autonomia decisionale. L’utilizzo di agenti artificiali nei processi organizzativi-decisionali complessi. I campi di applicazione Nelle organizzazioni complesse esistono sistemi informatici e tecnologici intelligenti in grado di prendere delle decisioni autonome (decisioni che non prevedono alcuna esplicita autorizzazione da parte di un essere umano) e che operano come supporto a manager soprattutto nella gestione di infrastrutture tecnologiche ad alto rischio. Le organizzazioni artificiali sono strutture mutuate da quelle umane, all’interno delle quali ogni agente intelligente, denominato personoide occupa un ruolo ben preciso (che comprende accesso a informazioni, doveri e responsabilità) e attiva diversi processi decisionali. La decision making è un’attività di ragionamento che implica la necessità di compiere una scelta, provocata da una informazione ricevuta; è un processo organizzativo guidato da informazioni, conoscenze e preferenze per il raggiungimento di un Goal predefinito. Attualmente le IA sono applicate alla robotica cioè nella costruzione di macchine intelligenti capaci di interagire fisicamente con il mondo esterno e di manipolare oggetti, spesso dotate di un sistema esperto cioè di sistemi computazionali dotati di conoscenze specialistiche. Ma anche nelle applicazioni più sofisticate ed evolute, le IA hanno mostrato alcuni limiti di fondo che esamineremo oltre.

8 Sotto questo profiloM. B. Magro, Enhancement cognitivo, biases ed euristiche: politiche di regolazione pubblica e principio di precauzione, in Diritto penale e neuroetica, cit., 2012, p.139. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 509

Gli ambiti di applicazione. Gli ambiti di applicazione delle Intelligenze Artificiali sono i più disparati: si va dagli agenti artificiali e reti neurali artificiali in ambito economico (i robot agiscono come agenti economici intelligenti privi di emozioni, e quindi realizzano le condizioni di equilibrio competitivo nella domanda e nell’offerta, ovvero il modello di efficienza distributiva perfetta), alla creazione di robot di servizio e assistenziali (badanti robot). In medicina, con l’avvento della chirurgia mini-invasiva, i robot sono utilizzati nella c.d. telechirurgia. Applicazioni assai vaste sono in ambito militare, con l’uso di droni come armi e di robot soldati. In proposito si richiama il monito di molti scienziati a vietare o a usare cautele nell’uso di robot autonomi letali, come sistemi intelligenti in ambito militare in cui la decisione è autonoma, le cui conseguenze possono essere assai devastanti. Questi robot armi possono innescare armi letali senza un intervento umano nel processo decisionale e pertanto la Corte penale internazionale ne ha dichiarato l’illegittimità. Vi sono applicazioni nel lavoro, ma anche in casa, come robot di servizio o ludici (un esempio di questa proiezione-attribuzione affettiva è offerto dal robot caneAibo , di cui la Sony ha interrotto la produzione dopo averne costruito, dal 1999 al 2006, oltre 150.000 esemplari. Nell’ambito dell’insegnamento sono state realizzate macchine intelligenti che “leggono” le emozioni umane (c.d. computazione emotiva) In questi casi si pongono principalmente problemi di tutela della privacy e di rispetto della dignità umana. La computazione emotiva è un sistema che ha accesso a vari indizi dello stato emotivo degli utenti, elaborati a partire sia da dati biometrici correlabili a risposte emotive (sudorazione, dilatazione delle pupille e così via), sia dall’esame di gesti, postura e altri comportamenti manifesti dei soggetti. Il sistema valuta questo complesso di informazioni per scoprire se un soggetto è interessato all’argomento, se si sta distraendo, se è scoraggiato. In base a tali supposizioni, il sistema sceglierà una forma di interazione con il proprio utente che sia contestualmente più appropriata a facilitare il processo di apprendimento. Non si può escludere che un tale sistema, una volta sviluppato, sia dolosamente utilizzato all’insaputa degli utenti, con la finalità di raccoglierne un profilo emotivo e di sfruttare a fini commerciali le risposte emotive indotte in base alle informazioni raccolte. È dunque opportuno chiedersi in quali circostanze la raccolta e l’elaborazione di dati personali da parte di tali robot sia legittima ovvero si configuri come una minaccia per la dignità degli utenti, portando a una violazione del loro diritto alla sicurezza, alla riservatezza. Importantissima è infine l’applicazione delle IA come supporto tecnologico nelle grandi organizzazioni complesse finalizzate a esprimere decisioni e persino, in ambito economico, a realizzare operazioni e transazioni economiche. In ambito economico si obietta che non è l’abilità dell’agente artificiale a realizzare l’equilibrio del mercato, ma l’intelligenza implicita del meccanismo e delle regole di mercato che realizzano l’equilibrio, se non sono ostacolate da fattori esogeni 9. Il dibattito sulle IA risponde alle domande: le macchine possono pensare? E’ possibile riprodurre l’intelligenza umana? Il pensiero può avere sede fuori dal cranio umano? Ed ancora: le Intelligenze artificiali, in quanto dotate di autonomia, sono soggetti realmente capaci di manifestare una “propria” intenzionalità e quindi un proprio agire? Sono soggetti capaci di esprimere decisioni e dispongono di libero arbitrio? Sono capaci di provare emozioni? Il paradigma teorico di base è quello dell’analogia mente-computer e dell’isomorfismo mente computer, da non intendersi però in senso ontologico-strutturale, ma in modo ana- logico e funzionale. Su questi temi si sono confrontati filosofi della mente dell’ultimo mezzo secolo, contrapponendo un approccio funzionalista che valorizza le funzioni svolte dalla men-

9 M. S. Sundel, Behavior Change in the Human Services, Behavioral and Cognitive Principles and Applications, SAGE Publications, 2004. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

510 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale te umana e dalla macchine, in quanto in grado di svolgere funzioni simbolico computazionali da un approccio più critico e strutturalista.

3. Il problema a monte: cos’è l’intelligenza? La IA forte e il “gioco dell’imitazione” di Turing. a) Intelligenza come reattività comportamentale Quali sono le caratteristiche che connotano la soggettività (anche non umana)? Per definire se una macchina è intelligente si ricorre al test di Turing detto anche “gioco dell’imitazione”. Il test di Turing dimostra che il computer è un sistema computazionale (programma software più eventuale supporto hardware) che interagisce con l’ambiente circostante, che reagisce agli stimoli di tale ambiente (reattivo); che è in grado di prendere decisioni, e di conseguenza di agire, in modo autonomo, per raggiungere un obiettivo predefinito o negoziato (proattivo); è in grado di comunicare (coordinarsi, cooperare, negoziare) con altri agenti e/o con esseri umani (capacità di interazione sociale). Se si assume un concetto di intelligenza di tipo comportamentale e interattivo (secondo cui il comportamento sia suscettibile di analisi e di interpretazione in termini di costrutti comportamentali di base quali stimolo, risposta, impulso, saturazione), allora potremmo affermare che i calcolatori e le IA obbediscono a leggi psicologiche e sono agenti intelligenti, in quanto manipolano e usano simboli in modo formale e astratto. Alan Turing è il fondatore della corrente di pensiero detta intelligenza artificiale forte che ritiene i calcolatori macchine capaci di esprimere autentico pensiero e in grado di produrre processi intellettuali identici a quelli umani10. Non vi sarebbe alcuna differenza ontologico-qualitativa tra cervello umano e cervello elettronico e tra intelligenza umana e intelligenza artificiale, poiché la sola differenza risiederebbe nella sede o nel supporto fisico: la testa umana fatta di carne, ossa e altri materiali biologici e la struttura di un calcolatore fatto di metallo e energia. Parte integrante di quest’ottica funzionalista è l’assimilazione del cervello ad un hardware (materiali duri: le parti meccaniche) e della mente ad un software (materiali morbidi: i programmi e istruzioni). Non conta la struttura ma la funzione indipendentemente dalla sede fisica (il cervello- la macchina) in cui essa risiede. Perciò un computer è paragonabile ad un essere umano quanto ad intelligenza, se le prestazioni svolte dal computer non possono essere distinte da quelle svolte dagli esseri umani (tesi funzionalista). Detto altrimenti: lo stesso software può essere realizzato da tipi differenti di hardware, quello biologico e quello meccanico 11. Ricordiamo che vi sono ricerche finalizzate a dotare i robot di emozioni artificiali e di coscienza artificiale, rendendoli così sempre più simili a noi. Si può dire che un agente artificiale manifesta emozioni quando si comporta in modi che, negli umani, presuppongono emozioni? Le emozioni sono per gli umani un tratto costitutivo fondamentale, inseparabile dalle altre nostre caratteristiche in quanto sono profondamente innestate nel corpo, inteso sia come insieme di organi sia come depositario della nostra identità, che dei nostri ricordi e

10 A. M. Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in “Mind”, 59, 236, 1950. A. M. Turing, Calcolatori e intelligenza, in D. R. Hofstadter, D. C. Dennett ( a cura di) L’io della mente, Adelphi, 1985, pp. 61-100. 11 H. Putnam, I robot: macchine o vita creata artificialmente? in Mente, Linguaggio e Realtà, Milano, Adelphi, 1987, pp. 416-438. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 511 della nostra storia ed esperienza. Seguendo questo ordine di idee si è perfino perseguito lo scopo conoscitivo di studiare, attraverso la costruzione di macchine intelligenti, la mente umana e le sue modalità di funzionamento. La mente umana opera come entità formale ed astratta e gli stati mentali sono qualificati dalla loro funzione svolta e non dalla specificità materiale. Quindi è possibile supporre che gli stati mentali siano slegati dal sistema neurale organico e che sia riproducibile lo stesso sistema neurale. Si sviluppa il paradigma connessionista delle “reti neurali” e il tentativo pioneristico della cibernetica di riprodurre artificialmente l’architettura neuronale del sistema nervoso umano: se l’intelligenza è espressione dell’attività neuronale, la riproduzione artificiale di tale attività avrebbe per ciò stesso riprodotto l’intelligenza. In ogni caso, osservano i fautori della IA debole che la realizzazione di robot capaci di interagire emotivamente ovviamente non comporta che abbiano una coscienza. Queste macchine non provano “vere” emozioni, cioè non si va oltre una simulazione dei sentimenti sostenuta dalla nostra proiezione. Le macchine di Turing sono psicologicamente isomorfe all’uomo, ossia hanno una iden- tità di organizzazione funzionale, ma da ciò non si può ritenere che abbiano una coscienza o una consapevolezza del proprio agire. Avere stati psicologici rilevabili ab extra non significa possedere autentica consapevolezza dei comportamenti. Anche l’ uso di vocabolario antro- pomorfo nel descrivere le caratteristiche, le proprietà e il funzionamento delle Intelligenze Artificiali e dei sistemi informatizzati non riguarda tanto la macchina (il calcolatore) in sé, ma il modo in cui noi vediamo la macchina, e indirettamente noi stessi12.

4. La confutazione di Turing: il test della “stanza cinese” di Searle. La IA debole e l’Intelligenza come intenzionalità e come “comprensione” di significati L’altra tesi, quella della intelligenza artificiale debole, ossia della non autenticità del pensiero meccanico e della diversità ontologica tra intelligenza artificiale e intelligenza naturale è stata sostenuta da autorevoli studiosi. Secondo la IA debole le macchine simulano e ripro- ducono soltanto i processi intellettuali umani. Costoro affermano quindi una nozione di intelligenza come intenzionalità (dimensione essenziale della coscienza): caratteristica che contraddistingue certi stati mentali, quali le credenze, i desideri e le intenzioni e che differenzia l’uomo dalle macchine13. L’assunto fondamentale è l’impossibilità per una macchina computazionale di manifestare l’intenzionalità che caratterizza gli esseri umani e, sia pure in forme diverse, gli animali. Per contro, secondo Searle, l’intenzionalità è un dato di fatto empirico che poco dice circa le effettive relazioni causali tra mente e cervello, e che consente unicamente di affermare che sussistono certi processi cerebrali; ma l’esecuzione di un programma su un dato input non è di per sé una condizione sufficiente per l’intenzionalità. Il test “della stanza cinese” dimostra che il computer può anche essere un ottimo manipolatore formale di simboli, ma questa attività non racchiude quella della “comprensione” dei significati dei tali simboli e di conse-

12 Minsky al contrario rivendica la legittimità/utilità dell’uso di termini antropomorfici. 13 J. Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, W.H. Freeman, 1976. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

512 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale guenza non coincide con l’intelligenza umana, la quale è sempre intenzionale e cosciente. Il sistema simbolico-computazionale si comporta come “se” capisse il cinese, ma non riproduce l’attività umana, la simula perché manca la coscienza dei significati14. Searle prende in esame i lavori sulla simulazione della capacità umana di comprendere narrazioni, che richiede l’abilità di rispondere a domande che coinvolgono informazioni non fornite in modo esplicito dalla narrazione, ma desumibili da essa sfruttando conoscenze di natura generale. Risultato: la capacità (di un uomo/una macchina) di manipolare le informazioni ricevute secondo regole formali ben definite non è sufficiente a spiegare il processo di comprensione. Si afferma il carattere non intenzionale, e, quindi, semanticamente vuoto, dei simboli elaborati da un sistema artificiale e, in conclusione, si nega che i processi mentali possano essere ridotti a processi di natura computazionale che operano su elementi formalmente definiti. I robot intelligenti non hanno capacità di connessione e di critica, ovvero non hanno categorie concettuali, sono privi di un sé pensante.

5. Il senso comune e la sfera della emotività In più, si fa notare che ai robot dotati di intelligenza artificiale, dotati di conoscenze altamente specialistiche, manca, al disotto di queste conoscenze, il livello di conoscenze comuni, il c.d. “senso comune”, ciò che tutti gli umani posseggono senza aver fatto studi particolari. Il “senso comune” è quello che consente di collegare conoscenze specialistiche di campi diversi e di affrontare i problemi e di risolverli senza la rigidità tipica dell’approccio simbolico dell’intelligenza. Spesso una reazione intelligente ad una certa situazione è quella che sì, tiene in considerazione il contesto, ma che non è in grado di selezionare quale aspetto del contesto sia rilevante. A questo tipo di conoscenza e di approccio corrisponde il concetto di intelligenza emotiva quella che orienta verso il “senso comune”: da qui il paradosso che le macchine riescono a riprodurre il più altro rigore logico ma non riescono a essere programmate su un livello minimo di intelligenza comune (non dimentichiamo gli studi sul ruolo delle emozioni nel processo decisionale e gli studi sull’intelligenza emotiva di Golemann). Conclusione: contro i funzionalisti, occorre affermare lo strutturalismo ovvero ritenere che ciò che conta è la struttura e non la funzione, la sede dove si svolge l’attività, non come si svolge l’attività cerebrale. L’intenzionalità trova sede nel cervello, la mente è un prodotto causale del cervello. Ne segue quindi che qualunque meccanismo in grado di produrre inten- zionalità dovrebbe necessariamente possedere poteri causali simili a quelli del cervello, cosa che non è possibile. La tesi secondo cui i programmi non sono menti implica una presa di posizione contro il paradigma funzionalista e la sua maniera di impostare il mind-body problem. Infatti l’ipotesi funzionalista secondo cui la mente sarebbe concettualmente e empiricamente separabile dal cervello è pericolosamente dualistica: una forma di dualismo che non ricalca quello tradizionale cartesiano che dichiara che esistono due generi di sostanze, ma cartesiano nel senso che

14 J. R. Searle, Minds, Brains and Programs, in The Behavioral and Brains Sciences, 3, Cambridge University Press, 1980; J. R. Searle, Menti cervelli e programmi, in D. R. Hofstadter, D. C. Dennett, cit., pp. 341-375. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 513 ciò che è specificatamente mentale non ha alcuna connessione intrinseca con le proprietà del cervello15.

6. Lo statuto ontologico delle macchine e il problema della responsabilità giuridica per l’agire o dell’agire dei robot intelligenti Dalle diverse visioni e concezioni sulla Intelligenza artificiale (strutturalista e funzionalista) derivano due opposte concezioni. Secondo la tesi strutturalista i robot intelligenti sono comunque degli oggetti strumentali e dunque, sul piano morale e giuridico, meritevoli di tutela solo per il valore che esprimono; secondo la tesi funzionalista potrebbero essere considerati come “soggetti” e dunque meritevoli, sul piano filosofico, morale e giuridico, di una eventuale tutela per soggettività. Si pone dunque la questione dello statuto ontologico delle c.d. IA ovvero di artefatti particolarmente evoluti: semplici oggetti, oppure possiedono la soglia dei requisiti minimi per il riconoscimento di un livello di soggettività16? Il problema quindi è stabilire se la tecnologia moderna ha creato una nuova tipologia di soggetto, il soggetto non-umano, l’agente non-umano per il quale è possibile declinare il linguaggio giuridico dei diritti e delle responsabilità17. Ovviamente dalla risposta a tali questioni deriva anche il tipo di ‘diritto’ e il tipo di ‘tutela’ applicabile a questi sistemi intelligenti artificiali (in tal caso possono essere oggetto di tutela sotto il profilo della tutela penale dei brevetti, o della tutela del patrimonio). Due sono i paradigmi che nella nostra cultura fondano l’aspettativa di una tutela, il valore che suggeriamo di intendere come elevatezza-complessità di funzioni, e/o utilità pratica, e/o rarità-originalità e la soggettività intesa in un crescendo di sensibilità emotiva, immaginazione e creatività, intel- lezione come pensiero logico, intenzionalità, coscienza, autocoscienza e autodeterminazione.

7. I profili di responsabilità penale: l’ipotesi fantastica del robot come agente non-umano responsabile penalmente, nuovo soggetto di diritto penale Torniamo alla questione di fondo: il robot agisce o è agito? È oggetto- strumento o soggetto, anche se mediato, o meglio, un “nuovo” soggetto per il diritto? Le Intelligenze artificiali e i robot intelligenti sono dotati di soggettività autonoma, come gli enti collettivi, e quindi sono soggetti responsabili, imputabili, dotati di libero arbitrio? Questa ipotesi solleva problemi di definizione della capacità soggettiva, della nozione di azione, della nozione di colpevolezza: i robot sono rimproverabili e motivabili? Esprimono una loro volontà, possono essere “autori” di reati e il loro agire si può definire cosciente e volontario? Si tratta quindi di definire se tali macchine siano capaci di compiere azioni e comunque di capire a chi tali

15 La letteratura della IA contiene molte denunce contro il dualismo classico, poiché essa propone un neo dualismo che pretende di sganciare i processi cognitivi dalla biochimica concreta delle loro origini materiali, G. Fornero, Intelligenza artificiale e filosofia, in N. Abbagnano (a cura di ), Storia della filosofia, vol. IV, 1994, Torino, p. 514. 16 G. Taddei Elmi, Soggettività artificiali e diritto, relazione disponibile su www.altalex.it . 17 A. Narayanan, D. Perrott, Can computers have legal rights ? in Artificial Intelligence. Human Effects, New York, Ellis Horwood, 1884, pp. 52-6. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

514 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale azioni, e le conseguenze di tali azioni, debbano essere imputabili. Il tema presenta un’analogia con quello della responsabilità penale-amministrativa degli enti collettivi e cozza con una concezione antropomorfica del diritto penale: gli enti collettivi non hanno corpo né anima, ma sono comunque “soggetti”, cioè autori di reati, per la legge penale; i robot hanno un “corpo”, una materia su cui far ricadere la sanzione penale (ad esempio, la disattivazione della macchina o la sua distruzione), ma non hanno un’anima, pur essendo dotati di autonoma capacità decisionale ed essendo in grado di interagire con l’ambiente18.

8. Se i robot sono mezzi e non agenti. L’ipotesi della responsabilità penale del programmatore o utilizzatore Se si ritiene che i robot non siano agenti in senso stretto, si pone quindi il problema della responsabilità esclusivamente umana del programmatore o utilizzatore. A che titolo può essere imputata la responsabilità all’uomo, se si assume che il sistema informatico intelligente è un decision maker? Come abbiamo detto, si assume che i robot intelligenti agiscono in modo non programmato e imprevedibile e questa imprevedibilità pone problemi di attribuzione della responsabilità penale a carico dei programmatori, dei costruttori e degli utilizzatori. Se i robot e le Intelligenze artificiali sono artefatti in grado di migliorare le capacità degli esseri umani, mezzi di supporto e di comunicazione, si pone un problema inverso di imputazione penale: qui l’agente non--umano agisce, la persona fisica ne risponde. La questione è tuttavia individuare il titolo soggettivo dell’imputazione a carico della persona fisica. Escludendo l’ipotesi dolosa, perché l’azione “volontaria” dell’agente non-umano incardina responsabilità sull’uomo e perché l’azione del robot si indentifica e rappresenta una longa manus della persona umana, residua il profilo colposo, individuato nel difetto di programmazione, costruzione, scelta, utilizzo, manutenzione funzionamento di robot intel- ligenti19.

9. Il problema della prevedibilità dei comportamenti dei sistemi robotici intelligenti Nel 1950 Isaac Asimov elaborò le tre leggi fondamentali della robotica: 1) Un robot non può danneggiare con azioni o omissioni un essere umano né permettere che un essere umano riceva danno; 2) un robot deve obbedire agli ordini impartiti dagli esseri umani, a meno che tale ordini non contravvengano alla regola n.1; 3) Un robot deve proteggere la propria esistenza, purché questa autodifesa non contrasti con la regola n. 2 e n.1. Da queste leggi si desume il divieto di creare robot che non rispettino le tre leggi di Asimov. Queste tre leggi

18 G. Hallevy, The Criminal Liability of Artificial Intelligence Entities- from Science Fiction to Legal Social Control, in “Akron Intellectual Property Journal”, 2010, p. 271. 19 Nell’ambito civile la questione si pone sul piano della responsabilità contrattuale per i vizi e conseguenze connesse alla progettazione, costruzione e utilizzo del robot; e della responsabilità extracontrattuale a carico del programmatore, del costruttore e dell’utilizzatore per i danni arrecati a terzi e non solo alle controparti del contratto. Gli schemi richiamati sono quelli della rappresentanza, del mandato, del contratto di assicurazione, forme di autenticazione, della responsabilità contrattuale ed extracontrattuale. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

M. B. Magro 515 fondamentali tuttavia sono tra loro contraddittorie: cosa accade se si ordini ad un robot di ferire un uomo per il bene di qualcun altro? Che cosa succede se il comandante ordina ad un robot poliziotto di arrestare un sospetto che fa resistenza all’arresto? E ancora cosa accade se un robot chirurgo si ostina ad effettuare un intervento salvavita contro la volontà del paziente? Le leggi della robotica regolano in modo assoluto il comportamento dei robot o vi è un margine di imprevedibilità nel loro comportamento? I problemi di comprensione e prevedibilità degli esiti di un intervento bionico rivelano un aspetto particolare della nostra limitata capacità di prevedere il comportamento delle macchine, della robotica e dell’intelligenza artificiale. Tali limitazioni previsionali furono principalmente discusse in relazione alla formulazione generale dei teoremi di indecidibilità algoritmica; nuovi spunti per la riflessione epistemologica provengono da studi più recenti nel campo dell’apprendimento automatico. Le interfacce bioniche cervello-macchina, alle quali è stato accennato, richiedono un processo di addestramento per classificare e riconoscere i segnali neurali associati all’attività cognitiva di un essere umano. Non si può realisti- camente pensare di fornire a un robot una specifica sufficientemente dettagliata di ciò che esso deve fare o aspettarsi di incontrare negli spazi non rigidamente definiti e controllati di una casa, di un ufficio o di altri ambienti nei quali si svolge la nostra vita quotidiana. Per questo motivo, un robot che sia abbastanza autonomo e adattabile per assistere un anziano nel suo appartamento, deve essere un robot capace di apprendere dall’esperienza. Ma questa esigenza deve confrontarsi con il fatto che i metodi di apprendimento automatico non sempre consentono di appurare se il robot abbia veramente imparato (o anche solo approssimato in modo soddisfacente) ciò che vogliamo insegnargli. Si pongono quindi problemi di valutazione dei risultati ottenuti nei processi di apprendimento automatico da parte di robot. La riflessione epistemologica sull’apprendimento automatico si inquadra dunque nella problematica più generale della prevedibilità dei comportamenti di sistemi robotici20. Gli studi dei metodi formali di verifica delsoftware nascono dall’esigenza di verificare se ogni esecuzione di un determinato programma per un calcolatore soddisfi alcuni requisiti fondamentali. Più recentemente, queste metodologie sono state estese al problema di speci- ficare e verificare le proprietà di sistemi, generalmente detti “ibridi”, che comprendono varie tipologie di sistemi robotici. Alcuni risultati limitativi che sono stati ottenuti a proposito dei sistemi ibridi indicano che, in generale, non è possibile verificare con queste metodologie se un sistema robotico soddisfi o non soddisfi determinati vincoli spaziali o temporali nell’esecuzione di un dato compito. I robot pensanti non agiscono in modo prevedibile in quanto la capacità di apprendimento tratteggia uno spazio di imprevedibilità che si sottrae alle leggi scientifiche. Si assume quindi che i robot agiscono in modo imprevedibile, in modo non regolato da rigorose leggi scientifiche, in quanto le Intelligenze Artificiali hanno capacità di apprendimento, di adattamento all’ambiente, capacità decisionale e creatività che aggiunge sempre un quid pluris rispetto la iniziale programmazione. Inoltre, vi è di più che l’interazione tra un sistema aperto di apprendimento condiziona- to proprio delle Intelligenze artificiali e il suo ambiente (comunicazione asincrona) è spesso soggetta a vincoli temporali che non consentono di assicurare la presenza di un essere umano nei cicli di controllo. Ne segue quindi che Intelligenze Artificiali, droni e robot intelligenti

20 U. Pagallo, The Laws of Robots: crimes, contract and Torts, Springer, 2013; M. Durante, U. Pagallo, Manuale di informatica giuridica e diritto delle nuove tecnologie, Torino, 2012. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

516 Biorobotica, robotica e diritto penale non sono completamente controllabili dall’uomo. Si sollevano pertanto insormontabili problemi di accertamento della responsabilità nell’ordinamento giuridico. Le caratteristiche di questi sistemi informatizzati esperti è che sanno reagire a situazioni previste o prevedibili, ma non a situazioni che, non essendo prevedibili da un essere umano, non possono neppure essere previste nel programma e nelle regole che l’essere umano ha costruito e che costituiscono l’intelligenza artificiale. La loro presunta “imprevedibilità” o causalità dell’azione – essendo macchine e non uomini - non è forse, a sua volta, prevedibile da parte del costruttore che può programmare una serie vincolata di scelte? Queste sono le implicazioni normative delle riflessioni epistemologiche sulla nostra limitata capacità di prevedere il comportamento di un agente artificiale evoluto, dotato di un margine di creatività e decisionalità (è un decision maker) in assenza di un visibile difetto nel controllo, uso, o manutenzione del produttore o del programmatore.

10. La colpa del programmatore Sartor ritiene che gli effetti prodotti dall’agente si riferiscano all’utilizzatore non perché li ha voluti ma perché ha confidato in un comportamento razionale dell’agente e perché si è affidato alle intenzioni dell’agente che dichiarava di tendere a certi obiettivi21. In termini penalistici, è appropriato fare riferimento alla colpa del programmatore, ovvero al difetto di diligenza per non aver previsto, nella fase della programmazione, il comportamento imprevedibile del robot! La prevedibilità astratta e generica di futuri danni ancora non ben identificati incardina la responsabilità per colpa, anche quando non sono noti tutti gli anelli del processo causale. La prevedibilità opera come componente della colpa, anche sulla base di leggi scientifiche non corroborate da studi e non consolidate, o nella totale ignoranza di leggi scientifiche di spiegazione causale, con il rischio di identificare la colpa con la precauzione e il prudenzialismo. Nella letteratura anglosassone si parla di prevedibilità e di logico sviluppo prevedibile, similmente al 116 c.p. in tema di responsabilità del concorrente per l’evento diverso più grave non voluto, purché prevedibile, e anche se non sono perfettamente noti tutti gli anelli della catena causale di produzione dell’evento. La differenza è che il programmatore o l’utilizzatore non concorrono nella realizzazione di un reato di base e quindi la regola del versari in re illicita non vale, perché la condotta della persona fisica crea una condizione di rischio lecito tollerato. Occorre quindi elaborare un nuovo concetto normativo di colpevolezza che consente di elaborare un concetto di “colpa da programmazione”, ove si può ipotizzare di prospettare una causa di esclusione della colpevolezza consistente nella predisposizione di misure di sicurezza che prevengano la realizzazione di reati da parte di robot intelligenti (in pratica che mettano in atto le tre leggi della robotica di Asimov), oltre alle classiche cause di esonero della respon- sabilità penale per prodotto difettoso, quale il caso di uso improprio del robot, o di fortuito o di forza maggiore.

21 G. Sartor, L’intenzionalità dei sistemi informatici e il diritto, in “Riv. trim. dir. proc. civ.”, 2003, 1, pp. 23-51; Id., Intelligenza artificiale e diritto, Milano, 1996. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Biorobotics and fundamental rights. Issues and limits of artificial intelligence1

Paolo Moro

Table of contents: 1. Preliminary remarks. – 2. Bionics and fundamental rights. – 3. Philosophical origins of biorobotics. From cybernetics to artificial intelligence. – 3.1. Cybernetics. – 3.2. Intelligent processes. – 3.3. Contrasting opinions. – 4. The thinking machine. The computational project. – 5.The acting machine. The behavioural model. – 6. Computer and human subjectivity. On the limits of artificial intelligence. – 7. The human agent in relation. Another bio-robotics?

1. Preliminary remarks In the contemporary era, technological applications of artificial intelligence are engendering new ethical and legal problems, amongst which particular relevance has the identity of the human person and of his or her fundamental rights in the interaction with the most evolved technological devices of robotics and bionics. Robotics is the set of theories studying the realisation of intelligent and highly organised machines (robots), automated and able to emulate human reasoning and behaviours. Bionics is the science studying the sensorial and motion functions of living organisms, with the aim of individuating technological devices capable of reproducing or strengthening them. Nowadays, the robot is a complex system imitating human activities by integrating the achievements of artificial intelligence in several fields of behaviour and reasoning, such as comprehension of natural language, automatic learning, representation of knowledge, interactive communication. Resorting also to robotics, bionics develops self-organising cybernetic systems provided with intelligent skills, such as the capability of recognising external

1 Translation in English language by Lorenzo Pasculli. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

518 Biorobotics and fundamental rights stimulations (counter-reaction) and adapting themselves to the environment (homeostasis). Nevertheless, bionics differs from robotics for at least three aspects concerning the man-machine interaction2: the lack of conscious control of the bionic device by its programmer; the invasive nature of interaction; the capability of the bionic device to recover and strengthen the organism’s functions. Thus, while the robot and the man keep being physically distinct entities, in the applications of bionics the man and the machine are not separated but they form an integrated system where the interaction between the person and the electronic prosthesis is not managed in a conscious manner. This research deals with the phenomenon as a whole, whereas the expression «biorobotics» means the sum of scientific theories and applications concerning the systems of artificial intelligence realised in the field of bionics3.

2. Bionics and fundamental rights The use of bionic prostheses may engender ethical and legal problems, because it implies an invasive intervention that modifies the physical and psychical integrity of the person and, therefore, may harm his or her fundamental rights. Indeed, in case of a dispute between the physician performing the implantation and the patient subjected to it, the possible grafting of a bionic prosthesis in the human body may become a treatment harming human dignity (art. 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union), of physical integrity (art. 3), of individual liberty (art. 6) and of privacy (art. 8). First of all, an intervention of functional recovery through the grafting of a bionic prosthesis represents in any case harm to physical integrity, as any other surgical intervention, but it is usually justified by the patient’s informed consent and by the public duty of protection of health that the hospital and its physicians have. This is what happens with traditional devices, such as artificial pacemakers using electrical impulses released by electrodes in contact with cardiac muscles, in order to regulate the heartbeat, but also with sophisticated devices, such as the «bionic ear», characterised by the utilisation of stimulating electrodes, or the implantation of electrodes for the deep brain stimulation. 2 A. Montanari, Scienza e immortalità terrena, in La sfida postumanista. Colloqui sul significato della tecnica, a cura di L. Grion, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012. 3 T. Consi, B. Webb, Biorobotics, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 2001; P. Dario, M.C. Carrozza, E. Guglielmelli, C. Laschi, A. Menciassi, S. Micera, F. Vecchi, Robotics as a Future and Emerging Technology: Biomimetics, Cybernetics, and Neuro-Robotics in European Projects, “IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine”, 12, 2, 2005, pp. 29-43; G. Tamburrini, E. Datteri, Machine Experiments and Theoretical Modelling: from Cybernetic Methodology to Neuro-Robotics, in “Minds and Machines”, 15, 3-4, 2005, pp. 335-358. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

P. Moro 519

Besides, the artificial bionic device represents a new type of prosthesis, which may not only consent to recover lost functions, but also be able to strengthen existing functions or to introduce new functionalities, although admittedly there is not a precise boundary line between recovery and strengthening of motion or cognitive abilities. Thus, an intervention of bionic strengthening of a bodily organ may raise the doubt whether the medical treatment may be considered harmful for human dignity and for the very identity of the person. By way of illustration, in the famous scientific experiment by Kevin Warwick, an electrode has been implanted in the left arm of a healthy volunteer with the aim of verifying the utility, the compatibility and the operability on the long term of a microelectrodes vector situated within the median nerve, including the perception of feedback signals and the use of a conveniently accessorized artificial hand4. Bionics, indeed, blurs the boundary line between what is included in the category of human dignity and what is not. In this field of application of the technological evolution the question is whether the very identity of the person over time depends exclusively on physio-psychic continuity, on the possession of an intact and natural body, on the persistent provision of a thinking substance. On the other hand, bionic non-therapeutic intervention may represent an endangerment, if not a violation of the fundamental rights to personal liberty and to privacy. A paradigmatic example is given by the surgical implantation of specificRadio Frequency Identification Devices (RFID), which transmit via radio a sequence of impulses constituting a particular code for the localisation of persons or the memorisation of information of interest (for instance, personal, health, and financial data). Finally, another important legal issue concerns the nature and boundaries of the consent to the bionic intervention that, as any other case of medical treatment, requires the free and informed consent of the patient subjected to the implantation, based on the right of therapeutic self-determination and on the prohibition of mandatory medical treatments. In this case, Italian law establishes that the consent of the interested subject in a penal controversy (art. 50 of the Italian penal code) and the preventive transaction in a civil controversy (art. 1966 of the Italian civil code) are not effective when they concern non-disposable rights, which are considered non-negotiable, thus it is not clear whether the interested subject may dispose of the changing and the projecting of his or her own identity by resorting not only to the recovery of reduced

4 K. Warwick, M. Gasson, B. Hutt, I. Goodhew, P. Kyberd, B. Andrews, P. Teddy, A. Shad, The Application of Implant Technology for Cybernetic Systems,in “Archives of Neurology”, 60, 2003, 10, pp. 1369-1373. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

520 Biorobotics and fundamental rights biological functions, but also to the strengthening of such functionalities through the implantation of a bionic device. This in fact gives rise to the problem of the definition of what is non-disposable, since there is no classification of non-disposable rights and there is no determination of what is harmful to human dignity, which is a vague if not undetermined category: amongst the many discerning criteria there is art. 5 of the Italian civil code, according to which the acts of disposal of one’s own body are forbidden whenever they cause a permanent diminution of physical integrity or whenever they are otherwise contrary to law, public order or public morals. The rule cannot be considered a general criterion of reference to discriminate the disposability or not of different legal situations, since it is a disposition that expressly appeared in the code after a debated judicial question happened in Italy during the Nineteen-Thirties concerning the legal responsibility of the surgeon for the implantation of a sexual gland with the consent of the patient who underwent the surgery. Moreover, article 5 refers only to the diminution and not to the permanent strengthening of physical integrity and of human identity brought by some biorobotics applications, which, in view of the current developments of medical engineering, may be also considered offensive and engendering criminal liability: however, the patient’s consent to the violation of his or her own body integrity (volenti non fit iniuria) remains ineffective when it comes to non-disposable rights.

3. Philosophical origins of biorobotics. From cybernetics to artificial intelligence The protection of the person and of his or her rights, which are violated or endangered by the interaction between the man and the machine, may be adequately justified only through a reflection on the philosophical origin of biorobotics and, in particular, on the anthropological conception representing the theoretical foundation of biorobotics. This vision developed through the modern scientific revolution and exploded in the technological era of the Twentieth Century, implying that man is a highly complex computing machine. This comparison between man and machine has been realised through computer science, which implemented the computational project by designating the calculating machine with anthropomorphic terms such as electronic brain, memory and others. The roots of biorobotics, which was developed from the bionic applications of robotics, date back particularly to the studies on cybernetics and on artificial intelligence of the second half of the Twentieth Century. The theoretical basis of the functioning of robotic systems, which are non-invasive, and of bionic devices, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

P. Moro 521 which are invasive, is the mathematical study of neuronal systems, which led to the researches on artificial intelligence and to the elaboration of a general theory of automata, which represents one of the fundamental problems of cybernetics.

3.1. Cybernetics Cybernetics may be defined as the capability of an automatic system to order information and adapt to the environment (homeostasis) through the control and the correction of its own operations (retroaction or feed-back). The term is taken from the Greek word indicating the art of the helmsman (kybernetés) that has the control of a ship and that can govern it. The father of cybernetics Norbert Wiener, in his 1948 fundamental book5, declares that he wants to connect the research on human beings with that on machines in order to grant an adequate control on both and upholds the theoretical impossibility to distinguish the human nervous system from a mechanical communication system such as the telephone6. Wiener establishes boundaries between some distinctive features of computing systems, such as, for instance, the autonomy of the calculating process, which shall not require any human intervention, as well as the efficiency and the flexibility of the data memorisation devices and the study of the nervous system. In the chapters added in the 1961 edition, he introduces some topics that have become central arguments in the research on artificial intelligence, such as the automatic learning and the development of artificial systems capable of self-organising and self-replicating. Wiener supposes that also in living organisms voluntary and reflex activity is based on physiological mechanisms of counter-reaction and adaptation to the environment, with the aim of reaching conditions of stability and balance, setting the basis for the following and current studies on robotics.

3.2. Intelligent processes In the Fifties, John McCarthy elaborates a computerized model of human mind developing the ideas established by Wiener’s cybernetics and coins for the first time the term «artificial intelligence», coming to elaborate the common guidelines of such a research in a fundamental work published with Pat Hayes in 1969, where the Authors point out the essence of the artificial intelligence system in its automatic capability to perform a «common sense reasoning»7.

5 N. Wiener, Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine, New York-Paris, Hermann, J. Wiley, 1948. 6 Ibidem. 7 J. McCarthy, P.J. Hayes, Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence, in “Machine Intelligence”, 4, 1969, pp. 463-502. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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As Hayes stated in his naive physics manifesto8, what is meant to be represented is the way in which people see the world, not the world as seen by physics, with the resulting necessity to elaborate models concerning not only objects or events, but also perceptions and actions concerning the modes of understanding the world by the persons. The cybernetic development of electronic processors suggested scientists to compare the nature of the mental processes of elaboration and learning of information, if based on a program limited to the mathematical and artificial theorisation of natural and social processes of physio-psychic activity. Indeed, the problems introduced by cybernetics and artificial intelligence, which constitute the theoretical and application basis of contemporary biorobotics, impose to study the most disparate disciplines, not only concerning hard sciences (such as electronics, genetics or chemistry), but also humanities (such as law or literature), keeping into account that computer science is a clearly interdisciplinary science. The cybernetic comparison of the correspondences between human and artificial neuronal structures has not brought to the point of replacing the complicated structures of human brain with electronic circuits, but biorobotics reveals ever faster technological progresses in the construction of devices of recovery and strengthening of intelligent processes. Amongst the several philosophical problems that this only apparently science- fictional scenario poses to artificial intelligence, a twofold and ambivalent question seems to prevail. Does man think and want as the machine does? Does the machine think and want as a man does?

3.3. Contrasting opinions It is discussed whether and to what extent distinctive features of human subjectivity, such as conscience and will, may be transferred to a robot or a bionic device. Amongst the various opinions, two opposite theses may be distinguished: the first maintains that the human being presents behaviours and reasoning that may be perfectly imitated by a robot, the second states that the man’s essence is never reproducible by a cybernetic machine. If we convert such largely diffused theses in philosophical positions, we might clearly notice the dogmatic opinion, according to which it is possible for the machine to imitate human thoughts and behaviours (strong artificial intelligence), and the sceptical opinion, according to which the machine is not intelligent because it has not a truly human mind (artificial stupidity).

8 P.J. Hayes, The naive physics manifesto, in D. Michie (ed.), Expert Systems in the Micro-Electronic Age, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1978. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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Both opinions are naïve, since they reduce man and the machine to a unique dimension. In the first conception it is presumed that the mind is only an algorithm, which may be implemented in an expert system of artificial intelligence and which is elaborated by the calculating reason and by the will reacting to external stimuli; in the second conception it is supposed that the cybernetic machine cannot develop any reasoning, nor imitate behaviours, nor feel emotions typical only of human nature.

4. The thinking machine. The computational project Modern rationalism, according to which man is able to know what is good and what is evil through the use of his own reason, contributed to base artificial intelligence programs on the scientific method9 and led to frame machines and biological systems capable of showing a functional behaviour within common schemes of algorithmic origin, thus confirming the mathematical condition of cybernetics10. Cybernetics has, in fact, deep historical roots, dating back to the late Middle Ages and to the early dawn of modern philosophy, where several attempts of mechanisation of thought through the canons of formal logic appeared. The thinking machine imagined by Raimondo Lullo in his Ars generalis ultima (1308), also called Ars magna, and in his compendious synthesis, the Ars brevis (written between 1308 and 1311), represents the outcome of the elaboration of a system of logic structured in a list of elementary concepts, expressed with symbols and numbers, which, combined with each other according to given computational rules, shall consent the constitution of a complete and universal knowledge11. Such a conception engendered developments in different and important moments of the emerging modern mathematism, of which it thus constitutes an interesting anticipation: the utility of Lullo’s ars combinatoria for disputations and for the way of developing speeches is explicitly commented and studied in detail by Giordano Bruno (De compendiosa architectura et complemento Artis Lullii, 1582); during the mid-Seventeenth century the organisational advantages of such a system, which connects arithmetic and mechanics, are applied to the construction of a primitive computing machine by Pascal; finally, in the later decades, the operational purpose of symbolic logic set by Lullo is developed by Leibniz, with the aim of founding the idea of a mathesis universalis precisely on combinatorial analysis12. 9 D.A. Gillies, Artificial intelligence and scientific method, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, trad. it. Intelligenza artificiale e metodo scientifico, Milano, Cortina, 1998. 10 G. Tamburrini, I matematici e le macchine intelligenti, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2002. 11 P. Moro, Lullo giurista informatico. Dall’ars combinatoria all’informatica giuridica, in G. Ferrari, M. Manzin (eds.), La retorica fra scienza e professione legale. Questioni di metodo, Acta Methodologica, 1, Milano, Giuffrè, 2004, pp. 289-308. 12 W. Schmidt-Biggemann, Topica universalis. Eine Modellgeschichte humanistischer und barocker Wissenschaft, Hamburg, Meiner, 1983, p. 156 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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The rationalist origin of cybernetic justice shows itself so emblematically in the well-known calculemus statement by Leibniz himself, according to whom whenever controversies will arise, there will be no greater need for discussion between two philosophers than the need for discussion between two calculators13. However, the scientific literature of the Twentieth Century constantly implies an analogy between man and machine and, more particularly, between artificial intelligence and conscience. It is well known that already in 1936 the British mathematician Alan Mathison Turing designed a machine capable of exhibiting operations typical of the human mind14. By analysing the mental computing process, Turing drew an analogy between man and computer referring to «mental states» to define the inner configurations of the machine and to the construction of a «brain» to trace the execution of his project. In 1950, Alan Mathison Turing outlined the famous Imitation Game, a test to establish whether a computer can elaborate a human thought: that is when, by questioning a calculator without seeing it, a person cannot distinguish whether it is a human being or a computer15. More specifically, the test takes place in three separate rooms. In the first room there is a human examiner; in the other two rooms there are another person and the computer subjected to the test. The examiner only knows the names of the person and of the calculator, without knowing who they really are, and interacts with them only through another computer, with the task of discovering their identity within a prefixed time limit. The machine passes the test if the examiner cannot identify it in time. Through the conception of this test, Turing presupposes a reductive notion of intelligence and will, limited to the deductive computation and to the exterior behaviour: a subject may be defined intelligent or not only if he reasons and behaves in a certain way, through linguistic communication and the will to react to external impulses.

5. The acting machine. The behavioural model The Turing test shows that the modern scientific project is not only rationalist, but also voluntarist. 13 «Quo facto, quando orientur controversiae, non magis disputatione opus erit inter duos philosophos, quam inter duos computistas. Sufficiet enim calamos in manos sumere sedereque ad abacos, et sibi mutuo (accito si placet amico) dicere: calculemus»: G.W. Leibniz, De scientia universali seu calculo philosophico, in Opera Philosophica, in C.J. Gerhardt, Die philosophischen Schriften con Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, VII, Hildesheim-New York, Georg Olms Verlag, 1978, p. 200. 14 A.M. Turing, On computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem, in Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 42, 1936, pp. 230-265. 15 A.M. Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in “Mind”, 59, 1950, pp. 433-460. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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The scientists who dealt with artificial intelligence have built common schemes of algorithmic origin that correspond to logical protocols used in computer science in the architecture of each software, to realise expert machines and biological systems able to exhibit a functional behaviour. These conceptual schemes are based on the prejudice according to which human will manifests itself in a reactive conduct and is defined as the capacity of conscious inhibition of a biological impulse: in such a perspective, the human willingness of reacting to external stimuli allegedly characterises also the machine, which behaves based on a sequence of automatic choices of environmental adaptation. The interpretation of the machine’s intelligence based on the effects of the reactive behaviour to external impulses derives from the theory of behaviourism (or behavioural psychology), developed by the psychologist John Watson at the beginning of the Twentieth Century on the assumption that explicit behaviour is the unique unity of analysis that can be scientifically studied, as far as directly observable, while introspection cannot provide any reliable data16. Such a behaviourist approach, which reduces will to an objective phenomenon in the psychological study of the moral act, influenced the famous theory of thesociety of mind by Marvin Minsky, New York pioneer of the studies on artificial intelligence and co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology A.I. Laboratory, as well as winner of the Turing Award in 1969. In his post-humanist and materialist reflection, Minsky reduces the individual to a particularly complicated biological mechanism and maintains that the single individual can free himself from the needs of the species and achieve in the future earthly immortality thanks to the progresses of artificial intelligence and bionics17. According to Minsky, brain is a highly complex machine comparable to a society organised by a network of hierarchic and competitive interconnections between multiplicities of strongly different components, called agents of the mind18. Several researches on artificial intelligent agents have been developed from such a theory. Artificial intelligent agents are advanced cybernetic systems presenting at least three characters that are considered similar to those of the human being: they are reactive, since they can react to the stimuli of environment; proactive, since they can decide what to do and to undertake the actions required to realise what they decided; interactive, since they can communicate between each other or with human beings constituting a multi-agent system or agency.

16 J.B. Watson, Psychology as a behaviorist view, in “Psychological review”, 20, 2, pp. 158-177. 17 A. Montanari, Scienza e immortalità terrena, in L. Grion (ed.), La sfida postumanista. Colloqui sul significato della tecnica, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012. 18 M. L. Minsky, The Society of Mind, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1986. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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6. Computer and human subjectivity. On the limits of artificial intelligence The ethical and legal questions posed by the development of expert systems of artificial intelligence, especially in the field of biorobotics, may be dealt with only through a critical reflection on the possibility to admit a real comparison between calculating machine and human subject. The reasons to doubt about the comparison between artificial intelligence and human conscience are many. 1) Parifying the operations of intelligent machines to human faculties results in a reductionist option, according to which human reasoning is narrowed to the sole calculation. The vision inaugurated by Turing, which presupposes the possibility that the machine can imitate human reasoning, is still anchored to the European mathematism of the modern age, as it arises from the conviction that logical activity is limited to deductive operations and that subjective behaviour, unlike what happens in other human situations, can be formalised through rules19. 2) A second presumption connected to the idea that artificial reason imitates human intelligence is the one concerning the alleged neutrality of science. If we remember the Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, every intelligent machine is always the conditioned product of a subjective programming and it is the result of hypothetical stipulations. As neurophysiologic studies demonstrate, the visual knowledge of objects is often conditioned by illusions, which exist because the visual system do not care about providing the conscience with always physically correct data of reality, but it gives relevant representations of what consents the interaction of the agent with reality itself. Moreover, it is very difficult to investigate the relation between the electro- chemical activity of the brain, which can be examined as a phenomenon in third person by using the presumed objectivity of the scientific method, and the conscious perception, cognisable by the interested subject in first person only. Free will is considered the only level of nature that can interpose a conscious assessment having an outcome that is not determined by the physio-chemical antecedents of the brain20. 3) Cybernetics keeps being in contrast with the never totally predictable and programmable nature of the activity developed by human intelligence and will. Automation, which characterises, at least partially, every artificial intelligence system and represents a constitutive element of computer science (in Italian, the word «informatica», which stands for computer science, derives from the crasis of

19 H.L. Dreyfus, What computers still can’t do. A critique of artificial reason, New York, Harper & Row, 1972. 20 F. Tempia, Attivita cerebrale e rappresentazioni mentali, in G. Cicchese, A. Pettorossi, S. Crespi Reghizzi, V. Senni (eds.), Scienze Informatiche e Biologiche, Epistemologia e ontologia, Roma, Città Nuova, 2011. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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«informazione automatica» – «automatic information»), is not the reproduction of the human behaviour or of mental activities. The possibility of configuring a constant and serial repetition of authentically human acts contrasts with the nature of human subjectivity, which is unpredictable and cannot be reduced to a mere biological involuntary and automatic mechanism. The universal mathematisation of the mind, in accord with the Turing’s computational project, excludes every form of creativity, which still is considered the qualifying character of intelligence, and requires the mind to perform completely automatic operations precisely as a machine: therefore, from the artificial simulation of intelligent behaviour in its entirety should derive also the creative invention, which is exactly the salient element of mental activity21. With the experiment of the Chinese room, John Searle confuted the Turing test, demonstrating that the machine’s ability to manipulate the information received according to pre-established formal rules in an unknown language (for instance, a text in Chinese language) cannot sufficiently explain the process of comprehension (for instance, the knowledge of common sense), given the non-intentional character of the symbols elaborated by the artificial system, with the consequence that mental processes cannot be reduced to processes of computational nature operating on formally defined elements22. 4) At the present state of cybernetics and of the evolution of artificial intelligence, computers cannot replicate nor formalise that mental procedure that may be defined as intellectual intuition23. Intuition is the ability to catch the essence of something independently from a logical procedure of demonstrative kind. Aristotle recalls that such an ability shows itself in human intelligence (anthrópinos noús) whenever it stays in «some moment» and «in the better way of something whole, which is something different from particular realities»24. We must admit that in the studies of artificial intelligence applied to the recognition of images, the vision of an object depends upon its whole finding: only after several phases of elaboration of the signals coming from images, the computer may identify an object and detect the category to which it belongs, but it cannot imitate that mental activity that can provide a whole conscious perception of an object recognised from several fragments of visual analysis, such as shape, colour and movement.

21 F. Chiereghin, L’eco della caverna. Ricerche di filosofia della logica e della mente, Padova, Il Poligrafo, 2004, pp. 199-200. 22 J.R. Searle, Minds, brains and programs, in “Behavioral and Brain Sciences”, 3, 1980, pp. 417- 457. 23 E. Berti, Il pensiero come forma di vita: a proposito dell’«intelligenza artificiale», in AA.VV., La vita: realtà e valore, Padova, Gregoriana, 1990, p. 42 ff. 24 Aristotele, Metafisica, XII, 9, 1075 a 7-10. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

528 Biorobotics and fundamental rights

Such an aptitude to perceive the global sense of the examined object, thus being able to offer a definition and the concept, develops on the basis of an analysis which is not discursive, but, precisely, intuitive, which appears as a form of life and which, lacking any logical procedure, cannot be formalised and, therefore, seemingly it cannot be reproduced by computers25. 5) Artificial intelligence cannot replicate the activity of the conscience that critically controls itself. Self-control means continually putting oneself in discussion and, at the root of every critical conscience, it characterises the activity of authentic philosophy. Within the field of computer science, this form of awareness of its own limit, which artificial intelligence is not able to accomplish, corresponds to the incomputable (that is, non-decidable) problem for every computer: it is not possible to define an algorithm of control of programs, capable of establishing whether, with regard to certain inputs, a software stops and provides a coherent solution or instead does not stop and provide an incoherent solution26. The arithmetic root of such a question can be found in Gödel’s undecidability theorem, according to which it is impossible to demonstrate the coherence of any formal system within the system itself27. The ability to radically and autonomously criticise any statement and, therefore, also the very same constitutive logic of one’s own thinking seems to be precluded to artificial intelligence, which, in any case, can be represented by a program that, according to Gödel’s theorem, cannot be controlled by another program within the same formal system. Thus, the computational perspective, which constitutes the origin of the studies and projects on artificial intelligence, shall consider also the thinking skills to re- define itself, going beyond itself, that is to say, an infinite ability, therefore subtracted to any possible calculation, which is one of the distinctive and irreducible forms of human intelligence28. The aporia of self-consciousness confirms that the activity of the human mind goes beyond itself and that, unlike the operations of the expert system of artificial intelligence, it cannot be formalised: the attempt to know objectively the act of thinking

25 E. Berti, Il pensiero come forma di vita: a proposito dell’«intelligenza artificiale», in AA.VV., La vita: realtà e valore, cit., pp. 42-43. 26 D. Harel, Computers Ltd.: What They Really Can’t Do, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2000. 27 K. Gödel, Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I, in “Monatshefte für Mathematick und Physik”, 38, 1931, pp. 173-198. 28 F. Chiereghin, L’eco della caverna. Ricerche di filosofia della logica e della mente, Padova, Il Poligrafo, 2004, pp. 200-201. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

P. Moro 529 is reduced to what is thought already, since we cannot imagine a representation of human subjectivity identified with the very same act of representing. Such a condition of intelligence in act cannot be assimilated to that of a mechanical or computational device and it seems to be a form that transcends itself and combines therefore accomplishment and going beyond, reminding in its own fullness and perfection to what, in its own defined boundaries, is always beyond itself, as it happens in music when one perceives the sound and, at the same time, catches the timber29. 6) We should add that human thought is a life form and such life form is original and different than the one that can be recreated with artificial intelligence30. As the examining impulse of self-consciousness demonstrates, human thought distinguishes itself from artificial intelligence and recalls an original aspect of the human being, that is the ability to reflect and criticise one’s own self. While investigating the physical phenomenology of life, Hans Jonas cleverly pointed out that in the living body’s metabolising system the method of production and exchange of energy is also the result of metabolic activity, so the comparison of the living body with the machine, which does not dispose of such a performance, is not founded31.

7. The human agent in relation. Another bio-robotics? As it often happens in science and technology, also in bio-robotics relation – the essential dimension of human subjectivity – seems to be neglected. Bio-robotics neglects that the human agent cannot be compared to the machine because of his/her ability to enter in relation with others, in a multiplicity of past, present and future forms. A bionic device that modifies the person’s identity affects the interpersonal relation, which in contemporary mentality appears to be subordinated to the needs of the individual also due to the assumption of neutrality of science assumption of neutrality of science. In the studies on artificial intelligence, aimed as they are at attempting to imitate with technique human thought, it is often forgotten that the ontological structure of human conscience is a relational one and it changes the ethical and legal perspective of the individual. Someone observed correctly that «man is not a human subject closed in himself, but a human subject who communicates and understands the other than

29 F. Chiereghin, L’eco della caverna. Ricerche di filosofia della logica e della mente, cit., pp. 349-350. 30 E. Berti, Il pensiero come forma di vita: a proposito dell’«intelligenza artificiale», in Aa.Vv., La vita: realtà e valore, cit., p. 44; F. D’agostino, Bíos/Zoé/Psyché, in Parole di Bioetica, Torino, Giappichelli, 2004, p. 27 ff. 31 H. Jonas, Ist Gott ein Mathematiker? Vom Sinn des Stoffwechsels, in Organismus und Freiheit. Ansätze zu einer philosophischen Biologie, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

530 Biorobotics and fundamental rights himself» and that «the human subject does not think (at any level) without receiving (…), thus without referring to others than himself»32. Besides, also neurobiological investigation confirmed this relational structure of conscience with the discovery of mirror neurons, which activates when the human subject sees his own movement made by another person33, engendering an empathy, which is at the same time rational and emotional, that justifies a relational and almost intuitive comprehension of the other. Such a dialogic structure of conscience does not concern an aspect of organic and atomised relations of purely biological character, like that of Minsky’s society of mind, but involves also the cognitive and moral aspect, as «man does not act without any consequences on the others (and thus he does not avoid objective liabilities) and without requesting anything from them»34. Unlike artificial intelligence and by its own nature, human conscience combines in reciprocity both cognitive thought and moral action, with the consequence that the agent may be entitled to also legally relevant rights and duties. Therefore, even admitting that the reticular connection of several calculators in which expert systems “run” may be equalised to inter-subjective communication, one asks if harmful actions may be subjectively attributed to the robot, the bionic device or the cybernetic software, which should be objectively responsible for such actions, inasmuch as they are harmful to inter-subjective foundations of human relations. The effective balance between computational power and controllability of expert systems shall be considered any time that the relational responsibility of the actions taken by a machine and the relative effects on human relations are to be established. First of all, the adaptation to environmental reactions, which characterises robotics, makes it difficult to prevent the cybernetic machine’s behaviour and the possible harms it caused, to the extent that it is necessary to study the several scenarios of legal responsibility of the robot for the actions committed by others35. Moreover, considering the possible introduction of juscybernetics in the solution of judicial controversies, the difficulty of reducing the judge’s responsible decision to an automatic software suggests to elaborate expert systems of artificial intelligence that, while remaining “machines”, can develop reasoning models founded on defeasible knowledge, which can be invalidated, to be considered certain until prevailing opposite points of view that, like in a trial, manifest themselves in a logic of objections confrontation36.

32 S. Cotta, Coscienza e obiezione di coscienza di fronte all’antropologia filosoficain Il diritto come sistema di valori, Cinisello Balsamo, San Paolo, 2004, p. 159 (our transl.). 33 G. Rizzolatti, C. Sinigaglia, So quel che fai, Milano, Cortina, 2006. 34 S. Cotta, Coscienza e obiezione di coscienza di fronte all’antropologia filosofica in Il diritto come sistema di valori, Torino, San Paolo, 2004, p. 159. 35 U. Pagallo, The Laws of Robots: Crimes, Contracts, and Torts, Dordrecht, Springer, 2013. 36 G. Sartor, Intelligenza artificiale e diritto: un’introduzione, Milano, Giuffrè, 1996, pp. 116-117. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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The principle of dialogue, which justifies the reciprocal coexistence of human beings, might be the new ethical and legal frontier of another bio-robotics. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Biorobotica e diritti fondamentali. Problemi e limiti dell’intelligenza artificiale

Paolo Moro

Sommario: 1. Considerazioni preliminari. – 2. Bionica e diritti fondamentali. – 3. Origini filosofiche della biorobotica. Dalla cibernetica all’intelligenza artificiale. – 3.1. Cibernetica. – 3.2. Processi intelligenti – 3.3. Opinioni contrastanti. – 4. La macchina per pensare. Il progetto computazionale. – 5. La macchina per fare. Il modello comportamentista. – 6. Computer e soggettività. Sui limiti dell’intelligenza artificiale. – 7. Il soggetto in relazione. Un’altra biorobotica?

1. Considerazioni preliminari Le applicazioni dell’intelligenza artificiale stanno generando nuovi problemi etici e giuridici nell’epoca contemporanea, tra i quali assume particolare importanza l’identità della persona umana e dei suoi diritti fondamentali nell’interazione con i più evoluti dispositivi tecnologici della robotica e della bionica. Robotica è l’insieme delle teorie che studiano la realizzazione di macchine intelligenti altamente organizzate (robot), dotate di automazione e capaci di emulare ragionamenti e comportamenti umani. Bionica è la scienza che studia le funzioni sensorie e motorie degli organismi viventi, al fine di individuare dispositivi tecnologici idonei a riprodurle o potenziarle. Il robot è oggi un sistema complesso che imita attività umane integrando i risultati ottenuti dall’intelligenza artificiale in vari ambiti del comportamento e del ragionamento, come la comprensione del linguaggio naturale, l’apprendimento automatico, la rappresentazione della conoscenza, la comunicazione interattiva. Avvalendosi anche della robotica, la bionica sviluppa sistemi cibernetici che si autoorga- nizzano e che sono dotati di capacità intelligenti, come riconoscere gli stimoli esterni (controreazione) e adattarsi all’ambiente (omeostasi). Però, la bionica si distingue dalla robotica per almeno tre profili che riguardano l’interazione uomo-macchina1: manca un controllo cosciente del dispositivo bionico da parte

1 A. Montanari, Scienza e immortalità terrena, in La sfida postumanista. Colloqui sul significato della tecnica, a cura di L. Grion, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

534 Biorobotica e diritti fondamentali del programmatore; l’interazione è invasiva; il dispositivo bionico può recuperare ma anche potenziare funzionalità dell’organismo. Dunque, mentre il robot e l’uomo rimangono comunque entità fisicamente distinte, nelle applicazioni della bionica uomo e macchina non sono separati, ma costituiscono un sistema integrato nel quale l’interazione tra soggetto e protesi elettronica non è gestita in modo cosciente. La presente ricerca procede ad una trattazione unitaria del fenomeno, indicando con il vocabolo “biorobotica” l’insieme delle teorie e delle applicazioni scientifiche dei sistemi di intelligenza artificiale realizzati nel campo della bionica2.

2. Bionica e diritti fondamentali L’uso di protesi bioniche può generare problemi etici e giuridici, in quanto si tratta di intervento invasivo che modifica l’integrità fisica e psichica della persona e, pertanto, può essere lesivo dei diritti fondamentali della medesima. Infatti, in caso di controversia tra medico che esegue l’impianto e paziente che lo subisce, l’eventuale innesto nel corpo umano di una protesi bionica potrebbe diventare un trattamen- to lesivo della dignità umana (art. 1 della Carta dei diritti fondamentali dell’Unione Euro- pea), dell’integrità fisica (art. 3), della libertà individuale (art. 6) e della riservatezza (art. 8). Anzitutto, un intervento di recupero funzionale con innesto di protesi bionica costituisce pur sempre una lesione dell’integrità fisica, come ogni intervento chirurgico, ma è di regola giustificato dal consenso informato del paziente e dal dovere pubblico di tutela della salute da parte della struttura sanitaria e del medico che ne fa parte. È quanto accade con dispositivi tradizionali, come il pacemaker artificiale che usa impulsi elettrici, emessi da elettrodi in contatto con i muscoli cardiaci, per regolare il battito cardiaco, ma anche con dispositivi sofisticati, come la realizzazione di un “orecchio bionico” mediante l’utilizzo di elettrodi stimolanti oppure l’impianto di elettrodi per la stimolazione cerebrale profonda. Peraltro, il dispositivo artificiale bionico si configura come un nuovo tipo di protesi che non solo può consentire di recuperare funzionalità perdute, ma anche di potenziare funzio- nalità esistenti o di introdurre nuove funzionalità, pur dovendosi ammettere che non esiste una linea di confine precisa tra recupero e potenziamento di capacità motorie o cognitive. Dunque, un intervento di potenziamento bionico di un organo corporeo può generare il dubbio se il trattamento sanitario possa considerarsi lesivo della dignità umana e della stessa identità della persona. Per esempio, nel noto esperimento scientifico di Kevin Warwick, è stato eseguito l’impianto di un elettrodo nel braccio sinistro di un volontario sano con l’obiettivo di verificare l’utilità, la compatibilità e l’operabilità a lungo termine di un vettore di microelettrodi posto

2 T. Consi, B. Webb, Biorobotics, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 2001; P. Dario, M.C. Carrozza, E. Guglielmelli, C. Laschi, A. Menciassi, S. Micera, F. Vecchi, Robotics as a Future and Emerging Technology: Biomimetics, Cybernetics, and Neuro-Robotics in European Projects, in “IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine”, 12, 2, 2005, pp. 29-43; G. Tamburrini, E. Datteri, Machine Experiments and Theoretical Modelling: from Cybernetic Methodology to Neuro-Robotics, in “Minds and Machines”, 15, 3-4, 2005, pp. 335-358. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

P. Moro 535 all’interno del nervo mediano, inclusi la percezione di segnali di feedback e l’utilizzo di una mano artificiale opportunamente accessoriata3. Invero, la bionica rende sfumata la linea di demarcazione tra ciò che rientra nella categoria della dignità umana e ciò che ne resta fuori. Ci si chiede in quest’ambito applicativo dell’e- voluzione tecnologica se la stessa identità della persona nel tempo dipenda esclusivamente dalla continuità fisiopsichica, dal possesso di un corpo integro e naturale, dalla dotazione persistente di una sostanza pensante. D’altro lato, l’intervento bionico non terapeutico può costituire messa in pericolo se non violazione dei diritti fondamentali alla libertà personale e alla privacy. Ne rappresenta un esempio paradigmatico l’impianto chirurgico di appositi dispositivi di identificazione di frequenza radio (Radio Frequency Identification Device, abbreviato RFID), che trasmettono via radio una sequenza di impulsi costituenti uno specifico codice, per la localizzazione delle persone o per la memorizzazione di informazioni di interesse (ad esempio, dati anagrafici, sanitari, finanziari). Infine, un’ulteriore ed importante questione giuridica concerne la natura ed i limiti del consenso all’intervento bionico che, come in ogni caso di trattamento sanitario, richiede il consenso libero e informato del paziente che subisce l’impianto, in base al diritto di autodeterminazione terapeutica e al divieto di trattamenti sanitari obbligatori. In tal caso, la legge italiana stabilisce che il consenso dell’avente diritto in una controversia penale (articolo 50 del codice penale) e la transazione preventiva in una controversia civile (articolo 1966 del codice civile) non sono efficaci quando vertono su diritti indisponibili, che sono considerati non negoziabili, sicché ci si domanda se sia nella disponibilità dell’interessato cambiare o progettare la propria identità facendo ricorso non soltanto al recupero di funzionalità biologiche ridotte ma al potenziamento di tali funzionalità con l’impianto di un dispositivo bionico. In questo caso, si pone il problema della definizione di ciò che è indisponibile, non essendovi classificazione di diritti indisponibili e non essendovi determinazione di ciò che è lesivo o meno della dignità umana, categoria vaga se non indeterminata: tra i vari criteri discretivi vi è l’articolo 5 del codice civile italiano, secondo il quale gli atti di disposizione del proprio corpo sono vietati quando cagionino una diminuzione permanente dell’integrità fisica, oppure quando siano altrimenti contrari alla legge, all’ordine pubblico o al buon costume. La regola non può essere considerata un criterio generale di riferimento per discriminare la disponibilità o meno di differenti situazioni soggettive, trattandosi di una disposizione comparsa espressamente nel codice in seguito al presentarsi illo tempore di una nota e dibattu- ta questione giudiziaria, accaduta in Italia negli anni Trenta del secolo scorso e riguardante la responsabilità giuridica del chirurgo per il trapianto di una ghiandola sessuale con il consenso del paziente che aveva subito l’intervento. Inoltre, la norma dell’articolo 5 si riferisce soltanto alla diminuzione e non al potenziamento permanente dell’integrità fisica e dell’identità umana cui conducono alcune applicazioni della biorobotica che, alla luce degli attuali sviluppi dell’ingegneria medica, potrebbero

3 K. Warwick, M. Gasson, B. Hutt, I. Goodhew, P. Kyberd, B. Andrews, P. Teddy, A. Shad, The Application of Implant Technology for Cybernetic Systems,in “Archives of Neurology”, 60, 2003, 10, pp. 1369-1373. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

536 Biorobotica e diritti fondamentali anche essere considerate offensive e generatrici di responsabilità penale: in ogni caso, il consenso del paziente alla violazione dell’integrità del proprio corpo (volenti non fit iniuria) resta inefficace quando riguarda diritti indisponibili.

3. Origini filosofiche della biorobotica. Dalla cibernetica all’intelligenza artificiale La tutela della persona e dei suoi diritti, che sono violati o messi in pericolo dall’interazione tra uomo e macchina, può essere adeguatamente giustificata soltanto riflettendo sull’o- rigine filosofica e, in particolare, sulla concezione antropologica che costituisce il fondamento teorico della biorobotica. È una visione che si sviluppa con la rivoluzione scientifica moderna e che esplode nell’era tecnologica del ventesimo secolo, presupponendo che l’uomo sia una macchina computante altamente complessa. Questo paragone tra uomo e macchina si è realizzato con l’informatica, che ha attuato il progetto computazionale designando la macchina calcolante con termini antropomorfici come cervello elettronico, memoria ed altri. Le radici della biorobotica, che si è sviluppata dalle applicazioni bioniche della robotica, risalgono propriamente agli studi sulla cibernetica e sull’intelligenza artificiale della seconda metà del Novecento. Infatti, la base teorica del funzionamento dei sistemi robotici, che non sono invasivi, e dei dispositivi bionici, che sono invasivi, è lo studio matematico dei sistemi neuronici, che ha condotto alle ricerche sull’intelligenza artificiale e all’elaborazione di una teoria generale degli automi, costituente uno dei problemi fondamentali della cibernetica.

3.1. Cibernetica La cibernetica può essere definita come la capacità di un sistema automatico di ordinare informazioni e adattarsi all’ambiente (omeostasi) attraverso il controllo e la correzione delle proprie operazioni (retroazione o feed-back). Il termine riprende la parola greca che indica l’arte del timoniere (kybernetés) che ha il controllo di una nave ed è capace di governarla. Il padre della cibernetica Norbert Wiener, nel suo fondamentale libro del 19484, dichiara di voler collegare la ricerca sugli esseri viventi a quella sulle macchine per garantire un adeguato controllo su entrambi e sostiene l’impossibilità teorica di distinguere il sistema nervoso umano da un sistema di comunicazione meccanico come quello telefonico5. Wiener stabilisce dei legami tra alcune caratteristiche distintive dei sistemi di computo, quali, ad esempio, l’autonomia del processo di calcolo, che non deve richiedere alcun intervento umano, nonché l’efficienza e la flessibilità dei dispositivi per la memorizzazione dei dati e lo studio del sistema nervoso. Nei capitoli aggiunti nell’edizione del 1961, introduce alcuni temi destinati a diventare argomenti centrali della ricerca in intelligenza artificiale, quali l’apprendimento automatico e lo sviluppo di sistemi artificiali in grado di auto-organizzarsi e auto-riprodursi. Wiener suppone che anche negli organismi viventi l’attività volontaria e riflessa sia basata

4 N. Wiener, Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine, New York, Paris, Hermann, J. Wiley, 1948. 5 Ibid. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

P. Moro 537 su meccanismi fisiologici di controreazione e adattamento all’ambiente, al fine di raggiungere condizioni di stabilità e di equilibrio, gettando le basi per gli studi successivi ed attuali sulla robotica.

3.2. Processi intelligenti Negli anni Cinquanta John McCarthy elabora un modello computerizzato della mente umana sviluppando le idee impostate dalla cibernetica di Wiener e conia per la prima volta il termine “intelligenza artificiale”, giungendo ad elaborare le linee guida comuni di tale ricerca in un fondamentale lavoro pubblicato con Pat Hayes nel 1969, ove si indica l’essenza del sistema di intelligenza artificiale nella sua capacità automatica di eseguire “common sense reasoning”6. Come afferma Hayes nel suonaive physics manifesto 7, ciò che si vuole rappresentare è il modo in cui le persone vedono il mondo, non il mondo come viene visto dalla fisica, con la conseguente necessità di elaborare modelli che riguardano non solo oggetti od eventi, ma anche percezioni e azioni inerenti alle modalità di comprensione del mondo da parte delle persone. Lo sviluppo cibernetico degli elaboratori elettronici ha suggerito agli scienziati di comparare la natura dei processi mentali di elaborazione e apprendimento delle informazioni, anche se in base ad un programma ridotto alla teorizzazione matematica ed artificiale dei processi naturali e sociali dell’attività fisiopsichica. Invero, i problemi introdotti dalla cibernetica e dall’intelligenza artificiale, che costituiscono le basi teoriche e applicative della biorobotica contemporanea, impongono lo studio delle più disparate discipline, non solo riguardanti le hard sciences (come l’elettronica, la genetica o la chimica), ma anche le humanities (come il diritto o la letteratura), tenendo conto che l’informatica è scienza palesemente interdisciplinare. La comparazione cibernetica delle corrispondenze fra strutture neuronali umane ed artificiali non ha portato al punto di sostituire con circuiti elettronici le complicate strutture del cervello umano, ma la biorobotica malcela progressi tecnologici sempre più rapidi nella costruzioni di dispositivi di recupero e di potenziamento dei processi intelligenti. Tra i vari problemi filosofici che questo scenario solo apparentemente fantascientifico pone all’intelligenza artificiale sembra prevalere un duplice ed ambivalente quesito. L’uomo pensa e vuole come la macchina? La macchina pensa e vuole come l’uomo?

3.3. Opinioni contrastanti Si discute se e in quale misura caratteristiche distintive della soggettività umana, come la coscienza e la volontà, possano essere trasferite ad un robot o a un dispositivo bionico. Invero, tra le varie opinioni che si possono sostenere, si distinguono due tesi opposte: da un lato, si può ritenere che l’essere umano presenti comportamenti e ragionamenti perfetta-

6 J. McCarthy, P.J. Hayes, Some Philosophical Problems from the Standpoint of Artificial Intelligence, in “Machine Intelligence”, IV, 1969, pp. 463-502. 7 P.J. Hayes, The naive physics manifesto, in Expert Systems in the Micro-Electronic Age, a cura di D. Michie, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1978. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

538 Biorobotica e diritti fondamentali mente imitabili da un robot mentre, dall’altro lato, si può affermare che l’essenza dell’uomo non è mai riproducibile dalla macchina cibernetica. Se si traducono queste tesi, peraltro largamente diffuse tra gli studiosi, in posizioni filosofiche, risultano evidenti l’opinione dogmatica, secondo la quale è possibile che la macchina possa imitare pensieri e comportamenti umani (intelligenza artificiale forte) e l’opinione scet- tica, secondo la quale la macchina non è intelligente perché priva di una mente propriamente umana (stupidità artificiale). Entrambe le opinioni sono ingenue, perché riducono l’uomo e la macchina ad un’unica dimensione. Nella prima concezione si presume che la mente sia soltanto un algoritmo, che si può implementare in un sistema esperto di intelligenza artificiale e che è elaborato dalla ragione che calcola e dalla volontà che reagisce agli stimoli esterni; nella seconda concezione si suppone che la macchina cibernetica non possa svolgere ragionamenti, né imitare comportamenti né provare emozioni tipiche soltanto della natura umana.

4. La macchina per pensare. Il progetto computazionale Il razionalismo moderno, in base al quale si presume che l’uomo sia capace di conoscere ciò che è bene e ciò che è male attraverso l’uso della propria ragione, ha contribuito a fondare i programmi di intelligenza artificiale sul metodo scientifico8 e ha portato a ricondurre a schemi comuni di origine algoritmica le macchine e i sistemi biologici capaci di esibire un comportamento finalizzato, confermando il presupposto matematico della cibernetica9. Difatti, la cibernetica ha radici storiche lontane, risalenti alla tarda età di mezzo ed all’au- rora della filosofia moderna, ove appaiono svariati i tentativi di meccanizzazione del pensiero utilizzando i canoni della logica formale e della matematica. La macchina per pensare immaginata da Raimondo Lullo nella sua Ars generalis ultima (1308), detta anche Ars magna, e nella sua sintesi compendiosa, l’Ars brevis (composta tra il 1308 e il 1311), costituisce l’esito dell’elaborazione di un sistema di logica strutturato in un elenco di concetti elementari, espressi per simboli e per numeri, la cui combinazione secondo date regole di calcolo deve rendere possibile la costituzione di un sapere completo e univer- sale10. Questa concezione ha suscitato sviluppi in diversi ed importanti momenti del nascente matematismo moderno, del quale costituisce così un interessante anticipazione: l’utilità dell’ars combinatoria di Lullo per le disputazioni e per il modo di condurre i discorsi è commentata e approfondita esplicitamente da Giordano Bruno (De compendiosa architectura et complemento Artis Lullii, 1582); i vantaggi organizzativi di questo sistema, che connette aritmetica e meccanica, sono applicati alla costruzione di una primitiva macchina computante da parte di Pascal a metà del Seicento; infine, nei decenni successivi, lo scopo operativo della

8 D.A. Gillies, Artificial intelligence and scientific method, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, trad. it. Intelligenza artificiale e metodo scientifico, Milano, Cortina, 1998. 9 G. Tamburrini, I matematici e le macchine intelligenti, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2002. 10 P. Moro, Lullo giurista informatico. Dall’ars combinatoria all’informatica giuridica, in Aa.Vv., La retorica fra scienza e professione legale. Questioni di metodo, Acta Methodologica, 1, a cura di G. Ferrari, M. Manzin, Milano, Giuffrè, 2004, pp. 289-308. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

P. Moro 539 logica simbolica impostata da Lullo è sviluppato da Leibniz, che si propone di fondare l’idea di una mathesis universalis proprio sul calcolo combinatorio11. L’origine razionalista della giustizia cibernetica si mostra così emblematicamente nella nota affermazionecalcolemus dello stesso Leibniz, secondo il quale “quando sorgeranno delle controversie, non vi sarà maggior bisogno di discussione tra due filosofi di quanto ce ne sia tra due calcolatori”12. Comunque, nella letteratura scientifica del Novecento si presuppone costantemente un’analogia tra uomo e macchina e, più in particolare, tra intelligenza artificiale e coscienza. È noto che già nel 1936 il matematico inglese Alan Matison Turing progettò una macchina capace di esibire operazioni proprie della mente umana13. Analizzando il processo mentale di calcolo, Turing stabilì un’analogia tra uomo e computer riferendosi agli “stati mentali” per definire le configurazioni interne della macchina e alla costruzione di un “cervello” per delineare l’esecuzione del suo progetto. Nel 1950, Alan Matison Turing definì il famosoImitation Game, un test per stabilire se il computer possa elaborare il pensiero umano: ossia quando, interrogando un calcolatore senza vederlo, una persona non sappia distinguere se si tratti di un’altra persona oppure di un computer14. Più specificamente, il test si svolge in tre stanze separate. Nella prima stanza si trova l’esaminatore umano; nelle altre due stanze vi sono un’altra persona e il computer che si sottopone al test. L’esaminatore conosce soltanto i nomi della persona e del calcolatore, senza sapere chi siano effettivamente, e si relaziona con essi soltanto attraverso uncomputer , assumendo il compito di scoprirne l’identità entro un limite di tempo prefissato. La macchina supera il test se l’esaminatore non riesce a identificarla nel tempo prefissato. Con l’elaborazione di questo test, Turing presuppone una nozione riduttiva dell’intelligenza e della volontà, limitate al calcolo deduttivo e al comportamento esteriore: un soggetto può essere definito intelligente o meno esclusivamente se ragiona e si comporta in un certo modo, attraverso la comunicazione linguistica e la volontà di reagire agli impulsi esterni.

5. La macchina per fare. Il modello comportamentista Il test di Turing mostra che il progetto scientifico moderno non è soltanto razionalista, ma anche volontarista. Gli scienziati che si sono occupati di intelligenza artificiale hanno costruito schemi comuni di origine algoritmica, che corrispondono ai protocolli logici utilizzati in informatica nell’architettura di ogni software, per realizzare macchine e sistemi biologici esperti capaci di esibire un comportamento finalizzato. Questi schemi concettuali sono basati sul pregiudizio secondo il quale la volontà umana

11 W. Schmidt-Biggemann, Topica universalis. Eine Modellgeschichte humanistischer und barocker Wissenschaft, Hamburg, Meiner, 1983, p. 156 ss. 12 G.W. Leibniz, Sulla scienza universale o calcolo filosofico, in Scritti di logica, I, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1992, p. 172. 13 A.M. Turing, On computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem, in Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, 42, 1936, pp. 230-265. 14 A.M. Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in “Mind”, 59, 1950, pp. 433-460. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

540 Biorobotica e diritti fondamentali si esterna in una condotta reattiva ed è definita come la capacità di inibizione cosciente di un impulso biologico: in tale prospettiva, si ritiene che la volontà umana di reagire agli stimoli esterni sia propria anche della macchina, il cui comportamento sarebbe fondato su una sequenza di scelte automatiche di adattamento all’ambiente. L’interpretazione dell’intelligenza della macchina sulla base degli effetti della condotta reattiva agli impulsi esterni deriva dalla teoria del comportamentismo (o psicologia comportamentale), sviluppata dallo psicologo John Watson agli inizi del Novecento sull’assunto che il comportamento esplicito è l’unica unità di analisi scientificamente studiabile, in quanto direttamente osservabile, mentre l’introspezione non può fornire alcun dato affidabile15. Questo approccio comportamentista, che riduce la volontà a un fenomeno oggettivo nello studio psicologico dell’atto morale, ha influito sulla celebre teoria dellasociety of mind di Marvin Minsky, pioniere newyorkese degli studi sull’intelligenza artificiale e co-fondatore del Laboratorio di IA del Massachusetts Institute of Technology, oltre che vincitore del Turing Award nel 1969. Nella sua riflessione postumanista e materialista, Minsky riduce l’individuo ad un meccanismo biologico particolarmente complicato e sostiene che il singolo possa affrancarsi dalle necessità della specie e raggiungere in futuro l’immortalità terrena grazie ai progressi dell’intelligenza artificiale e della bionica16. Secondo Minsky, il cervello è una macchina altamente complessa paragonabile ad una società organizzata da una rete di interconnessioni gerarchiche e competitive tra una molte- plicità di componenti fortemente diversi fra loro, denominati agenti della mente17. Da questa teoria sono state elaborate molteplici ricerche sugli agenti artificiali intelligenti, che sono sistemi cibernetici evoluti che presentano almeno tre caratteri che si reputano simili a quelli del soggetto umano: essi sono reattivi, perché sono in grado di reagire agli stimoli dell’ambiente; proattivi, perché sono in grado di decidere cosa fare e di intraprendere le azioni necessarie a realizzare quanto deciso; interattivi, perché sono in grado di comunicare tra loro o con esseri umani costituendo un sistema multiagente o agenzia.

6. Computer e soggettività. Sui limiti dell’intelligenza artificiale Le questioni etiche e giuridiche proposte dallo sviluppo dei sistemi esperti di intelligenza artificiale, soprattutto nel campo della biorobotica, possono essere affrontate soltanto riflettendo criticamente sulla possibilità di ammettere una reale comparazione tra macchina calcolante e soggetto umano. Le ragioni di dubbio intorno al paragone tra intelligenza artificiale e coscienza umana sono molteplici. 1) L’innalzamento della macchina intelligente alle facoltà umane si traduce in una riduzione delle capacità logiche del soggetto che, secondo questa convinzione, ragiona soltanto

15 J.B. Watson, Psychology as a behaviorist view, in “Psychological review”, 20, 2, pp. 158-177. 16 A. Montanari, Scienza e immortalità terrena, in La sfida postumanista. Colloqui sul significato della tecnica, cit. 17 M. L. Minsky, The Society of Mind, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1986. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

P. Moro 541 quando calcola. La visione inaugurata da Turing, che presuppone la possibilità che la macchina riesca ad imitare il ragionamento umano, resta tuttora ancorata al matematismo europeo dell’età moderna perché nasce dal convincimento che l’attività logica sia limitata ad operazioni de- duttive e che, contrariamente a quanto accade in diverse situazioni umane, il comportamento soggettivo sia formalizzabile mediante regole18. 2) Una seconda presunzione che accompagna l’idea secondo la quale la ragione artificiale imita l’intelligenza umana è quella relativa alla pretesa neutralità della scienza. Se si rammenta il principio d’indeterminazione di Werner Heisenberg, ogni macchina intelligente è sempre il prodotto condizionato di una programmazione soggettiva ed è frutto di stipulazioni ipotetiche. Come dimostrano gli studi di neurofisiologia, la conoscenza visiva degli oggetti è spesso condizionata da illusioni, che esistono perché il sistema visivo non si preoccupa di fornire alla coscienza dati sempre fisicamente corretti della realtà, ma di dare rappresentazioni rilevanti di ciò che consente l’interazione del soggetto con la realtà medesima. Inoltre, resta difficilmente investigabile la relazione tra l’attività elettro-chimica del cervello, indagabile in terza persona come fenomeno utilizzando la presunta oggettività del metodo scientifico, e la percezione cosciente, conoscibile direttamente solo dall’interessato in prima persona. La libertà della volontà è considerata l’unico livello della natura che può frapporre una ponderazione cosciente il cui esito non è determinato dagli antecedenti fisico- chimici del cervello19. 3) La cibernetica continua ad essere in contrasto con la natura mai completamente prevedibile e programmabile dell’attività sviluppata dall’intelligenza e dalla volontà dell’uomo. L’automazione, che caratterizza almeno parzialmente ogni sistema di intelligenza artificiale e che rappresenta un elemento costitutivo dell’informatica (termine che deriva dalla crasi di “informazione automatica”), non è la riproduzione del comportamento umano né tantomeno delle attività mentali. La possibilità di prefigurare la ripetizione costante e seriale di atti autenticamente umani confligge con la natura della soggettività, imprevedibile ed irriducibile soltanto ad un meccanismo biologico involontario ed automatico. La matematizzazione universale della mente, conforme al progetto computazionale di Turing, esclude ogni forma di creatività, che pur si considera il carattere qualificante dell’intelligenza, e richiede che la mente esegua operazioni del tutto automatiche esattamente come una macchina: pertanto, dalla simulazione artificiale del comportamento intelligente nella sua interezza dovrebbe scaturire anche l’invenzione creativa che, appunto, è l’elemento sa- liente dell’attività mentale20. Con l’esperimento della stanza cinese, John Searle ha confutato il test di Turing, di-

18 H.L. Dreyfus, What computers still can’t do. A critique of artificial reason, New York, Harper & Row, 1972. 19 F. Tempia, Attività cerebrale e rappresentazioni mentali, in Scienze Informatiche e Biologiche, Epistemologia e ontologia, a cura di G. Cicchese, A. Pettorossi, S. Crespi Reghizzi, V. Senni, Roma, Città Nuova, 2011. 20 F. Chiereghin, L’eco della caverna. Ricerche di filosofia della logica e della mente, Padova, Il Poligrafo, 2004, pp. 199-200. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

542 Biorobotica e diritti fondamentali mostrando che la capacità della macchina di manipolare le informazioni ricevute secondo regole formali prestabilite in una lingua sconosciuta (per esempio, un testo in lingua cinese) non è sufficiente a spiegare il processo di comprensione (per esempio, le conoscenze di senso comune), dato il carattere non intenzionale dei simboli elaborati dal sistema artificiale, con la conseguenza che i processi mentali non possano essere ridotti a processi di natura computazionale che operano su elementi formalmente definiti21. 4) Allo stato attuale della cibernetica e dell’evoluzione dell’intelligenza artificiale, ilcom - puter non è in grado di riprodurre né di formalizzare quel procedimento mentale che può essere definito come intuizione intellettuale22. L’intuizione è la capacità di cogliere l’essenza di una cosa indipendentemente da un procedimento logico di tipo dimostrativo. Aristotele ricorda che questa abilità si manifesta nell’intelligenza umana (anthrópinos noús) quando essa sta “in qualche momento” e “nel modo migliore in qualcosa di intero, che è qualcosa d’altro rispetto alle realtà particolari”23. Negli studi di intelligenza artificiale applicata al riconoscimento delle immagini, si deve ammettere che la visione di un oggetto dipende dal suo accertamento unitario: solo dopo varie fasi di elaborazione dei segnali provenienti dall’immagine, il computer può identificare un oggetto e rispondere a quale categoria appartiene, ma non può imitare quell’attività mentale che riesce a dare una percezione cosciente unitaria di un oggetto che è riconosciuto da vari frammenti di analisi visiva, come la forma, il colore o il movimento. Questa attitudine a percepire il senso globale dell’oggetto indagato, riuscendo così a dar- ne la definizione ed il concetto, si svolge sulla base di un’attività non discorsiva ma, appunto, intuitiva, che appare una forma di vita e che, essendo priva di procedimento logico, non è formalizzabile e, dunque, non sembra riproducibile dal computer24. 5) L’intelligenza artificiale non può riprodurre l’attività della coscienza che controlla criticamente se stessa. L’autocontrollo è la continua messa in discussione di se stessi che, alla radice di ogni coscienza critica, caratterizza l’attività dell’autentica filosofia. In ambito informatico, questa forma di consapevolezza del proprio limite, che l’intelligenza artificiale non è in grado di compiere, corrisponde al problema incomputabile (cioè indecidibile) per ogni computer: non è possibile definire un algoritmo di controllo dei programmi, capace di stabilire se, in relazione a determinati input, un software si ferma e fornisce una soluzione coerente oppure non si ferma e fornisce una soluzione incoerente25. La radice aritmetica di tale questione si trova nel teorema di indecidibilità di Gödel, per il quale è impossibile dimostrare la coerenza di un qualunque sistema formale all’interno del sistema stesso26. La capacità di criticare radicalmente e di propria iniziativa qualunque affermazione e,

21 J.R. Searle, Minds, brains and programs, in “Behavioral and Brain Sciences”, 3, 1980, pp. 417-457. 22 E. Berti, Il pensiero come forma di vita: a proposito dell’«intelligenza artificiale», in Aa.Vv., La vita: realtà e valore, cit., p. 42 ss. 23 Aristotele, Metafisica, XII, 9, 1075 a 7-10. 24 E. Berti, Il pensiero come forma di vita: a proposito dell’«intelligenza artificiale», in Aa.Vv., La vita: realtà e valore, cit., pp. 42-43. 25 D. Harel, Computers Ltd.: What They Really Can’t Do, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2000. 26 “Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I”: K. Gödel, in “Monatshefte für Mathematick und Physik”, 38, 1931, pp. 173-198. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

P. Moro 543 quindi, anche la stessa logica costitutiva del proprio stesso pensare appare preclusa all’intelligenza artificiale la quale, in ogni caso, è rappresentabile da un programma che, per il teorema di Gödel, non può neppure essere controllato da un altro programma all’interno del medesimo sistema formale. Sicché la prospettiva computazionale, che costituisce l’origine degli studi e dei progetti di intelligenza artificiale, deve tener conto anche della capacità del pensiero di ridefinire se stesso, oltrepassandosi, ossia di una capacità infinita e, dunque, sottratta ad ogni calcolabilità, la quale costituisce una delle forme distintive ed irriducibili dell’intelligenza umana27. L’aporia dell’autocoscienza conferma che l’attività della mente umana oltrepassa se stessa e che, a differenza delle operazioni del sistema esperto di intelligenza artificiale, non è formalizzabile: il tentativo di conoscere oggettivamente l’atto del pensare si riduce a ciò che è già pensato, poiché non si può immaginare una rappresentazione della soggettività che si identifica con l’atto stesso del rappresentare. Questa condizione dell’intelligenza in atto non è assimilabile a quella di un congegno meccanico o computazionale ed appare una forma che trascende se stessa e che, dunque, uni- sce compimento e oltrepassamento, mostrando nella propria pienezza e perfezione il rinvio a ciò che, nei propri confini definiti, è sempre al di là di se stessa, come avviene nella musica quando si percepisce il suono e, nello stesso tempo, si coglie il timbro28. 6) Si deve aggiungere che il pensiero umano è una forma di vita e che tale forma di vita è originaria e diversa da quella comunque ricostruibile con l’intelligenza artificiale29. Come dimostra l’impulso esaminativo dell’autocoscienza, il pensiero umano si distingue dall’intelligenza artificiale e richiama un aspetto originario del soggetto, che è la capacità di riflettere e di criticare se stesso. Indagando la fenomenologia fisica della vita, Hans Jonas ha acutamente rilevato che nel sistema metabolizzante del corpo vivente il metodo di produzione e di scambio di energia è anche il risultato dell’attività metabolica, sicché il paragone del corpo vivente con la macchina, che non dispone di questa prestazione, non è fondato30.

7. Il soggetto in relazione. Un’altra biorobotica? Come spesso accade nella scienza e nella tecnologia, anche nella biorobotica sembra trascurata la dimensione essenziale della soggettività: la relazione. Robotica e bionica trascurano che il soggetto non è paragonabile alla macchina per la sua capacità di entrare in relazione con altri, in una pluralità di forme passate, presenti e future. Un dispositivo bionico che modifica l’identità della persona incide sulla relazione interpersonale, che nella mentalità contemporanea appare subordinata alle esigenze dell’individuo anche a causa della pretesa di neutralità della scienza.

27 F. Chiereghin, L’eco della caverna. Ricerche di filosofia della logica e della mente, cit., pp. 200-201. 28 F. Chiereghin, L’eco della caverna. Ricerche di filosofia della logica e della mente, cit., pp. 349-350. 29 E. Berti, Il pensiero come forma di vita: a proposito dell’«intelligenza artificiale», in Aa.Vv., La vita: realtà e valore, cit., p. 44; F. D’agostino, Bíos/Zoé/Psyché, in Parole di Bioetica, Torino, Giappichelli, 2004, p. 27 ss. 30 H. Jonas, Ist Gott ein Mathematiker? Vom Sinn des Stoffwechsels, in Organismus und Freiheit. Ansätze zu einer philosophischen Biologie, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

544 Biorobotica e diritti fondamentali

Negli studi sull’intelligenza artificiale, protesi a cercare di imitare con la tecnica il pensiero umano, si dimentica che la struttura ontologica della coscienza umana è relazionale e muta la prospettiva etica e giuridica del singolo. È stato giustamente osservato che “l’uomo non è un soggetto chiuso in sé, bensì un soggetto comunicante e comprendente l’altro da sé” e che “il soggetto non pensa (a tutti i livelli) senza ricevere (…), quindi senza riferirsi ad altri da sé”31. Peraltro, anche l’indagine neurobiologica ha confermato questa struttura relazionale della coscienza con la scoperta dei mirror neurons, che si attivano quando il soggetto vede compiere il proprio atto motorio da un’altra persona32, generando un’empatia, razionale ed emotiva allo stesso tempo, che giustifica una comprensione relazionale e quasi intuitiva dell’altro. Questa struttura dialogica della coscienza non concerne un aspetto di relazioni organiche e atomizzate di carattere puramente biologico, come quello della society of mind di Minsky, ma coinvolge anche l’aspetto conoscitivo e morale, perché “l’uomo non agisce senza ricadute su altri (e quindi non evita responsabilità oggettive) e senza richieste nei loro confronti”33. Diversamente dall’intelligenza artificiale e per la sua stessa natura, la coscienza umana coniuga nella reciprocità il pensiero conoscitivo e l’azione morale, con la conseguenza che il soggetto può essere titolare di diritti e doveri anche giuridicamente rilevanti. Pertanto, anche ammettendo che la connessione reticolare di diversi calcolatori nei quali “girano” sistemi esperti possa essere equiparabile alla comunicazione intersoggettiva, ci si domanda se il robot, il dispositivo bionico o il software cibernetico possano comunque essere soggettivamente imputabili di azioni dannose delle quali devono oggettivamente rispondere, in quanto lesive di fondamenti intersoggettivi dei rapporti umani. L’effettivo bilanciamento tra potere computazionale e controllabilità dei sistemi esperti deve essere considerato ogni volta che si deve stabilire la responsabilità relazionale delle azioni intraprese da una macchina e dei relativi effetti sui rapporti umani. Anzitutto, l’adattamento alle reazioni ambientali, che caratterizza la robotica, rende difficilmente prevedibile il comportamento di una macchina cibernetica e i possibili danni da essa provocati, tanto da rendere necessario studiare i vari scenari della responsabilità giuridica del robot per fatto altrui34. Inoltre, esaminando la possibilità di introdurre la giuscibernetica nella soluzione delle controversie giudiziarie, la difficoltà di ridurre la decisione responsabile del giudice ad un software automatico suggerisce di elaborare sistemi esperti di intelligenza artificiale che, pur restando “macchine”, sviluppano modelli di ragionamento fondati su conoscenze defeasible, cioè invalidabili, da considerare certe fino al prevalere di punti di vista contrari che, come nel processo, si manifestano in una logica del confronto di obiezioni35. Il principio del dialogo, che giustifica la coesistenza reciproca degli esseri umani, potrebbe essere la nuova frontiera etica e giuridica di un’altra biorobotica.

31 S. Cotta, Coscienza e obiezione di coscienza di fronte all’antropologia filosofica, in Il diritto come sistema di valori, Cinisello Balsamo, San Paolo, 2004, p. 159. 32 G. Rizzolatti, C. Sinigaglia, So quel che fai, Milano, Raffaello Cortina Editore, 2006. 33 S. Cotta, Coscienza e obiezione di coscienza di fronte all’antropologia filosofica, in Il diritto come sistema di valori, cit., p. 159. 34 U. Pagallo, The Laws of Robots: Crimes, Contracts, and Torts, Dordrecht, Springer, 2013. 35 G. Sartor, Intelligenza artificiale e diritto: un’introduzione, Milano, Giuffrè, 1996, pp. 116-117. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

If the agent is not necessarily a human being. Some legal thoughts

Amedeo Santosuosso

Table of contents: 1. Agents, human beings and persons. – 1.1. The agent for the law. – 1.1.1. About the historical background. – 1.1.2. Endowed with reason and conscience. – 1.2. The case of corporations. – 1.3. A first conclusion. – 2. May a robot be responsible for injuries to a human? – 3. Some thoughts about things and persons for the law. – 3.1. Things and persons in the Internet of Things. – 3.2. The physical (legal) person: what constitutes its unity? – 3.3. Artificiality and the human biological compass – 3.4. If the agent is not governed by the will of a human – 4. A beginning as conclusion.

1. Agents, human beings and persons This paper deals with the legal definition of agent and its boundaries, if coincident with those of a human being or not. The question, although not completely new, has a renewed interest because of the increased presence of robots and automatic systems in our societies. In its general use the word agent has a sufficiently well defined, even though wide, set of meanings that all refer to the very comprehensive idea of «an active cause; an efficient cause»1. Basically there are four main (groups of) meanings: a) «A force or substance that causes a change: a chemical agent; an infectious agent» or «a natural force or object producing or used for obtaining specific results:Many insects are agents of fertilization»2; b) «One [presumably a human being: my note] that acts or has the

1 Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. 2 Hereinafter we refer to the definitions from two main US Dictionaries, available at http://www. thefreedictionary.com (23 October 2014). The first one is from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company: «a) Agent: 1. One that acts or has the power or authority to act. 2. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

546 If the agent is not necessarily a human being power or authority to act» or «a person or thing that acts or has the power to act»; c) «One empowered to act for or represent another: an author’s agent; an insurance agent»; d) in linguistics, «the noun or noun phrase that specifies the person through whom or the means by which an action is effected» or «a noun or noun phrase, denoting an animate being that performs or causes the action expressed by the verb». To these meanings a further very specific one has to be added: «A representative or official of a government or administrative department of a government: an FBI agent», that is the meaning of policeman and similar that can be found in all languages that use the word agent and derives from the Latin ăgĕre. Considered at a first level the above reported uses and definitions, one crucial point can be pointed out: agent includes almost everything that is able to cause a change, i.e. a force, a substance, a natural force, a natural object, a person/human being, a person or thing that acts. Such a wide meaning is consistent with the use that is stable also in the Italian language since its historical roots. In the first Italian Dictionary (Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, 1612)3 we can find two extremely distant reference points, God and natural agents, with in the middle the meaning of person empowered to represent another. The definition is as follows: AGENTE: operante, faccente. Lat. agens. Comentatore di Dante nel 7 del Purgatorio. «Dio agente di somma virtù, e infinita, la quale non richiede la materia innanzi disposta, sì come gli agenti naturali, in produrre, ec. Diciamo anche, agente d’ alcuno, a colui, che tratta negozj di quel tale. Lat. institor»4. Nowadays the same width of use can be found in game theory and Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory. From the vast literature on these issues we can refer to the concept of Autonomous Agent as «a collectively autocatalytic system performing

One empowered to act for or represent another: an author’s agent; an insurance agent. 3. A means by which something is done or caused; instrument. 4. A force or substance that causes a change: a chemical agent; an infectious agent. 5. A representative or official of a government or administrative department of a government: an FBI agent. Linguistics. The noun or noun phrase that specifies the person through whom or the means by which an action is effected». The second one is from The Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc.: «Agent 1. a person or business authorized to act on another’s behalf. 2. a person or thing that acts or has the power to act. 3. a natural force or object producing or used for obtaining specific results: Many insects are agents of fertilization. 4. an active cause; an efficient cause. A linguistic form or construction, usu. a noun or noun phrase, denoting an animate being that performs or causes the action expressed by the verb, as the police in The car was found by the police». 3 TheVocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca was the first Italian language vocabulary. First published in 1612, it was realized and published by the the Accademia della Crusca, a cultural institution founded in Florence in 1583. It was also the first great vocabulary of a modern language: http:// www.accademiadellacrusca.it/it/attivita/ristampa-anastatica-vocabolario-accademici-crusca-1612 (23 October 2014). 4 «Agent: who is acting, who is making/doing. From Latin Agens. A commentary of Dante’s Purgatory: God agent of highest and infinite virtue, who does not require the matter to be previously existing, differently from natural agents, […] It is also called agent one who acts for another. LatinInstitor » [translation from ancient Italian mine]. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Santosuosso 547 one or more thermodynamic work cycles that: (1) measures useful displacements from equilibrium from which work can be extracted; (2) discovers devices to couple to those energy sources such that work can be extracted; and (3) applies work to develop constraints to extract further work»5. In addition, from a large and long-lasting debate on the WEB we can quote this definition (that replies to the question if a Complex Adaptive System, is a living entity or implies life): «As far as CAS involving life per se I think the better axiom is that it involves Information Processing agents. Whether these are a protein molecule responding to information from its environment with a change of conformation or a living entity responding to a change in its environment with a volitional act they can all be subsumed under the rubric of IP [Information Processing] Agent or IPA for short»6. It is interesting to notice that in this light the umbrella concept shifts from that of an active/efficient cause to that of information processing ability. We may say that, in this light, the ability to process information becomes the main essential basic feature of an agent. As very often happens it is literature to offer a certain intuition on similar ideas: From the moment at which he realized that it is impossible not to stand at the centre of the world, and that this holds equally for him and for every human being, or animal, or even stone, or alga, or bacterium, he had to accept that there are only two solutions for a description of the modes of behaviour that this situation implies. If the centre of the world is active, the world itself, endowed and enriched with infinite centres, will in turn infinitely active; alternatively, the centre of the world must be besieged by the world’s totality, or, more exactly, must constitute its target7. If all this is true, we may say that robots, software agents, clouds and any kind of automatic system (able to process information), despite their nature of things and not persons, are not prevented by definition to be agents, at least in the broader sense we have seen above. Thus the legal question might be formulated as follows: where does the law draw the line of an agent, which is considered by the law (any kind of law: civil, criminal, administrative) a legal agent? Is or should such a line be coincident with that between things and persons?

5 M. Gambhir, S. Guerin, S. Kauffman, D. Kunkle, Steps toward a possible theory of organization, in Proceedings, International Conference on Complex Systems (ICCS), Boston, MA, 2004. 6 D. Thayer (Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft) at http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Can-there- be-universal-formal-853887.S.81908735 (11 December 2011). 7 G. Manganelli, Centuria. One hundred ouroboric novels, New York, McPherson & Company, 2005, p. 105 (Italian edition, 1995). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

548 If the agent is not necessarily a human being

1.1. The agent for the law In the field of law the concept that seems to be closer to that ofagent is that of an individual or group that is allowed by law to take legal action, as plaintiff or defendant. In English it is the word person that encompasses this broad concept of a human or organization having legal rights and duties. Persons are traditionally «divided by the law into either natural persons, or artificial. Natural persons are such as the God of nature formed us; artificial are such as are created and devised by human laws for the purposes of society and government, which are called corporations or bodies politic»8. In civil law countries different words and concepts are used, such as soggetto giuridico (Italian), sujet de droit (French) and Rechtssubjekt (German), even though also in civil law legal tradition the divide between natural and artificial persons (such as corporations) is well rooted. All these lemmas, despite their significant different cultural and legal backgrounds, cover, in the light and limits of this paper, the same basic meaning of an entity having legal rights and duties. However, what are the material/biological boundaries of such entity is a completely different chapter of the story and, as every legal scholar or practitioner perfectly knows, law has a long practice of manipulating reality in order to get its internal legal, and sometimes political, consistency. The 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rights9 seems to solve once and for all the problem when it establishes the full symmetry between the entity entitled to all the rights and freedoms and a human being. The Declaration solemnly states «All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights» (Article 1) and «Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status» (Article 2). However, things are harder to be conceptualized and it is easy to remark, on one side, that such a symmetry has not existed prior to the 1948 Declaration and, on the other side, that it is the same Article 1 that, in its second part, immediately reopens the question when it states, «They [All human beings, note mine] are endowed with reason and conscience». It seems that being a human being is not the only prerequisite for enjoying equal dignity and rights and that also reason and conscience are required. The question is worthy of a deeper consideration.

1.1.1. About the historical background As for the symmetry of the entity entitled to rights and freedoms and a human being, the question of “who” is the biological entity-owner of rights and liberties is

8 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, I, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1765, p. 119. 9 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by General Assembly resolution 217A at its 3rd session in Paris on 10 December 1948. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Santosuosso 549 a troubled one. Traditionally, in modern constitutions, the human biological entity was, at least prima facie, the unquestioned factual basis of the individual that the law considered as the owner of rights and liberties. If we have look at the most important declarations of rights we find what seems to be the same concept, even though wording and phrasing are different. The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) states that «allmen are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity […]». The United States Bill of Rights uses the word «person» (IV and V Amendment, 1791) and states that «nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws» (XIV Amendment, 1868). The 1789 French Declaration of the rights of man and the citizen, notoriously inspired by the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, states at Article first that «Men are born and remain free and equal in rights». As seen above the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948) states «All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights» (Article 1). The Constitution of the Italian Republic (1948) «recognizes and guarantees the inviolable human rights, be it as an individual or in social groups» (Article 2) and states «All citizens have equal social status and are equal before the law, without regard to their sex, race, language, religion, political opinions, and personal or social conditions» (Article 3). The Basic Law (Grundgesetz) of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949) starts recognizing that «Human dignity is inviolable» (Article 1) and, at Article 2, states «Everyone has the right to free development of his personality insofar as he does not violate the rights of others or offend against the constitutional order or morality. Everyone has the right to life and to physical integrity. The freedom of the person is inviolable». Finally, Article 3 stresses «All humans are equal before the law. Men and women are equal». It is not necessary to go on quoting other Constitutions to notice one thing, which appears immediately evident. The framers or drafters use many different words: «all men», «person», «citizen», «human being», «everyone», «no one», «individual», «humans», «men» or, more recently, «women». These wording is absolutely not neutral and all the movement of women rights, starting from the English and French revolutions to the suffragettes and finally in recent decades, so as the movement against any kind of discrimination, witness how those words were not neutral or, at least, had not been fairly interpreted. This is particularly true in American constitutional history. Slavery and its consequences are the «oldest, ugliest, and most persistent American constitutional problem», Robert A. Goldwin and Art Kaufman say in the Preface of their book on File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

550 If the agent is not necessarily a human being

Slavery and Its Consequences10. They stress how «the great American paradox is that while slavery and the race problems that followed from it are in integral part of our history, slavery and race discrimination are not part of the fundamental principles of the nation – and never had been». The Three-Fifths Compromise is perhaps the best example of political agreement about a legal rule (and its underlying natural entities). The 1776 conventions that approved Virginia’s Declaration of Rights clearly discussed the issue of slavery as a matter of being slaves members of society or not (Edmund Pendleton proposed to add, after the word «rights», «when they enter into a state of society»)11. Thus the question was exactly in terms of constitutional access to society and rights and liberties (even if denied). The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 1787 reached a compromise on the “federal number” clause, giving to slave states the possibility to count three-fifths of their slaves as part of the population. Thus, we could argue that each slave was considered, in constitutional terms, as «a human being in society» only for three-fifths12. Other similar problems arose for Indians and other kinds of minorities, everywhere. All this is well known and widely studied, and confirms philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s idea that «conceptions of freedom directly derive from views of what constitutes a self, a person, a man. Enough manipulation of the definition of man, and freedom can be made to mean whatever the manipulator wishes»13.

1.1.2. Endowed with reason and conscience As for the future, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights contains a clarification that may give raise to further questions. Saying that all human beings «are endowed with reason and conscience»14 it seems to assume that reason and conscience are part of the essence of all human beings and thus are intrinsic qualities of them. If so the consequence would be that a human being who lacks those qualities is not a human being or is not a full human being or is not entitled to be equal in dignity and rights. If this is true a long list of further questions can be formulated: a) what is the real meaning of reason and conscience; b) what about human beings that does not

10 R.A. Goldwin, A. Kaufman (eds.), Slavery and Its Consequences: the Constitution, Equality and Race, Washington, DC, American Enteprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1988, XIII. 11 W.M. Wiececk, “The Blessing of Liberty”: Slavery in the American Constitutional Order, in R.A. Goldwin, A. Kaufman, op. cit., p. 29. D.E. Fehrenbacher, Slavery, the Framers and the Living Constitution, in R.A. Goldwin, A. Kaufman (eds.), op. cit., pp. 1-22. 12 W.M. Wiececk, op. cit., p. 31. 13 I. Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958), in Id., Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1969 [It. ed. Id., Quattro saggi sulla libertà (1969), Milano, Feltrinelli, 1989, p. 200]. 14 J. Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, pp. 296-302. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Santosuosso 551 have such capacities: if those qualities are essential we should derive that they are not humans; c) and what about human beings that does not have yet such full capacities, for instance because they are newborn; d) and what about human beings who have lost such full capacities; e) and what about no-human entities that have a certain degree of reason and conscience (are they excluded by definition? or what is the degree necessary in order of being considered?); f) and, if the reply to the questions under e) is that it is not sufficient having a certain (even high) degree ofreason and conscience to be accepted to the club of humans, the further question is as follows: what about a human being who does not have (whatever the reason) his/her original reason and conscience and is supplied with artificialreason and conscience? Before exploring some of these questions, it is worth considering the case of corporations and their legal status, as it has historically been the most important theoretical legal gymnasium about non-human entities having rights and duties.

1.2. The case of corporations Some aspects of the legal status of corporations are not so controversial. It is universally admitted that a corporation, even though through its (human) representatives, may have its own legal personality and has its own property rights15. In addition, it can have obligations, duties and rights toward other corporations and humans. Thus it is widely shared the concept of corporations as artificial entities, which are created by state statute and are treated much like individuals under the law, having legally enforceable rights, the ability to acquire debt and to pay out profits, the ability to hold and transfer property, the ability to enter into contracts, the requirement to pay taxes, and, in general terms, the ability to sue and be sued. The rights and responsibilities of a corporation are independent and distinct from the people who own or invest in them16. As a consequence civil and administrative laws can address corporate misconduct and really address it in different countries according to national laws. The huge quantity of litigations before civil and administrative courts tell more than any theoretical explanation about corporations as legal agents, either as (artificial) person or soggetto giuridico or sujet de droit or Rechtssubjekt. What is more controversial is the criminal liability of corporations, something that has become a crucial topic in recent decades because of an alarming number of environmental, antitrust, fraud, food and drug, false statements, worker death, bribery, obstruction of justice, and financial crime involving corporations. The most recent and prominent case in the United Sates has been the Enron scandal and

15 Even though corporate property rights can be considered a challenge to the liberal conception of property rights: L. May, Corporate Property Rights, in “Journal of Business Ethics”, Jun. 1986, V, 3, pp. 225-232. 16 http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/corporations (8 December 2013). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

552 If the agent is not necessarily a human being in Europe the Parmalat case (Italy). While several jurisdictions have accepted and applied the concept of corporate criminal liability under various models, other law systems have not been able or willing to incorporate it. The traditional objection was the principle societas delinquere non potest in the 19th century. The reason was that the corporation is a legal fiction, which, lacking a body and soul, is not capable of forming the criminal mens rea or to act in propria persona17. Moreover, corporate criminal liability would violate the principle of individual criminal punishment. This is a very sensitive point in Italy, where the Constitution clearly states that «la responsabilità penale è personale»18 (Art. 27) and seems to exclude any criminal responsibility for corporations. In Italy it is quite strong the idea that, unlike human beings, corporations are only legal fictions19 and because of such minor status cannot be held criminally liable. These are the main reasons why Italian law, in order to fulfill the constitutional requirement of personality of punishment, envisages just administrative sanctions20. However it is remarkable that the Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) has clearly stated that, whatever the legislative label of the provision, the sanctions of the Italian law have the substantial nature of criminal sanctions21. In conclusion we may say that «similar to individuals, corporations have an identifiable persona and the capacity to express moral judgments. Corporations have an identifiable persona in the sense that they have a unique presence in the community, different from that of their owners or managers; they have ‘ethos’ that makes them unique and different from the individuals controlling or working for the corporations. The ethos can be derived from the corporation’s dynamic, structure, monitoring system, aims, policies, promotion of compliance with the laws, and discipline of the employees. The United States Supreme Court has decided that corporations have the capacity to express independent points of view and moral judgments, and their freedom of speech should not be abridged without a compelling state interest»22.

17 A.I. Pop, Criminal Liability of Corporations − Comparative Jurisprudence, Student Scholarship Paper, 2006, 81, http://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/king/81. See also S.W. Buell, The Blaming Function of Entity Criminal Liability, in “Indiana Law Journal”, 2006, 81, p. 473. 18 «Criminal liability is personal» [translation mine]. 19 This question will be specifically discussed, below, in Paragraph 3. 20 Decreto legislativo n. 231/2001. 21 Cass. Pen., Sez. III, 30 January 2006 (Jolly Mediterraneo case). 22 I.A. Pop, op. cit. The decision of the US Supreme Court on freedom of speech of corporations isFirst National Bank Of Boston V. Bellotti,, 435 U.S. 765, 787-95 (1978). See also: L. Friedman, In Defense of Corporate Criminal Liability, in “Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y”, 2000, 23 (p. 833 ff.), p. 846; P.H. ucyB , Corporate Ethos: A Standard for Imposing Corporate Criminal Liability, in “Minn. L. Rev.”, 1991, 75 (p. 1095 ff.), p. 1099; E. edermanL , Models for Imposing Corporate Criminal Liability: From Adaptation and Imitation Toward Aggregation and the Search for Self-Identity, in “Buff. Crim. L. R.”, 2000, 4, p. 694. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Santosuosso 553

1.3. A first conclusion The current idea that the action considered by the law is by definition an action taken by a human being, or strictly referable to human beings, is false both because we have many examples of actions taken by no-humans that are considered by the law and because there are several examples of actions taken by humans that are not considered by the law at least in relationship with the human who performed it.

2. May a robot be responsible for injuries to a human? Before developing some legal thoughts about what happens in legal terms when the agent is not a human being, it may be helpful to analyze a hypothetical story that works as a logical exercise in order to explore the possible reaction of legal categories to the interplay between robots and humans. Hereinafter the short story. An assistant robot, whose name is AsRo, is at work in a hospital. AsRo administers drugs to patients, gives first advice for simple problems, calls the physician when there is a serious problem, checks to see that ventilators and feeding tubes are connected and working, fixes machines when small problems occur. An ill-intentioned person enters the hospital, goes to the bed of a patient and starts disconnecting the ventilator. AsRo detects the malfunctioning and intervenes in order to fix the machine. The ill-intentioned person attacks the robot.AsRo sends the alarm and resists the assault. At the end the aggressor has personal injuries. The legal question that might arise is as follows: who, if anyone, is responsible for such personal injuries? Who should be charged for damages? To attempt a response we assume that AsRo was designed having Asimov rules as its ethical background. These well known rules are: a) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to be harmed; b) A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; c) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. Well, AsRo behavior prima facie violates the first rule, asAsRo has injured a human. However, at a deeper level, it is clear that if AsRo had remained inactive during the assault of the ill-intentioned person, AsRo would have violated the second part of the first rule, where it is stated that a robot may not injure a human being even «through inaction», allowing a human being to come to harm. And it is worth noting that the ill-intentioned started disconnecting the ventilator (rather than directly assaulting AsRo). Thus,AsRo had an obligation to fix the ventilator! In the second part of his action the ill-intentioned turns directly against AsRo, busily fixing the ventilator. During the scuffle between the robot and the human it is the human who come off worse. In this case, AsRo can advocate the third rule, where File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

554 If the agent is not necessarily a human being it is stated that a robot must protect its own existence «as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws». And, as we have seen,AsRo fully respected the two previous rules. On these basis we may say (as it is likely to be in several legal systems!), the aggressor who would try to collect damages for his injuries would lose his lawsuit against either the producer (who manufactured the robot according to a design consistent with internationally accepted ethical rules) or the owner of the robot (who used it in a proper way).

3. Some thoughts about things and persons for the law Our societies are populated with human beings, corporations, robots, software agents, clouds and several kinds of automatic systems. They all are able not only to be an efficient cause but also to process information. The following legal thoughts have to be considered as dispersed entities hopefully useful trying to reply to what should be the legal frame able to encompass such multifarious reality.

3.1. Things and persons in theInternet of Things The Internet of Things is the environment for all these agents. There are different opinions on what the Internet of Things is and they range «from the original concept proposed by Kevin Ashton at the Auto-ID Center of an informational network that allows the look-up of information about real-world objects by means of a unique ID called Electronic Product Code (EPC) and a resolution mechanism (ONS), to a network of sensors, actuators and autonomous objects interacting with each other directly. Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication is another term sometimes associated with the later»23. The crucial concept of the Internet of Things is to be related to «the integration of the physical world with the virtual world of the Internet. There are physical objects one wants to be able to track, to monitor and to interact with. Examples include inanimate objects like pallets, boxes containing consumer goods, cars, machines, fridges – and maybe even the infamous carton of milk or cup of yoghurt – as well as animate objects like animals and humans. These are the things of the Internet of Things – or to use a clearer term, theentities of interest»24. The distinction between

23 S. Haller, The Things in the Internet of Things, available at http://www.iot-a.eu/public/news/ resources/TheThingsintheInternetofThings_SH.pdf (The contents of the paper were presented as a poster at the Internet of Things Conference 2010, Tokyo, Japan, http://www.iot2010.org/). The proposal by K. Ashton is in S. Sarma, D.L. Brock, K. Ashton, The Networked Physical World, Proposals for Engineering the Next Generation of Computing. Commerce & Automatic-Identification, Auto-ID Center White Paper, October 2000. 24 S. Haller, op. cit. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Santosuosso 555 entities of interest and devices is important: «the entity of interest is the object that has some value for the observer, the device is a technical component needed to observe or interact with the entity of interest» 25. The integration of humans and things has a clear development in the Industrial Internet, a technological approach focused on «connecting more intelligent machines, advanced analytics, and people at work». The project by General Electric aims at «exploring how the Industrial Internet, predictive analytics and new machine-human collaboration in the workplace can significantly boost productivity, create new jobs and skills, and minimize unplanned downtime in major industries»26. These few information about the Internet of Things allow us to put a couple of points: a) the things to be connected are not necessarily things/objects (in their traditional legal meaning of inanimate object opposed to human being or other animal27); b) even when they are things/objects in traditional terms (thus, conceptually opposed to persons), they might be able to process information and thus they are not necessarily passive.

3.2. The physical (legal) person: what constitutes its unity? Coincidence of «human individual» and the owner of rights and liberties is a not natural entity and also conceals a conceptual fallacy. Hans Kelsen sharply addresses the concepts of legal person and physical person in a well-known passage from the General Theory of Law and State28. He firstly criticizes «the common way of defining the physical (natural) person» and the use of formulas like «the physical

25 S. Haller, op. cit. 26 From M. Annunziata, P.C. Evans, The Industrial Internet@Work, General Electric Company, 2013 at http://www.ge.com/sites/default/files/GE_IndustrialInternetatWork_WhitePaper_20131028.pdf. For the Minds+Machines project by General Electric see at http://www.ge.com/mindsandmachines. The aim of the project is «exploring how the Industrial Internet, predictive analytics and new machine-human collaboration in the workplace can significantly boost productivity, create new jobs and skills, and minimize unplanned downtime in major industries». Industry 4.0 is also a project in the high-tech strategy of the German government: see Project of the Future: Industry 4.0, http://www.bmbf.de/en/19955. php. Till now the attention to these issues in Italy has been scarce: see http://www.meccatronica-world. it/industrie-4-0-e-quarta-rivoluzione-industriale/ and http://www.weidmuller.it/docs/cw_index_ v2.aspx?id=97306&domid=1031&sp=I&m1=63532&m2=93085&m3=93097&m4=97306. 27 «An entity, an idea, or a quality perceived, known, or thought to have its own existence. […] Law That which can be possessed or owned» (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company, 2009, available at http://www.thefreedictionary. com/). In the first Italian Dictionary Vocabolario( degli Accademici della Crusca, 1612) «nome di termine generalissimo, e si dice di tutto quel ch’ è. Lat. res.», at http://www.accademiadellacrusca.it/it/attivita/ ristampa-anastatica-vocabolario-accademici-crusca-1612. In modern Italian «cosa» is «il nome più indeterminato e più comprensivo della lingua italiana, col quale si indica, in modo generico, tutto quanto esiste, nella realtà o nell’immaginazione, di concreto o di astratto, di materiale o d’ideale»: Dizionario Treccani at http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/. 28 H. Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State, Harvard, Harvard University Press, 1945 (translated by Anders Wedberg), Part One, Chapter IX, A-B, pp. 93-95. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

556 If the agent is not necessarily a human being person is a human being, whereas the juristic person is not» or the physical person is «a human being considered as invested with rights, or considered as subject to duties». Consequently, the current statement that «a person has duties and rights is meaningless or is an empty tautology» as «the legal person is not a separate entity besides “its” duties and rights, but only their personified unity or − since duties and rights are legal norms − the personified unity of a set of legal norms». Kelsen’s further step is expressed in the following crucial question: «What constitutes this kind of unity? When does a set of duties and rights, a set of legal norms, have this kind of unity?». The answer is as follows: to say that a particular human being has a certain duty or right, means only that a certain conduct of that individual is the content of a legal duty or right. On the other hand legal norms only consider particular actions or forbearances and, as far as they can be numerous, never regulate the whole existence of the human individual: «Even the total legal order never determines the whole existence of a human being subject to the order, or affects all his mental and bodily functions». For this reason when we say that a slave is legally no person, or has no legal personality, we mean «there are no legal norms qualifying any behavior of this individual as a duty or a right». The consequence is «the person exists only insofar as he “has” duties and rights; apart from them the person has no existence whatsoever. To define the physical (natural) person as a human being is incorrect, because man and person are not only two different concepts but also the results of two entirely different kinds of consideration. Man is a concept of biology and physiology, in short, of the natural sciences. Person is a concept of jurisprudence, of the analysis of legal norms». The answer to the further facet of the question on what constitutes the kind of unity we call physical (natural) person is as follows: «the human being is not the physical (natural) person but, so to speak, only “the compass” of a physical (natural) person. The relation between a so-called physical (natural) person and the human being with whom the former is often erroneously identified consists in the fact that those duties and rights which are comprehended in the concept of the person all refer to the behavior of that human being». Thus, according to Kelsen «since the concept of the so-called physical (natural) “person” is only a juristic construction and, as such, totally different from the concept of “man”, the so-called “physical” (natural) person is, indeed, a “juristic” person. If the so-called physical (natural) person is a juristic person, there can be no essential difference between the physical (natural) person and what is usually exclusively considered as a “juristic” person». In brief, in the economy of this essay, the main points of Kelsen’s passage can be summarized as follows: (a) the human being, as biological entity, is a different entity than the physical person in legal terms; (b) the human being is the basis of File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Santosuosso 557 the physical person in legal terms as a symbolic and linguistic unity; (c) the biological human being is only the enclosing line (Kelsen uses the word compass, in double quotes) of a physical person in legal terms; (d) the human being exists for the law only for the limited part rights and duties refer to him; (e) the physical person in legal terms and the juristic person (i.e. corporation) are both legal creations having in common the character of artificiality. All these propositions are based on certain assumptions, which make them possible. Firstly, the biological, physiological and natural dimension can be clearly kept apart from the legal dimension, and any mutual contamination can be expunged. This is a prerequisite for linguistic and conceptual purification of the law from any residual “primitive mythological thinking”. Secondly, the possibility of keeping any biological feature of the physical person apart from the legal concept of the physical person seems to require that there is no conflict of normativity between law and other fields, such as biology. In other words, neither scientific nor naturalistic normativity seem to be considered, making the human being simply an unquestionably delimited fact, which allows norms to be brought to unity. Thirdly, and above all, a total, spatial and historical, symmetry is postulated between the human being and the entity which law refers to while creating those rights and duties, which are the elements of the physical person in legal terms. In other words, the biological human being is a safe and unquestioned delimitation, which encompasses rights and duties of the physical person in legal terms. Hence the physical person in legal terms is a complex of rights and duties which, however wide and numerous, all fall within a biological boundary, which is assumed to be certain and stable. This boundary is the human individual biological entity that everybody empirically knows in his clearly bordered materiality, substantially unvarying and unsusceptible to change in extension and in kind. Thus, if even physical (legal) persons are legal artifacts (according to Kelsen’s teaching in mid Twenty century), nowadays we should not be surprised because of a new question: may something different than a human being be a legal agent29? The reply should beyes and the question should rather change into a) under what conditions this may happen? and b) what are the required features and abilities in order to recognize such a legal status?

3.3. Artificiality and the human biological compass Assumed that something different than a human being (and different from corporations and other well known examples of formal legal entities) can be a legal agent, we should ask what does the assumption of artificiality solve and what it does

29 Besides corporations and other well known examples of formal legal entities, of course. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

558 If the agent is not necessarily a human being not. As we have seen above Kelsen postulates a full symmetry between the entity which law refers to while creating those rights and duties and the human being, which is considered a safe and unquestioned compass. Well, the problem is that this compass is not safe anymore. A physical person can be now the combination of several parts and even devices: his/her original brain and body (eventually with parts/organs that come from other humans or genetically modified animals), traditional prosthesis, new prosthesis (which work through a brain-computer interface), brain-computer- web devices, a companion robot and more. Needless to say that in a picture like this there is nothing that is comparable to a safe boundary, surely from a strict biological point of view. Of course the need for a unity can find a reply by theunity of will: the boundary of an individual is the result of the past and present decisions of the same person in order to add or exclude some components/changes from his/her unity30. However this extension from the traditional stable biological boundary to the power of choice of the individual is not a fully safe criterion at least in two cases: a) when the elements forming that specific individual unity include also artificial devices, which are able to process information (e.g. a computer or a connection with the web – internet of things); b) when some device entails an alteration of consciousness because of a neuroscientific intervention (through drugs, surgery or any other kind of intervention). In other words, if the unity is guaranteed by the will of that individual how can the individual be empowered for such a difficult challenge? Law can intervene assuring some external help. The question, or list of questions, is still the same we posed some years ago starting from neuroscience31. At that time we stressed that if the question of individual boundaries is given priority, the old question of free will may no longer be at the forefront. Furthermore, we may discover that an individual’s will is intertwined with those of other people/ entities. If so, should we move from the concept of an individual (free) will towards a social group’s will? Are associations like this merely temporary? Is immediate opting- out guaranteed? Who is the individual that will opt out? Will it be the “who” that freely decided to join the association? Or will it be the “new who” that is the result of the experience of association? Are they the same person? In other words, does the

30 A. Santosuosso, Persone fisiche e confini biologici: chi determina chi, in “Politica del diritto”, 2002, 4 (disponibile anche presso http://blog.centrodietica.it/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/santosuosso. pdf). See also A. Santosuosso, Should privacy be abolished in genetics and biobanking? in U. Izzo, M. Macilotti, G. Pascuzzi (eds.), Comparative Issues in the Governance of Research Biobanks. Property, Privacy, Intellectual Property and the Role of Technology, Springer, 2013. 31 A. Santosuosso, B. Bottalico, Neuroscience, accountability and individual boundaries, in “Frontiers in Human Neuroscience”, 3, Art. 46, December 2009. See also A. Santosuosso, V. Sellaroli, I. Pavone, Drawing the boundary lines of humans: in whose bailiwick?, in “Derecho y Religiòn”, 2007, II, pp. 11–36. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

A. Santosuosso 559 individual identity survive the association? Is the free, informed decision to associate a sufficient guarantee? Or should a guardian be appointed in order to assure the freedom of decision (whose?) and respect for the conditions necessary for opting out? Questions like these, even though not new in philosophical debate32, are now on the legal agenda and require a social response. From a legal viewpoint the question might be conceptualized as a matter of sovereignty. In other words, once nature is out of play and is no longer able to tell us what to do or not to do, the question Who has the power and is entitled to draw the boundary line for each individual? becomes crucial.

3.4. If the agent is not governed by the will of a human Till now we have stretched human capabilities and have outlined some legal devices that might be able to empower the technologically integrated human in order to keep his/her sovereignty on his/her life. However we have to face also a completely new reality, where the starting point of the (natural) entity is not a human being that has been provided with a cornucopia of technical devices, but directly a full technical artifact endowed with a certain degree of reason and conscience and able to have a social interaction with both humans and entities having similar characteristics. The question is on the agenda since the technology for designing and producing cognitive robots, which are able to adapt and to develop in evolutionary terms, is available and experiments are in progress. Some definitions of what is in progress in technological terms might help focusing the issue. A cognitive robot is an autonomous robot that exploits processes analogous to cognitive processes. It has the ability of reasoning (process of modification of the knowledge base of the robot through logical manipulation of the available knowledge); the ability of planning (computation and selection of tasks, policies and procedures for goal-directed robot behavior) and learning (process of modification of the knowledge base of the robot gained through the interaction with the environment, including people, that may produce a persistent change in the robot behavior)33. Social robots are «embodied agents that are part of a heterogeneous group: a society of robots or humans. They are able to recognize each other and engage in social interactions, they possess histories (perceive and interpret the world in terms of their own experience), and they explicitly communicate with and learn from each

32 D. Parfit, Reasons and persons, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984. 33 C. Leroux, R. Labruto (eds.) Suggestion for a green paper on legal issues in robotics - Contribution to Deliverable D3.2.1 on ELS issues in robotics, 2002, http://www.euroboticsproject.eu/cms/upload/ PDF/euRobotics_Deliverable_D.3.2.1_Annex_Suggestion_GreenPaper_ELS_IssuesInRobotics.pdf; A. Santosuosso, C. Boscarato, F. Caroleo, Robot e diritto: una prima ricognizione, in “NGCC”, July-August 2012, pp. 494-516. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

560 If the agent is not necessarily a human being other»34. Evolutionary and/or developmental methods allow to synthesize robots that develop their skills autonomously in interaction with the physical, and eventually social, environment on the basis of an adaptive process driven by the ecological condition in which the robot operate and on the basis of an utility function designed by the experimenter. Of course such interaction requires a body through which they are able to exploit the opportunities that their embodied and situated nature provides them. With Evolutionary robots we refer to a methodology that uses evolutionary computation to develop controllers for autonomous robots, which operate in close interaction with the environment and without human intervention. It is inspired by the Darwinian principle of selective reproduction of the fittest. Evolutionary robots use neural networks, genetic algorithms, dynamic systems, and biomorphic engineering. Experiments are in progress showing that the survival probability (for instance in terms of access to the source of energy) of a species is affected by the behavior of other species35. Among many other things it is remarkable that in this new generations of robots the learning ability does not simulate “real” human intelligence. Rather, organic molecules are used to produce that result. The huge flagshipHuman Brain Project, recently launched by the EU, is mostly intended to increase this way of research36. This is a true challenging reality for the society as a whole and for the law as well. Just few points can be outlined: A. We can say now that in a reasonable time we should be able to produce no- human entities that have a certain degree of reason and conscience: should they be excluded by definition from the club of humans or it is a matter of degree? B. What about a human being who does not have (whatever the reason) his/ her original reason and conscience and is supplied with an artificialreason and conscience? If the reply were that in this case such a composed entity might be accepted because of his/her human biological background, the easy objection might be that being a human animal gave a discriminatory advantage over (artificial) entities that are endowed withreason and conscience and that (because of their status of entities having reason and conscience) might disobey to such a violation of basic rights that (as universal) should be recognized to them as well.

34 A. Billard, K. Dautenhahn, Experiments in learning by imitation - grounding and use of communication in robotic agents, in “Adaptive Behavior”, 1999, 7(3/4), pp. 415-438. 35 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOTYb05PGjw; see also P.A. Vargas, E.A. Di Paolo, I. Harvey, P. Husbands (eds.), The Horizons of Evolutionary Robotics, Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 2014. 36 TheHuman Brain Project aims «to build a completely new information computing technology infrastructure for neuroscience and for brain-related research in medicine and computing catalyzing a global collaborative effort to understand the human brain and its diseases and ultimately to emulate its computational capabilities»: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/it. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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C. One (apparently) strong objection to the recognition of legal subjectivity to no- human entities is that they do not own assets and liability susceptible of pecuniary evaluation and are not able to call a lawyer and to stand before a court claiming their rights. The reply is quite easy: the entity might have its own assets (similarly to any other corporation) and might be programmed in order to be able to call a lawyer and sue its counterparts.

4. A beginning as conclusion The above outlined scenario is the beginning of a new era, not its end. To the question whether human beings are disappearing, it is to be replied, no, they are not disappearing, even though they are not anymore the only ones having rights and duties. To the question if robots and automatic systems are equal to human being, the reply is again, no, they will not be equal even though this is not a good reason for not recognizing them any legal value and right. In very practical terms we can say that in social relationship to more technical complexity a longer chain of responsibilities corresponds. And, in general terms, the social and legal systems become more complex. A huge job is on the agenda of open- minded lawyers.

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Modern technology and legal compliance

Eric Hilgendorf

Table of contents: Technology and law - the steering of the technological progress. – The three tasks of technology law. – New tendencies in robotics. – Technological development and social morality. – Robotics and the law. – 1. Medical robotics. – 2. (Partially) autonomous motor vehicles and road traffic law. – 3. The use of unmanned air systems. – 4. Robots and data protection law.

In this article, I want to offer some new ideas on the tasks of jurists engaging themselves in the field of technology law. Traditionally, lawyers have been working for example as judges, public prosecutors, attorneys, company lawyers, professors of law or lawyers engaging themselves in legal politics and the creation of new law. Now, a new type of lawyer seems to be emerging: the expert on legal compliance.

Technology and law – the steering of the technological progress The relationship between technology and law is not without problems. It is almost banal to point out that technological development does not merely increase the range of choices we have available to us, helping us to structure the world and freely develop ourselves according to the choices we make. Rather, it can also lead to unintended consequences, which are contrary to our interests and wishes. This raises the issue of shaping and controlling technological development. In a democratically constituted polity, it should not be the large firms, nor the technical experts or engineers, nor the large research institutions, who make the big decisions on the direction technological development should take. Rather it should be the legitimate, democratically elected parliament, representing its citizens, which should decide on these essential questions after public discussion. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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Up to now it has sometimes been suggested in the literature that technological development cannot be steered. This is because it is said to develop according to its own contingencies. Whoever argues this position, ignores the fact that the state has controlled and steered technological development during the entire period for which we have historical records1. Methods used have ranged from criminal prohibitions without exceptions, to prohibitions subject to authorisation, all the way to subtle influence exerted through research funding and tax law2. The degree of governmental influence, in turn, is determined in part by public discourse in the society and in part by the positions taken by the big actors influencing public opinion (for example the press, television, associations and churches). The importance of scientific and technological progress for society today is so high that one often speaks of the so called “knowledge based society” (although the expression “scientific knowledge based society” would be better). What is meant is that of all the different kinds of knowledge – traditional knowledge, religious knowledge, special knowledge of particular elites in society - the greatest importance is attached to science based knowledge. The influence of the natural sciences and technology on our lives is enormous. In view of the consequences which undesirable developments in these areas could have, reference is being made increasingly to the under-developed state of scientific and technical expertise in the general population. (After all it is the citizens who elect the parliament). Thus Richard Winston, the British sociologist of science, proposed “that the key to successful living in a society dominated by advancing technology lies in better public engagement with science and technology”3. Steering technological development should not take place through individual decisions made of necessity by a government but rather on the basis of an established normative order, which is created particularly by law and social morality. All technological innovation can be assessed on this basis, even though few innovations generally attract so much attention that political authorities deal with the innovations themselves. An example of a major theme in many European countries in the last few decades was research on embryos and stem cells. For quite some time, however, regulation of the internet, too, has been a big topic in political discussions, and it is going to be an even bigger one in the future.

1 For a good overview of the technological development, see D.R. Headrick, Technology. A World History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009. 2 New challenges are discussed in R. Brownsword, Rights, Regulation, and the Technological Revolution, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, and R. Brownsword, K. Yeung (eds.), Regulating Technologies. Legal Futures, Regulatory Frames and Technological Fixes, Oxford, Hart, 2008. In German: E. Hilgendorf, J.-P. Günther (eds.), Robotik und Gesetzgebung. Beiträge der Tagung, 2012, vom 7. bis 9, Mai 2012 in Bielefeld (Robotik und Recht, Band 2). 3 R. Winston, Bad ideas? An arresting history of our inventions, New York, Bantam, 2010, p. 10. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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The three tasks of technology law What might be the tasks of Internet Law, the law of robotics, and of Technology Law in general? Thefirst task could be fitting new technical developments into the current law by trying to identify, analyse and answer the most important emerging legal questions on the basis of the current applicable law. To a large extent this work is oriented towards legal and judicial practice. One could say it would be advising the courts and lawyers on the current state of the law. In this way, Technology Law would help to prepare legal authorities and professionals to deal with these emerging situations. A second task of Technology Law would be legal support: given the risks which legal barriers might create, it is obviously important for actors in the area of technological development, that means for scientists and engineers, to address as early as possible any potential moral or legal objections to their research or research results. There is a deplorable tendency in these professions to dismiss the normative implications of their activities. This second task of technology law therefore would be to provide exactly the legal support and assistance the actors need: at all stages in research, development, production and marketing. This support would be available to ensure conformity with the law. This could be called “technological advice” or “techno-legal advice”. It is important to recognise legal risks as early as possible and to propose measures to eliminate or mitigate those risks. The term legal risks does not simply mean civil or criminal liability. It also means business risks. Even a rumour, press report or an announcement that the public prosecutor is contemplating an investigation could be extremely damaging for a company operating in a given market. The function being sketched out here is therefore quite similar to what commercial lawyers call “legal compliance”. The idea comes originally from U.S. banking law and means something like “conformity with the applicable law”. Viewed this way, “legal compliance” should be so obvious for a business or research institution that it is never an issue for discussion, particularly compliance with the criminal law. People who consistently refuse to comply with the criminal law spend their time either in prison or in mental institutions. The widespread attention which the concept of legal compliance has received, can best be explained by the fact that it has changed the way law is practiced: in the past most lawyers, particularly criminal lawyers, had, so to speak, a retrospective orientation. They acted or advised on liability in already existing cases, where the actions potentially carrying liability had already taken place. The approach “compliance” takes is entirely the other way around: organise business activities in accordance with the law so that violations simple do not occur. In principle this approach can be applied to any area of law, from the civil law to data protection all the File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

566 Modern technology and legal compliance way to criminal law. Technology Law, as a practice oriented discipline, could operate along much the same lines. Quite similarly, the lawyer’s job includes not only dealing with existing cases but also evaluating any legal issues arising from technology which is still in development in order to highlight possible legal violations early enough so that the development can be modified so that the violations never occur. This kind of legal advice is therefore future-oriented, and can be seen as a way of securing the legal compliance of technology in the making. A third task of modern technology law would be advising policymakers on public policy issues. This would be done primarily from the perspective of how the law should be shaped for the future. That means the question of whether new legislation or at least the reform of old laws is or will be necessary in order to deal with new issues raised by technological progress. For a lawyer active in this area of practice, it is important to recognise when he is giving law-based advice and when he is giving political policy advice. Demands for more criminal law are always problematic, and, of course, as a matter of principle, must be justified on the basis of the ultima ratio principle, namely when criminalisation is the only means available to achieve the goal. The introduction of new criminal laws or the tightening up of existing criminal laws is only valid when it is the least intrusive means to achieve the necessary protection. Of course the temptation is always very high in the area of criminal legal policy to give in to populist demands: When the mass media run a series of reports about some huge scandal on the internet, calls for new criminal legislation frequently follow almost immediately. Such calls all too often fall on receptive ears. This is why new technological advances like the internet are particularly at risk of being over- regulated by the criminal law.

New tendencies in robotics Robotics is one of the most discussed topics in current technology. Along with gene, information and nano technologies, it is one of the four key technologies thought to play a decisive role in the future of our society (sometimes called “GRIN- technologies”). As the other successful technologies, robotics expands our possibilities to take action. Since not everything that can be done should be done, or undertaken at all, the question arises how these technical developments are to be regulated by means of norms and values. Technological development is currently moving in the direction of a complete interconnectedness of objects, which means, among other things, a convergence of industrial robots and IT. This new and challenging development that has been labelled “industry 4.0”. Four tendencies deserve our special attention: File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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1. Increasing autonomy: Through the use of modern computer-technology, computers are able to carry out many different functions independently from human inputs in the individual case (“autonomous systems”).

2. Ability to learn: By using sensor-technology, machines are able to independently register and process information about the environment. The technical developments of such sensors are enormous. The autonomic systems, as it were, “learn” from their experiences. In this sense, there is a connection between this research and artificial intelligence.

3. Networks: Autonomic systems are more and more connected with one another either locally or through the internet. This means that the information systems share with one another and establish relationships through networks. Thus, robots become the “hands of the internet”.

4. Technological progress and convergence: Technological developments in informatics, internet- and robot-technology progress at an accelerated rate and the different technologies converge.

Law is a powerful means either to boost or to thwart this technological development. In order to make innovation possible, legal aspects, ranging from civil and criminal liability all the way to data protection, have to be scrutinized.

Technological development and social morality The view that technological developments are mainly supported and determined by research is a widely held prejudice. Of course, there can be no technological progress without technological research and development. Whether such research takes place and results in the development of products and whether the products can be manufactured and sold, however, depends on whether the products are accepted by the society in which they are produced. This is determined above all on whether the new technologies can be harmonized with the prevailing ethical and legal norm systems. The evaluation of new innovative visions for technological developments is usually (but not always) based on the standards of social morality. The problem with this is that in modern societies there is not just one prevailing social morality but many such moralities. These moralities compete with one another, but may also influence and ultimately fuse with one another. Therefore, technological developments can fail because the majority of the population (or at least the majority of politicians) holds the view that a specific technology should be rejected. Nevertheless, morality File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

568 Modern technology and legal compliance on its own is generally not enough to completely stop specific forms of research and development. This only occurs when the moral evaluation itself in some way impacts the law by determining that the technologies in question are not only against the social moral norms, but also against the law. However, law does not always inhibit technological developments but may also support technological innovations. The range of possibilities extends from criminal prohibition with reservation of authorization to the simple absence of any special rules concerning moderate regulations to explicit support by granting tax advantages and even governmental financial support for research. Since the 1970’s, the question of morally regulating the development of modern technologies has been intensely discussed. As a result of these discussions, important new fields of applied ethics emerged: medical and bio-ethics, which deals with questions concerning the regulation of modern medicine; information and internet ethics which concerns the application to modern information and internet technologies; and finally, roboethics. Some years ago, the Italian philosopher Veruggio defined the term, roboethics, as follows: “Roboethics is the ethics inspiring the design, development and employment of Intelligent Machines”4. Roboethics is of course not an ethics developed for robots, as in Asimov’s famous principles5. It is rather an ethics designed for humans to interact with robots6. On the one hand, robotics is seen as a means to promote human society and the individual. On the other hand, roboethics is supposed to stop the possible abuse of robots against human interests. From this approach, many different fields of application of roboethics can be developed even as the fields are in development, as, for example, robots for industry, robots for human care, robots for security and military purposes, especially drones and artificial intelligence (AI). Ethical concerns with regard to robots run the risk of humanizing the problems (risk of anthropomorphism) and therefore, the risk to make decisions on an overly emotional basis (risk of emotionalizing). The mere term “robotics” easily leads to anthropomorphic speculations and anxieties, in which humanoid robots or “artificial humans” compete with, or even try to dominate their human creators. Mass media films such as “Terminator” or “Matrix” make such futurist visions beloved themes and contribute to a somewhat misleading understanding of robotics.

4 G. Veruggio, F. Operto, Roboethics: a Bottom-up Interdisciplinary discourse in the Field of Applied Ethics in Robotics, in “International Review of Information Ethics (IRIE)”, 2006, 6 (12/2006), http:// www.i-r-i-e.net/inhalt/006/006_Veruggio_Operto.pdf, p. 1. 5 New research is done is this area as well. See, for example, W. Wallach, C. Allen, Moral Machines. Teaching Robots Right from Wrong, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009. 6 Good overviews in: M. Anderson, S. Leigh Anderson (eds.), Machine Ethics, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University Press, 2011; R. Capurro, M. Nagenborg (eds.), Ethics and Robotics, Heidelberg, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 2009; P. Lin et al. (eds.), Robot Ethics. The Ethical and Social Implications of Robots, The MIT Press, 2012. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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This kind of fallacious argumentation based on anthropomorphism can be avoided if one pays close attention to actual technological developments. The latter concern the establishment of (partial) autonomous systems which can help reduce burden for humans in specific contexts. Such developments do not concern the production of humanoid robots, which, as an artificially developed species, will one day attempt to dominate the earth. The work done by lawyers today should be designed to maintain a close relationship to real technological developments, as they are occurring in informatics and engineering. It should not concern purely science fiction scenarios but rather is meant to partner with the real developments in technology both today and in the future.

Robotics and the law The development and application of these autonomic systems do not only increase the number of ethical considerations but also the various legal problems. The scope of these basic questions extends from criminal and civil law liability problems and concerns about data protection, to road traffic laws, cyber law, medical equipment regulations, and insurance law. The initial problems of such an approach are primarily semantic. Is it justified, (in relation to issues of liability) to speak of the “action” of autonomic machines? What meaning do we understand when we speak of the “autonomy” of a machine? Is a machine able to accept “guilt” or at least can it be held responsible in the sense of criminal or civil law? Is it possible de lege ferenda that machines having a certain level of autonomy be considered to have the status of human agents? Can machines be considered to be bearer of rights, such as basic liberties, as long discussed in the science fiction literature? Recently, these sorts of questions have been in raised in both the ethical and philosophy of law literature. However, one has to keep in mind that the answering of these questions does not at the moment have direct impact on the actual development of robots. The legal issues under discussion are much more concrete and practical. In the following, individual legal areas in the application of robotics are addressed as examples.

1. Medical robotics In the realm of medical technology, the application of robotics promises results, which, through human effort alone, would not be possible. The robotic movements are achieved with extreme accuracy. The increased efficiency and safety during surgery and other medical procedures is due to the better visualization and increased ergonomic comfort for those implementing the procedures. There are nevertheless File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

570 Modern technology and legal compliance dangers associated with the use of robots. In this context, the discussion on the “robodoc” may serve as an example7. The main point of consideration is the liability for harm or damages to the patient when robotechnology is used in medical procedures. The initial point of consideration is the question whether and to what extent the medical doctor can be held liable for damages inflicted on the patient by the use of the robotic systems during treatment. With the implementation of European regulations into national law, the national liability law as well as the provisions concerning medical equipment are of considerable importance. As there is an absence of specific laws for the purpose, the liability of the medical doctor is determined by applying the already existing general provisions. The liability of the medical doctor is determined variously by the different EU member states. In the Federal Republic of Germany, there is a distinction between the civil and criminal liability of the medical doctor. In comparison with other medical equipment, the application of robots for surgery and other medical procedures has its own specific problems. Many norms for the attribution of legal responsibility presuppose human intentional behavior. This prerequisite seems to be especially problematic when applied to autonomous and partially autonomous systems because a human operator does not directly control these systems but the system acts on its own. Furthermore, what is particularly problematic with these sorts of systems is who is to be held liable in cases of procedure failure of the (partially) autonomous robots. Should it be the medical doctor or the medical institution providing the service? With respect to criminal law, we have to investigate both the criminal action and who is culpable. The measure of due diligence is determined in criminal law both subjectively and objectively. While the perpetrator in the context of subjective negligence is judged according to individual skills, experiences and knowledge, what is decisive for judgment of objective negligence, however, is how would a careful, reflective human being act in the concrete situation of the perpetrator. The infringement of existing regulations or provisions is of evidential importance for the allegation of negligence. If there are no existing regulations, then one refers to the basic social rational standards. The completely vaguely formulated question concerning the behavior of a rational human agent in a comparable situation can only be applied in the most minimal manner when complex surgery robots are implemented. Further ambiguities emerge when examining issues of illegality. According to the generally recognized view, every medical treatment, which involves an intrusion into the human body, is considered to be an assault in terms of criminal law. In order to demonstrate innocence, the medical doctor needs a legally recognized

7 Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court), Urteil vom 13.6.2006 (VI ZR 323/04). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

E. Hilgendorf 571 justification for the action under consideration. Such a justification could be the consent of the patient to the medical treatment. For the legal consent it is required that the medical doctor clearly explains the procedure in a manner suitable that the patient understands. The implementation of new methods modifies the existing requirements for explaining the procedure in a clear manner. The content and extent of this duty to inform are nevertheless not explicitly stipulated. Current law is not yet fully prepared to meet these challenges. Of course, there are some regulations which can be applied to damages caused by implementing robots. Nevertheless, the technological developments raise questions, which cannot be answered by taking recourse to the previous dogmatic views without elaboration. The legal uncertainties that emerge when implementing robots for surgery and other medical procedures constitute a liability risk for the treating doctor, which the suitable correctional measures are meant to reduce.

2. (Partially) autonomous motor vehicles and road traffic law Robotic systems also provoke new legal problems for road traffic, which have to be resolved on the level of international law. The defining rules and standards concerning road traffic in Europe are in particular the 1968 Viennese Agreement (VA) and the licensing of manufacturing specifications from the guidelines (RL 2007/46/EG). Furthermore, in the context of the licensing, the ECE-regulations of the United Nations are relevant. As international law, the VA states that the contracting parties adapt their national road traffic rules to the determinations of the VA. The harmonized European and international manufacturing vehicle specifications unify the national provisions and therefore secure unified standards for vehicles. In relation to the new innovative technologies especially with regard to road traffic, we face not only national but also European and international legal challenges, which result in the need for legal adjustment to the changed technological circumstances. In today’s world, the diverse stabilization- and respectively, assistant-systems are well recognized and accepted. To name some of the important ones are the ABS (anti- blocking systems), ESC (electronic stability control), start- and stop-technologies, as well as lane-, distance- and parking-assistants. However, the development of the autonomous systems is not complete. Efforts to develop and implement the autonomously acting vehicles have the consequence that the resulting legal challenges have to first be recognized and then somehow resolved. In some current research projects, autonomous vehicles have already been built and some are also being tested. An example is the Google-car, which has drawn a lot of public curiosity in the last few years. The question arises whether one could introduce such vehicles in Europe without serious legal questions being triggered. It File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

572 Modern technology and legal compliance has to be thoroughly investigated whether these vehicles can be licensed and whether they can be used in terms of current law. In this context, an essential problem is the control of the vehicle by the driver. According to VA article 13, paragraph 1, permanent control of the car is explicitly required. This requirement is also reflected in national road traffic laws (for example, Germany in Paragraph 3, StVO). The rapidly developing motor vehicle technology, which has as its goal the creation of higher standards of safety and driving comfort, increasingly places this legally normed requirement for driver control into question. In addition to fundamental ambiguities, as, for example, how to precisely define the term “control” and its implicated scope, questions concerning the possible effects on licensing arise and need to be solved. Thus, in this context, one may question whether the driver of an autonomous vehicle who does not take on the task of driving still controls the vehicle and whether this control has effects on the nature of the vehicle itself. Problems concerning liability in road traffic result. Especially, fault-based liability in the form of the driver’s liability and tortious liability provides new challenges to existing law. In addition to the question what standards of culpability with regard to the foreseeability of damage should be, we also have to rethink the possibilities for exculpation of the driver. There are further problems when one considers the liability of the owner of the vehicle irrespective of culpability. For example, how does one evaluate the risk of running the autonomous vehicle? All the above-mentioned questions point to the considerable need to do research in the field of road traffic. The objectives of such research should concern the creation of suitably adjusted and unitary laws which contribute to legal security in the new technologies especially with regard to road traffic.

3. The use of unmanned air systems Within the last few years, the technology of unmanned air systems (UAS) has spread rapidly all over the world. When examining the legal and ethical problems which arise with the implementation of unmanned aircraft, the so-called drones, military applications have to be distinguished from civil ones. At the moment, there are hardly any national or European regulations for running drones for civilian purposes. Furthermore there is a legal limbo with regard to many aspects of the current legal status of the military implementation of unmanned aircraft. Although specific detailed legal regulations are absent, the technology has nevertheless been used in military scenarios. To assess the legal situation, it is imperative to outline the state of the art of current technologies. However, the rigorous confidentiality surrounding the drone projects does not allow the obtaining of reliable information as well as the File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

E. Hilgendorf 573 legal and social-political monitoring of the individual procedures used. The problem of the legitimacy of the general implementation of drones is narrowly connected with the question of the legitimacy of the deliberate killing, so-called “targeted killing”, which predominantly is carried out today by unmanned air systems (UAS). According to international views, there must be a distinction between the use of drones in warfare zones and in zones which are not designated as warfare zones. There is an alarming tendency to use “the end justifies the means” arguments in this context, combined with an absence of any legal stipulations. For the alleged legitimate goal of killing terrorists, or the elimination of terrorist cells, one thereby accepts a violation of international law. So far there has not been any powerful public opposition to this kind of argumentation. In a first step, the moral and ethical problems as well as the immediate impact of these technologies on international law have to be elaborated. Only then can the establishment of new regulations dealing with the use and restrictions of military drones be considered. It is necessary to consider the possible danger of a reduced level of restraint when beginning a military conflict. This is due to the fact that, by using drones, the number of dead soldiers on one’s own side is substantially minimized. In such situations, there may also be something like a “play-station mentality” and a morally and ethically alarming “loss of reality” due to the increasing spatial and emotional distance between the pilots participating and the battle scenarios when drones are implemented. With regard to the ever-increasing level of autonomy of the implicated systems, one must consider the extent to which individual human beings are involved in such actions and to what extent the individuals are absolved from such decision processes. The question of legal responsibility of the robot system is a core problem in the intersection between robotics and law and therefore is relevant for the military implementation of robotic systems. Fundamentally, current law does not provide attribution of responsibility to a machine for any specific “behavior” undertaken by that machine. One always attempts to trace the behavior of a machine back to a specific person who can be held legally responsible for the action. There is a relatively well-defined chain of responsibility in the military for remotely controlled drones, which does not differ from the traditional military chain of responsibility. However, serious problems enter the moment the robotic system makes autonomous decisions within the chain of responsibility that cannot be clearly predicted, and cannot be traced back to one person or group (e.g., programming of software, the manufacturer, or the current operator). Up to now, the responsible military personnel have always provided assurance that there will be a human being involved in the chain of decision making, the so-called “man-in-the-loop”. At this point, the definition of the alleged autonomy of robots comes into File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

574 Modern technology and legal compliance question. In this context, it has to be clarified whether the person in the future will just have the option to intervene within a more or less autonomous process, e.g., veto-rights. One has to keep in mind when addressing these problems that the window of response time of the action will become ever smaller due to technological progress. There might occur situations in which only a robotic system is able to make the decision within microseconds whether, in the case of being attacked, a deadly counterattack is called for or not. In addition, the international problems must also be discussed: Can one attribute combat status to a more or less autonomously acting military robot? Can the pilot of the drone who is several thousand kilometers away from the battlefield be considered a combatant? Still another point to consider is whether the target killing missions performed for foreign secret services (e.g., the CIA) by these unmanned aerial vehicles or aircraft violate the sovereignty rights in those lands in which the aerial strikes have taken place but nevertheless are not at war with the land that executes these missions. One has to carefully investigate the often used justification of the “global war against terror,” or respectively against “the Al-Qaida network”. In view of the rapid technological developments especially in the realm of autonomous weapon systems, an international legal discussion is urgently indicated.

4. Robots and data protection law The implementation of robotic systems also raises new questions in the realm of data protection. On the one hand, there are ethical questions that concern, for example, the combined effects of Ubiquitous Computing with robotics. On the other hand, there are also legal problem-constellations connected with this in the realm of data protection. The object of the data protection directive 95/46/EG is the protection of privacy of natural persons when processing data related to these persons. The technological progress in robotics raises the question whether the recent technological opportunities lead to new legal problems with reference to the general and more specifically with regard to legal problems of data protection. Concerns about the legal ramifications should be oriented to the state of the art in current research but should also illuminate fictional scenarios. Already today completely autonomously driven vehicles are tested successfully on public roads8. It seems that this technology will be ready in the not too distant future for market distribution. Moreover, it is quite conceivable that there will many more options for implementing robotic systems both in the private and public sectors. What is especially problematic in all this with regard to data protection is the

8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car (23 October 2014). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

E. Hilgendorf 575 sensorimotor mode of functioning and the networking of robotic systems. In order to interact with human beings, or for the purpose of navigation, robots need to obtain data from their current environment. It is not important whether the robot itself collects and processes the data or whether it receives the data from a central infrastructure. Such sensory systems, which consist of cameras and other sensors, can convey by means of wireless signal the relevant information to all robots in the near environment. The possibility of the implementation of such networked environmental sensors indicates the legal problems of data protection. Taking a photograph of an empty street is itself not a problem. However, taking a picture of a person implies the obtaining of person-related data. The development of newer and better sensors does not only lead to technological problems but also legal problems of data protection. One of the basic principles of data-protection laws is the characteristic of transparency. According to the transparency principle, persons whose data are collected and processed have to be informed. Moreover, the individuals concerned must have the opportunity to inform themselves about what data was concretely and specifically collected about them. As in video-surveillance in super markets, or the sensory surveillance of public places, so also with robots that independently process person-related data, the processing of this data must be indicated to the people involved. In addition to networking, the autonomous mode of functioning presents a further new problem. With the implementation of a completely autonomous system in which the user has no possibility to intervene, it is not possible to predict which data will be collected about which persons. The problem is comparable to that of accountability or responsibility according to civil law. In many EU member states there are existing regulations for traditional video- surveillance, but this is not true for the networked sensory systems in which there are no national or supranational standards. Even in the draft for the planned EU’s fundamental regulation for data-protection, robot systems are not taken into account. In view of the ever-increasing technological progress on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the immense importance of the data-protection laws for the freedom of individuals, the early discussion of this theme is imperative.

The outlined problematic issues indicate the urgent necessity to consider the legal implications with regard to robotics. Only the technology accepted by law and society will be successful. To sum up: in Technology Law, a new kind of lawyer is emerging: the expert on legal compliance. Instead of looking at problematic cases that lie in the past, File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

576 Modern technology and legal compliance the compliance advisor looks at technological projects and developments of the present and gives advice how to avoid complications with the law in the future. His professional attitude may be compared not so much to that of a judge, but to that of an engineer: he wants to make things possible. Maybe, this new profession of legal compliance will help to bridge the gap between law and technology at last. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Telerobotic surgery: a look back at the dawn of a new era

Ugur Tumerdem

Table of contents: 1. Introduction. – 2. History of telerobotic surgery. – 3. Telerobotics in surgery today. – 4. Future developments and potential. – 5. Conclusions.

1. Introduction The coining of the term robot is credited to the Czech playwright, Karel Capek. In his science fiction play Rossum’s Universal Robots dated 1921, Capek envisions a future dystopia where, robota (from the Czech word for slave), the mechanical slaves revolt against mankind. Following this imaginary work and the developments in electrical circuits and motor systems, Elektro developed by Westinghouse Inc. in 1939 was one of the first humanoid robots ever built1. However its only capabilities were moving its arms up and down, rotating its head, turning on and off lights on its eyes, and playing back recorded speeches. Following these imaginative examples, Isaac Asimov wrote his groundbreaking stories on robots, which were later collected under the name I, Robot. It was also in these stories where the first robot laws were provided. Real working robots, as we know them in the modern sense, came into existence in the 1950s. The first industrial robot was developed and patented by Devol in 19542. Following this, two pioneers Devol and Engelberger started Unimation Inc. in 1956, the first robotics company in history. The first Unimation systems were used in the automotive industry. In 1969, Stanford Arm, the first 6 DOF freedom robot, for which complex arm kinematic solutions could be solved for

1 N. Sharkey, A. Sharkey, Electro-mechanical robots before the computer, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: “Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science” 223.1, 2009, pp. 235- 241. 2 R.M. Murray, et al., A mathematical introduction to robotic manipulation, CRC press, 1994. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

578 Telerobotic surgery: a look back at the dawn of a new era the first time, was developed by Scheinmann at Stanford University3. In the 1970s and 1980s Japanese companies entered the robotics market, actually dominated it in the 1980s and an explosion in the number of robots took place. Today’s industrial robots are variations of these early examples, and have been almost perfected in terms of performance. Today, more than 1.5 million of them are in use according to the 2013 statistics of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). The reason why robots are popular in industry is that they can work with great accuracy, repeatability, can manage heavy loads and can operate under harsh working conditions, tirelessly. However industrial robots can do repeatable work only in structured environments whose parameters are coded into the robots. In unstructured environments, robots can still not accomplish tasks that are easily realized by people. Under circumstances where robot-like precision and power as well as human like manipulation skills are required, teleoperation systems are often used. Teleoperation means remote operation or operating systems from a remote place. Teleoperation dates back to late 19th century, especially to the discovery of electric circuits and radio. Nikola Tesla demonstrated one of the first teleoperation systems, a remote radio controlled boat, which was at the same time one of the first RC devices in the world, in 18984. The first master-slave teleoperation system in today’s sense was developed by R. Goertz working at the Argonne National Laboratory where Enrico Fermi had also developed the first nuclear reactor in the world5. This system was developed to remotely manipulate objects in parts of a reactor where people could not enter. The system was made up of two mechanically connected pantographs. In the 1950’s and 1960’s Goertz further developed this system with electromechanical actuators, such that the separated parts were electrically, not mechanically, connected6. GE used the same idea in its YESMAN7 system in the 1950’s advertised as a machine with arms and hands. It can be understood from this that teleoperation systems actually came into presence around the same time as industrial robots, but with different applications. The MASCOT System was also a teleoperation system developed in Italy for use at European Nuclear Energy Agency8. This system also used electric motors and analog electronics. It was used until 1990 in analog mode and was later converted to digital electronics. Another teleoperation

3 M. Folgheraiter, G. Gini, MaximumOne: an anthropomorphic arm with bio-inspired control system, in Biomimetic Neural Learning for intelligent robots, Berlin Heidelberg, Springer, 2005, pp. 281-298. 4 K. Goldberg, Networked Robots: Ten Years of Experiments, Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics VI, Berlin Heidelberg, Springer, 2005, pp. 11-16. 5 R.C. Goertz, Mechanical master-slave manipulator, Nucleonics (US) Ceased publication 12, 1954. 6 R.C. Goertz, et al., The ANL Model 3 Master-Slave Electric Manipulator–Its Design and Use in a Cave, Trans. Am. Nuclear Soc. 4.2, 1961. 7 Conveyor, Monoflo. “670 Of Current Interest ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING”. 8 L. Galbiati, et al., Control and Operational Aspects of the Mascot 4 force feedback servomanipulator of JET, in Fusion Engineering, 1991. Proceedings., 14th IEEE/NPSS Symposium on. IEEE, 1991. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

U. Tumerdem 579 system developed for nuclear plants was the British Rivet and later Spider systems used between 1960s and 1980s9. The difference of these systems was that they were mobile with tracks that enabled the manipulator to move around the facility. Teleoperation in the 21st century is now very much intermingled with robotics. Actually, according to the definition of robots by the ISO standard 8373 that came into effect in 2012, a robot is an actuated mechanism programmable in two or more axes with a degree of autonomy, moving within its environment, to perform intended tasks. Autonomy in this context means the ability to perform intended tasks based on current state and sensing, without human intervention. However, the term ’a degree of autonomy’ also includes teleoperation. Since the systems used for teleoperation on the user side and the remote side, are often robots, this kind of teleoperation is also called telerobotics. One example of teleoperation is in robotic surgery, the main focus of this paper, where a doctor uses specially developed robotic joysticks to control robot instruments to operate on the patients. Another teleoperation example would be the bomb defusing robots that are remotely controlled by soldiers or the police in the field, which are actually very similar to the Rivet system in terms of mechanical structure, but have more advanced capabilities. Yet another military application is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones that are operated via satellite by pilots using telepresence systems. A civilian application is in the excavation systems that provide the operators with the ability to manipulate large loads for construction.

2. History of telerobotic surgery The introduction of robotics and teleoperation into surgery actually coincided with the revolutionary developments in surgery techniques. 1980s saw the invention (or reinvention according to some) of the Minimal Invasive Surgery (MIS) procedures. Minimal Invasive Surgery is the general name for techniques that make use of endoscopes and remote operation capable surgical instruments, to perform surgery on the patients through small incisions as opposed to open surgery. Although first laparoscopy using such tools was performed in the beginning of 20th century on dogs10, the beginning of the Minimal Invasive Surgery revolution is often dated as 1985 or 1987 when Muhe and Mouret published their MIS results for cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal) with laparoscopy11. What probably enabled

9 British Nuclear Energy Society. Remote Techniques for Nuclear Plant: Proceedings of the Conference Organized by the British Nuclear Energy Society, Held at Stratford-upon-Avon on 10-13 May 1993, Thomas Telford, 1993. 10 S.J. Spaner, G. Lorenwarnock, A brief history of endoscopy, laparoscopy, and laparoscopic surger, in “Journal of Laparoendoscopic and Advanced Surgical Techniques” 7.6, 1997, pp. 369-373. 11 C.A. Blum, A. Craig, D.B. Adams, Who did the first laparoscopic cholecystectomy?, in “Journal of minimal access surgery” 7.3, 2011, p.165. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

580 Telerobotic surgery: a look back at the dawn of a new era this revolution was the invention of new technologies such as instrument mountable cameras and specially designed laparoscopic tools that made MIS operations feasible for a wide range of surgical tasks. The main advantage of MIS operations is that, because incisions are very small, blood loss is decreased, risk of infection becomes less, healing and discharging durations from hospitals decrease, complications are less and scars are much less visible12. However one of the main problems in MIS or laparoscopic surgery is the lack of ergonomics for the surgeon during operation. In laparoscopic surgery, because surgeons can not directly see where they are operating on, they have to make use of a camera or some other image transmitting device which has a limited view of the inside of the patient, and furthermore they have to deal with the fulcrum effect, moving the laparoscope around a single incision port, exactly in the opposite direction of the instrument. It has been shown that MIS is much more stressful for surgeons compared to open surgery and surgeons need to concentrate more to achieve the same level of success as open surgery13. The explosion in the number of robots in the 1980’s and the exceptional accuracy, repeatability and speed of robots inspired researchers to apply robotics and teleoperation technology in medicine and especially surgery. At the end of 1980’s US Army funded SRI International and NASA research for telesurgery in the battlefield. The aim was to provide surgery on soldiers with minimal harm to the doctors. SRI developed the first telesurgery system at the end of the 1980s. This system was a very large open surgery system, that could also provide force feedback. Following this success, SRI was given research funding from National Institute of Health and DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) and further developed its system14. Similar funding was also given to institutions such as IBM, MIT, NASA, Computer Motion Inc. With this funding IBM Watson Research Center developed a robot system that could control the position of an endoscopic camera15. In 1994 Computer Motion Inc. developed a robot endoscope system called AESOP that could be positioned with voice commands and received for the first time FDA clearance in 199516. Following the recent developments in minimal invasive surgery, Green at SRI

12 V. Velanovich, Laparoscopic vs open surgery, in “Surgical endoscopy” 14.1, 2000, pp. 16-21. R.P. Kiran, et al., Operative blood loss and use of blood products after laparoscopic and conventional open colorectal operations, in “Archives of surgery” 139.1, 2004, pp. 39-42; R. Tacchino, F. Greco, D. Matera, Single-incision laparoscopic cholecystectomy: surgery without a visible scar, in “Surgical endoscopy” 23.4, 2009, pp. 896-899. 13 R. Berguer, W.D. Smith, Y.H. Chung, Performing laparoscopic surgery is significantly more stressful for the surgeon than open surgery, in “Surgical endoscopy” 15.10, 2001, pp. 1204-1207. 14 R.M. Satava, Surgical robotics: the early chronicles: a personal historical perspective, in “Surgical Laparoscopy Endoscopy and Percutaneous Techniques” 12.1, 2002, pp. 6-16. 15 R.H. Taylor, et al., A telerobotic assistant for laparoscopic surgery, in “Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine”, IEEE 14.3, 1995, pp. 279-288. 16 J.P. Ruurda, Th JMV van Vroonhoven, I.A.M.J. Broeders, Robot-assisted surgical systems: a new era in laparoscopic surgery, in “Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England” 84.4, 2002, p. 223. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

U. Tumerdem 581 developed a minimal invasive surgery system17 in 1994. In 1995 Medical Doctor Frederik Moll realised that SRI telesurgery system could be extremely practical if applied to Minimal Invasive Surgery which was perceived as a difficult operation18. Following this realisation, to commercialise SRI’s technology, Intuitive Surgical Inc. was founded. Intuitive Surgical started its operation by licensing SRI and IBM patents in 1995. Intuitive developed its first Minimal Invasive Surgery robot calling it Da Vinci and started animal experimentations in 1996. Da Vinci was available for purchase in 1999 and received FDA clearance in 2000 for human surgery. Computer Motion Inc. also started developing a MIS robot in 1996 calling it Zeus. It received FDA clearance in 2001. First intercontinental telesurgery was also realised by the Zeus system in 2001 between NY and Strasbourg (Operation Lindbergh)19. In 2003 Intuitive Surgical and Computer Motion battled over patents and decided to merge due to legal complications under the banner of Intuitive. Zeus system was discontinued and Da Vinci became the sole system for robotic MIS in the market. Today Da Vinci system is used exclusively for MIS rather than the initial goal SRI started with, which was telesurgery. This new robot differed from the previous SRI robots, in that it was specialized for MIS, rather than open surgery, and this required some tradeoffs. In robotic MIS, unlike other robotic applications, most of the dexterity is required inside the human body, confined to a very small space, and therefore the instrument of the Da Vinci robot has 5 degrees of freedom inside the body, with the use of a pulley and wire transmission system20. The most important advantage of the system is that the surgical instrument tips have 5 DOF, and can do very precise motions in a very small area such as inside the human body. Outside the body and around the incision port, the robot needs only two degrees of freedom. The use of a pulley wire system meant that force feedback was now virtually impossible. The Da Vinci system is composed of a Master console and a 4 armed Slave Robot. The surgeon is comfortably seated on the console and can see the endoscope views in 3D. Two 7 DOF robot arms are used by the surgeon to control two surgical instruments exactly like the natural extension of his hands, inside the patient and the two endoscopic cameras are positioned using the other two arms. Motion between robots can be switched or put on hold by foot pedals. For stability purposes, Da Vinci was designed as a system confined to an operating room. Although it is technically and literally a teleoperation system, the master and slave robots are within the same

17 J.W. Hills, et al., Telepresence surgery demonstration system, in Robotics and Automation, 1994. Proceedings, 1994 IEEE International Conference on. IEEE, 1994. 18 S. Dimaio, M. Hanuschik, U. Kreaden, The da Vinci surgical system. Surgical Robotics, Springer US, 2011, pp. 199-217. 19 S.E. Butner, M. Ghodoussi, Transforming a surgical robot for human telesurgery, in Robotics and Automation, IEEE Transactions on 19.5, 2003, pp. 818-824. 20 G.H. Ballantyne, F. Moll, The da Vinci telerobotic surgical system: the virtual operative field and telepresence surgery, in “Surgical Clinics of North America” 83., 2003, pp. 1293-1304. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

582 Telerobotic surgery: a look back at the dawn of a new era room, and the system cannot work in long distances, and therefore it is usually not considered a telesurgery system.

3. Telerobotics in surgery today After merging with Computer Motion Inc., Intuitive Surgical has become the sole company providing telerobotic MIS systems. The company is growing the robotic MIS market consistently, and has been successful in applying the system to various kinds surgical operations. There are considerable advantages of robotic MIS over conventional laparoscopic surgery. The advantages of robotic MIS are, improved dexterity, tremor filtering, up to 5 times scaling of motion and microscopic precision, lack of moment forces and impression of direct manipulation rather than mirror imaging, 3-10 times image zooming, ergonomic position that provides the doctor with longer endurance. The disadvantages are the loss of tactile feedback, larger trocar radiuses and entry ports, less placement options for endoscope entry due to robot size and collision possibility, and difficulty in operating in upper and lower abdomen at the same time, difficult direct access to patient, requirement for specially trained personnel, and the system cost which is about 2 million USD sales price and an extra 150-200 thousand USD for maintenance per year21. Also the single use instruments that cost between 600-1000 USD per piece can be changed 3-8 times per operation, driving up the costs depending on the operation. Although many papers demonstrate the superiority of Laparoscopic and Robotic MIS with respect to open surgery in many operations22, there is a lack of research papers that demonstrate the superiority of robotic surgery with respect to pure laparoscopic surgery. Some papers actually demonstrate that there is not a statistically significant difference in terms of results between pure and robotic minimal invasive surgery procedures while saying that the costs for robotically assisted surgery are higher23. There is a need for papers that use randomized controlled experiments to compare these methods24. Due to the lack of

21 C. Ho, et al., Robot-Assisted Surgery Compared with Open Surgery and Laparoscopic Surgery: Clinical Effectiveness and Economic Analyses [Internet],Ottawa: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), 2011. 22 R.C. Frazee, et al., A prospective randomized trial comparing open versus laparoscopic appendectomy, in “Annals of surgery” 219.6, 1994, p. 725; A.M. Lacy, et al., The long-term results of a randomized clinical trial of laparoscopy-assisted versus open surgery for colon cancer, in “Annals of surgery” 248.1, 2008, pp. 1-7. 23 J.V. Joseph, et al., Robot-assisted vs pure laparoscopic radical prostatectomy: are there any differences?, in “BJU international” 96.1 (2005): 39-42; L.H.P. Braga, et al., Systematic review and meta-analysis of robotic-assisted versus conventional laparoscopic pyeloplasty for patients with ureteropelvic junction obstruction:effect on operative time, length of hospital stay, postoperative complications, and success rate, in “European urology” 56.5, 2009, pp. 848-858. 24 V. Ficarra, et al., Retropubic, laparoscopic, and robot-assisted radical prostatectomy: a systematic review and cumulative analysis of comparative studies, in “European urology” 55.5, 2009, pp. 1037-1063. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

U. Tumerdem 583 consensus there is a heated debate among doctors and scientists over the necessity of robotic MIS. But since robotic surgery systems can make laparoscopic surgery more ergonomic and faster25 they have made life easier for surgeons and have thus become widely adopted. For instance certain specific operations such as hysterectomy and prostatectomy the use of Da Vinci system can go up to 85% (in the US)26. This is a significant number and despite the lack of overwhelming scientific justification in terms of outcomes, it shows that robotic MIS is widely adopted. The reasons for this adoption rate could be the operational advantages and speed robotics provides for surgeons and hospitals, the confidence of patients in robotics technology, as well as the marketing power. Other than the initial investment there doesn’t seem to be a big difference in terms of the costs for surgical operations that use laparoscopic, open and robotic surgery techniques27. Due to this, currently there about 2871 Da Vinci systems around the world and about 80% of them are in the U.S. The numbers are as follows: US: 2001, Japan: 105, U.K.: 91, Italy: 66, France: 63, Germany: 61, Turkey: 21, Greece: 828. Obviously not everything is perfect for patients that undergo Robotic MIS and recently many lawsuits against Intuitive Surgical were filed in the U.S. The claims of patients that were badly affected were that the surgeons are not well educated for robotic surgery, and that Intuitive Surgical does not provide necessary training, consulting, certification for doctors and institutions and does not have the necessary procedures and regulations for such efforts29. American law firms still seek patients that were badly affected after robotic surgery with TV advertorials, and it is possible that this could turn into a class action lawsuit.

4. Future developments and potential So what will be the future of robotics in MIS? The key reason for the dominance of Intuitive Surgical in the MIS market, are the patents licensed in 1995 from SRI. These patents give Intuitive Surgical the exclusive right in the ’manipulation of human tissue and medical devices, for the purposes of not only animal and human

25 G. Hubens, et al., A performance study comparing manual and robotically assisted laparoscopic surgery using the da Vinci system, in “Surgical endoscopy and other interventional techniques” 17.10, 2003, pp. 1595-1599. 26 D.V. Makarov, et al., The association between diffusion of the surgical robot and radical prostatectomy rates, in “Medical care” 49.4, 2011, pp. 333-339. 27 M.C. Bell, et al., Comparison of outcomes and cost for endometrial cancer staging via traditional laparotomy, standard laparoscopy and robotic techniques, in “Gynecologic oncology” 111.3, 2008, pp. 407-411. 28 Intuitive Surgical Investor Presentation Q4-2013. 29 R. Rabin, New Concerns on Robotic Surgeries, New York Times 9 (2013); P. Marks, Robo-surgeon da Vinci faces lawsuits, New Scientist 217.2910, 2013, p. 20. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

584 Telerobotic surgery: a look back at the dawn of a new era

(open) surgery, but also laparoscopic surgery and microsurgery30. Similarly, the patent licensed from IBM and the AESOP patents that were obtained after the merger deal with Computer Motion in 2003 have paved the way for Intuitive Surgical to be the only company in the Robotic MIS market. Perhaps due to lack of any competition, the Da Vinci system has not seen any fundamental changes since its inception. However, some of the patents that give the company this supremacy have started to expire, and the last patent from SRI will expire by 201631. Many robotic surgery companies are waiting for this date to enter the market, and introduce more radical products. The competition in the market is expected to cause a drop in robotic surgery costs and improve robot functionalities especially in the areas that Da Vinci system is weak. There are already some companies that have come up with breakthrough ideas in robotic surgery. These new ideas are usually in the form of different actuation and control methods, however their impact could be huge. For example, the snake like moving robotic catheter system from Hansen Medical is such a system32. The system can enter the body just like normal catheter from a vein but, due to its actuated catheter sheath which is teleoperated, it can achieve much more complex operations in the heart such as atrial fibrillation to solve cardiac arrhythmia, or angio and stent placement. This system could enable in the future, MIS procedures with entry from natural orifices or veins and could be more minimal invasive than the current systems. The company has already started operation and sold some systems for catheter applications. The SPORT system developed at Vanderbilt University and licensed to Titan Medical Inc. in Canada is also a breakthrough technology33. It can realize MIS through a single port of about 15mm in diameter, which is close to the Da Vinci port size and Da Vinci requires 4 entry ports. Once the laparoscope enters the body, from inside it a stereo camera and two snake like robot arms emerge. These arms are highly dexterous and can handle heavy loads. They can achieve similar MIS procedures with the Da Vinci endoscopes requiring 3 less entry holes. This system could provide much more minimal invasiveness. Another company that provides a breakthrough is Canadian IMRIS, whose system NeuroArm is a brain surgery (not MIS) robot that can operate together with an MRI in the operating room34. This is a first, and a very difficult feat to accomplish, because

30 Annual Report Pursuant To Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 for the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2004, Form 10-K , Intuitive Surgical, Inc. 2005. 31 A.N. Hoffman, Intuitive Surgical, Inc.: How Long Can Their Monopoly Last?,2010. 32 P. Kanagaratnam, et al., Experience of robotic catheter ablation in humans using a novel remotely steerable catheter sheath, in “Journal of Interventional Cardiac Electrophysiology” 21.1, 2008, pp. 19- 26. 33 K. Xu, et al., System design of an insertable robotic effector platform for single port access (SPA) surgery,in Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2009. IROS 2009. IEEE/RS International Conference on. IEEE, 2009. 34 G.R. Sutherland, P.B. McBeth, D.F. Louw, NeuroArm: an MR compatible robot for microsurgery, International Congress Series. Vol. 1256. Elsevier, 2003. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

U. Tumerdem 585 very high magnetic fields caused by the MRI make the operation of conventional robot systems impossible, since motors need magnetic fields and electric current control, to operate correctly and are usually made up of ferromagnetic materials. NeuroArm on the other hand makes use of piezo-actuators and non-ferrous materials, which are not similarly affected, from magnetic fields. Operation together with MRI provides real time monitoring of brain condition, which was not possible before with other robotic surgical systems. This kind of visual data feed could improve the quality of robotic surgery tremendously. Furthermore this data could also be useful for MIS surgery, providing realtime feedback to the surgeon, augmenting the 3D vision from the endoscopic camera. One other important development is the Raven open source surgical system developed by a consortium of universities in the U.S led by the University of Washington and UCSC35. The importance of this system is that many research institutes around the world can purchase it, and can make improvements on the existing code. This could potentially accelerate the speed with which robotic surgical systems around the world are developed. There are some other ideas that are still not pursued in full depth by these institutions that robotic surgery could benefit from. One of these ideas is telesurgery, or surgery from far, which was the initial motivation in robotic surgery research. Time delays in communication networks between robots make telesurgery very difficult or in some cases almost impossible. Although teleoperation can be realised without much complication when time delay is less than 150ms, it has been observed that surgeons are unable to coordinate their motions when the time delay is greater than 500ms36. Especially the transmission of the sense of touch even with very low latency can create instabilities in the system, rendering the teleoperation system unusable. Therefore, developments in communication and networking technologies are expected to contribute tremendously to telesurgery. The fact that, fiberoptic lines are proliferating and getting cheaper, faster wireless and ubiquitous communication technologies are emerging along with new developments such as Virtual Private Networks(VPN) and Cloud architectures, could perhaps provide more secure and reliable telesurgery in the future enabling a new revolution in the field. DARPA still pursues and funds research for the development of TraumaPod, a remote controlled

35 M. J.H. Lum, et al., The RAVEN: Design and validation of a telesurgery system, in “The International Journal of Robotics Research” 28.9, 2009, pp.1183-1197. 36 R. Rayman, et al., Long-distance robotic telesurgery: a feasibility study for care in remote environments, in “The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery” 2.3, 2006, pp. 216-224; M. Perez, et al., Paradigms and experimental set-up for the determination of the acceptable delay in telesurgery, Conference proceedings:... Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Conference, Vol. 2007. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

586 Telerobotic surgery: a look back at the dawn of a new era robotic surgery system that can be deployed in the battlefield37. However, telesurgery could also be exploited for peaceful purposes, for instance it could be a means for people in poorer or harder to reach areas to access higher quality medical services. Another missing feature in today’s systems is tactile feeling. Because of the time delays posing a threat to teleoperation systems and the fact that MIS robots make use pulley-wire transmission for motion inside the patient, it is almost impossible to transmit the sense of touch from the patient side robot to the surgeon with today’s systems38. If the sense of touch were provided, robotic surgery could have a clearer superiority over laparoscopic surgery. It is possible to transmit the sense of touch with other actuators and control techniques that provide stable teleoperation under time delays39, but for better performance further research in this field is necessary. Also, new control systems could enable multiple doctors distributed over different places to perform surgery cooperatively, or for instructing or consulting purposes40, providing a new revolution in how surgery is taught and developed. Other important developments could be augmented reality systems, which provide surgeons with enhanced view of the patient’s real-time condition41. Fusing sensor data such as MRI, CT, Ultrasound and X-Ray, information about the patient could be superimposed to the 3D vision of the surgeons, giving them much superior control, superhuman perception abilities, and diagnostic assistance when required during surgery. These technologies would also help solve registration problems. Registration means determining what part of the body in the operating environment corresponds to which part in the preoperative images. It would help surgeons easily determine entry ports from preoperative images and perform operations that could be risky without this technology. Other very interesting developments are taking place in medicine and engineering, and there are already some demonstrations that could be disruptive technologies in the near future, that could change the destiny of robotics in medicine. One of those systems is IBM’s Watson computer, which can communicate with doctors by speaking and can understand what the doctors say by performing

37 P. Garcia, et al., Trauma Pod: a semiautomated telerobotic surgical system, in “The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery” 5.2, 2009, pp. 136-146. 38 O.A. J. Van Der Meijden, M. P. Schijven, The value of haptic feedback in conventional and robot- assisted minimal invasive surgery and virtual reality training: a current review, in “Surgical endoscopy” 23.6, 2009, pp. 1180-1190; S. Shimachi, et al., Adapter for contact force sensing of the da Vinci robot, in “The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery” 4.2, 2008, pp. 121-130. 39 U. Tumerdem, K. Ohnishi, Robust four channel teleoperation under time delay by damping injection, Mechatronics, 2009. ICM 2009. IEEE International Conference on. IEEE, 2009. 40 U. Tumerdem, K. Ohnishi, Acceleration consensus for networked motion control of telerobots, Advanced Motion Control, 2008. AMC’08. 10th IEEE International Workshop on. IEEE, 2008. 41 F. Volont, et al., Augmented reality and image overlay navigation with OsiriX in laparoscopic and robotic surgery: not only a matter of fashion, in “Journal of hepato-biliary-pancreatic sciences” 18.4, 2011, pp. 506-509. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

U. Tumerdem 587 natural language processing. It can search entire databases with speech queries, in mere seconds and can assist doctors in diagnostics42. This could help doctors facing unexpected developments during surgery and in case of emergencies. Another huge potential is in the development of capsule robots that could enter the body and move within, transmitting video or other sensor data wirelessly43. There are already systems that can move in the intestinal tract, but once these robots could get smaller, they could also move in the blood stream and reach very small targets in the cell level and perform operations there. There are already examples of nanomotors moving within cells controlled from outside with ultrasonic effects44. They could be integrated with teleoperation systems to provide surgeons with access to places in the body that are not easily reachable by conventional instruments. Another development is the 3D printer, which could actually be called a robot on its own right. Researchers are using 3D printers to print tissues45 and in the future the aim will be to print organs, and although this field is in its infancy it is not hard to imagine these printers next to the surgical robots of the future, providing the surgeons with fresh organs for transplantation.

5. Conclusions From the fact that the number of telerobotic surgery systems around the world is increasing day by day, it is clear that robotic surgery is here to stay. Although there are discussions about its effectiveness, one should keep in mind that the technology is actually in its infancy. Currently, only a single company with limited resources and without competition is producing these systems. However recent developments show that new players and new technologies are about to disrupt the market and this will enable a more competitive development environment with more brain power and resources flowing into this field. This in return could also provide more democratic healthcare services to people all around the world. The concurrent convergence of various technologies in other fields that could also be of great benefit to robotic surgery is a sign that a new era in surgical robotics is about to begin, and the next 20 years of robotic surgery is certainly going to be much more exciting than the last 20.

42 D.A. Ferrucci, Introduction to “This is Watson”, in “IBM Journal of Research and Development” 56.3.4, 2012, p. 1. 43 G. Ciuti, et al., Robotic magnetic steering and locomotion of capsule endoscope for diagnostic and surgical endoluminal procedures, in “Robotica” 28.02, 2010, pp. 199-207. 44 W. Wang, et al., Acoustic Propulsion of Nanorod Motors Inside Living Cells, Angewandte Chemie International Edition 53.12, 2014, pp. 3201-3204. 45 Y. Tan, et al., 3D printing facilitated scaffold-free tissue unit fabrication, in “Biofabrication” 6.2, 2014, 024111. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Robotics and criminal law (robots, hybrids, chimeras, “technological animals”)1

Silvio Riondato

Table of contents: 1. Foreword. – 2. Robots as objects of penal protection. – 3. Robots as instruments of crime. – 4. Robots as subjects of crime. – 4.1. Robots as «persons»? – 4.2. Robots as «enemies»? – 5. Preventing Enemy-Robots. Robots as «hybrids», robots as «chimeras», robots as «crime»?

1. Foreword The rapid developments in robot technologies and the increasing employment of robots in the most disparate areas of everyday life call for a reflection on the implications of robotics in law and, specifically, in criminal law2. I will consider here the implications of robotics in substantive criminal law, with particular (albeit not exclusive) reference to Italian law. I will not deal, therefore, with the employment of robot technologies in criminal trials and, more generally, in the administration of criminal justice. There are at least three ways in which robots may play a role in criminal law: a) as objects of (penal) protection (legal goods); b) as instruments; c) as subjects (either offenders or victims). Of these three aspects, the most problematic is definitely the latter, as it somehow entails an (at least fictitious) equation between the robot and the human being,

1 My thanks to Lorenzo Pasculli for his precious collaboration. 2 For a general overview of the impact of robots on law (included criminal law) see U. Pagallo, The Laws of Robots. Crimes, Contracts, and Torts, Dordrecht, Springer, 2013. See also Id., Robotica, in M. Durante, U. Pagallo (eds.), Manuale di informatica giuridica e diritto delle nuove tecnologie, Torino, UTET, 2012, p. 141 ff. See also G. Grimaldi, L’uomo e l’automa fra téchne e Aufklärung, in “Itinerari”, 2014, 2, 63. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

590 Robotics and criminal law with all its ethical, philosophical and legal consequences. On the contrary, the employment of robots as instruments of crime and their qualification as legal goods to be protected do not necessarily imply such assimilation between man and robots, but instead they seem to presuppose a clear separation between them. However, the novelties of the unstoppable scientific-technological progress raise the question whether it is convenient to prevent even the creation of certain «technological animals», also through penal norms, if appropriate.

2. Robots as objects of penal protection If we consider robots as machines incapable of the unique moral, psychological, intellectual, rational and reasonable human skills, then we may well consider them as property. As such, they can well deserve to be protected by law, also with the instruments typical of criminal law if necessary (for instance, when robots are particularly valuable and sophisticated robots or they are used for important social purposes). In such a conception, the qualification of robots as objects of penal protection does not create any particular theoretical or practical problem. Especially in view of the future evolutions of robot technologies, though, we feel quite comfortable in admitting robots as possible legal goods worth to be protected by criminal law, even assuming that, to a certain extent, some refined AI entities could be equated to non-human «life forms». Besides, various systems of criminal law do protect non-human beings from harm already. The most obvious example is the penal protection of (non-human) animals. The real problem is represented by the possibility to shift from the consideration of robots as objects of protection from criminal aggressions to their qualification as victims of crime. The issue is not so fantastic, facing both the foreseeable developments of robotics (and especially AI entities) and the recent emergence of interpretative orientations aiming at considering non-human life forms, especially animals, proper crime victims. This perspective entails the attribution of rights and interests to robots and fall under the more general problem whether robots might be considered subjects of crime, which we will consider later.

3. Robots as instruments of crime The qualification of robots as instruments of crime presupposes a conception of robots as always depending on the human being and incapable of purely autonomous action. Such qualification implies that robots are used by men as means to perform criminal offences, which is probably the most ordinary occurrence at the current state of robotic technology. The concrete examples of such case are the most disparate File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Riondato 591 and they cover practically every sector of criminality, including crimes of negligence. From AI devices used to disable the computerised security system of a bank or to destroy or damage computer data, to robot planes, soldiers or weapons used in modern warfare; from industrial robots accidentally causing personal injuries to a worker to unmanned automatic weapons killing an innocent man during a military operation. The conception of robots as instruments of crime entails a clear distinction between the instrument and the action in the theory and the structure of crime, as devised by Delogu several years ago3. The action is always attributed to the human being, both objectively (from a causal point of view, the robot cannot perform any action without the previous creation and programming) and subjectively (the action, no matter how complex, ultimately belongs to the human agent that knowingly and willingly realises it). Incidentally, this is true also for crimes of negligence, as – at least according to the Italian penal system – also the negligent action is voluntary and conscious, while in this case is the harmful event that the agent does not want, although he can foresee and prevent it. The instrument, on the contrary, existsoutside the (human) individual4 and, thus, it may be entirely robotic, although it is used by men to supplement or to perform their criminal actions. In this sense also a complex «action» of a robot entity (the movements of a robotic arm, the calculations of an elaborate AI system, the shots fired by a robot soldier…) are to be considered instrumental to the criminal action (technically considered as an element of crime) entirely attributable to the human being. In this conception, the robotic nature of the instrument may have a particular relevance, amongst others, as an element to measure the intensity of the mens rea as well as the dangerousness or harmfulness of the overall action, which may be assessed as aggravating or mitigating element by the court in sentencing (in the Italian system the reference here goes to art. 133 of the penal code). The instruments of crime are also relevant as goods that may be confiscated or seized, both in application of a preventive or security measure or as consequence of the application of a criminal sentence. Also international and supranational law (for instance, the Council of Europe Criminal Law Convention on Corruption or the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse) includes the «instrumentalities» of criminal offences amongst the possible objects (together with the proceeds of crime) of confiscation5.

3 T. Delogu, Lo «strumento» nella teoria generale del reato, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1974, p. 275 ff. 4 Cf. F. Alimena, La questione dei mezzi idonei nel tentativo, Roma, in “Il Foro italiano”, 1930, p. 65. 5 On the notion of «instrumentalities» in the of the Council of Europe conventions see L. Pasculli, Le misure di prevenzione del terrorismo e dei traffici criminosi internazionali, Padova, Padova University Press, 2012, p. 249 ff. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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The idea of robots as instruments of crime does not give raise to any particular new problem with respect to the general issues concerning the instruments of crime in the criminal law system. Once again, the problems start when we switch to a conception of the robot as an autonomous entity capable of taking action notwithstanding the intent or the negligence of the human creator or programmer. If we assume that AI entities are capable to determine their own behaviour in complete independence, then we should ask who should be held responsible for their criminal actions – which could not be attributed to any human being. Here we come again to the problem of the possible inclusion of robots amongst the subjects of crime.

4. Robots as subjects of crime The problem of the qualification of robots (in particular, AI entities) as subjects of criminal law strictly depends on the solution of the more general question whether a robot can be legally entitled to rights and duties – in other words, whether the robot can be considered a so-called centre of legal imputation. Of course, ultimately, the answer to this question depends on the anthropocentric or non-anthropocentric vision of the world we assume as a starting point. Let us consider the perspective of positive law.

4.1. Robots as «persons»? In most Western jurisdictions, criminal law is centred on the human person. Many constitutional traditions, as well as international charters of human rights (the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, New York 1966; the European Convention on Human Rights; the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union etc.) are all based on the common acknowledgement and recognition of the value of the human person and committed to the protection of fundamental human rights and liberties. The «human» attribute of such rights and liberties speaks for itself. The strongest means to realise the protection of the human person is precisely criminal law. The protection is double-sided: on the one hand criminal law protects citizens from the harm caused by criminal offences, on the other hand it protects the individual (suspected or accused of a crime) from unlawful and arbitrary compressions of his fundamental rights and liberties. This personalistic orientation of criminal law is confirmed by positive law as numerous dispositions make reference to the notion of «person». It is a consolidated and longstanding legal acquisition, though, that in time the legal notion of «person» have expanded beyond the original naturalistic meaning of the word, so to include other subjects that, while not being «persons» in nature, are considered «persons» by File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Riondato 593 law («legal persons» or legal entities). This way, law – the same law created by humans – has proved to be elastic enough to adjust itself to the emergence of new centres of legal imputation. In various jurisdictions, this also brought to the extension of criminal liability also to entities that are not human individuals. The most typical example is that of corporations, which are considered «subjects» of crime, for instance in those legal systems that adopt models of corporate criminal liability, according to which corporations may be held responsible for crimes. Corporations are generally considered also victims of crime, as such entitled to compensation for damages. Another example is given by the fact that recently some Authors and courts have suggested that (non-human) animals could be considered victims of crime6 (besides, the quality of crime victim does not presuppose the same psychological requirements of criminal liability). However, it cannot be ignored that even such extensions of the notion of «person» and, more specifically, the qualification of non-human entities as «subjects» of crime are generally aimed at promoting or protecting the interests and values typical of the human being. Indeed, the attribution of rights, interests and obligations to non- human entities – be they animals or corporations – always takes place according to the values and the sense of justice of human lawmakers. In other words, it is men who decide what is right or wrong for non-human entities. In conclusion, as a human product, criminal law (and law in general) cannot but be constructed around the ultimate value of the human person. In such a framework, there are no particular reasons to deny that also robots could be potentially included within the extended notion of «persons» and be entitled to rights and duties7, provided that it remains clear that: • the legal recognition of attributes of «personality» or of human features to robots would be purely fictitious. Indeed, robots are not capable of the same moral, psychological and intellectual qualities of men. Even the most sophisticated forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) follow algorithms and paths that have pre-established by their human creators: also robots capable to act independently and unpredictably are programmed to do so (meaning that men have always the power to prevent that);

6 Cf. A.N. Ireland Moore, Defining Animals as Victims of Crime, in “J. Animal Law”, 2005, p. 91 ff. As for case-law, see the Oregon Court of Appeals’ decision in the case State of Oregon v. Arnold Weldon Nix reported at 251 “Or App” 449, 283 P3d 442 (2012), which maintained that animals can be considered victims of crime. The Supreme Court allowed petition for review in the case, precisely on the issue whether animals are to be considered «victims» pursuant to the Oregon Revised Statute (sec. 161.067) when a criminal defendant has committed «animal neglect in the second degree» (ORS 167.325). 7 On the topic L. Solum, Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences, in “North Carolina L. Rev.”, April 1992, p. 1231 ff. For a parallelism between corporate criminal liability and the possible robot criminal liability see P.M. Asaro, Robots and Responsibility from a Legal Perspective, Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on «Robotics and Automation, Workshop on Roboethics» (Rome, 14 April 2007). File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

594 Robotics and criminal law

• such a recognition would always be justified by the need or the opportunity of pursuing particular human objectives, ultimately connected with the protection of all-human values; • it is always men that determine what is right and wrong for the robots, according to their own sense of justice. Outside the boundaries and limitations of the above-mentioned framework a complete legal assimilation of robots to men to the purposes of criminal law it is very difficult, if not impossible, to conceive. Some may be not satisfied with such a reductive option and may push the analogy between men and robots to more extreme consequences. In fact, some did conceive models of direct criminal liability of robots, based on the debatable premise that robots are capable of action (actus reus) and of culpability (mens rea)8. Apart from their (many) theoretical flaws, such models cannot contradict the underlying idea that even a direct criminal liability of robots would eventually serve human purposes (such as social control) and would be based on the human sense of justice.

4.2. Robots as «enemies»? Other than the expansion of the notion of legal personhood so to embrace non- human entities, an opposite tendency is worth consideration. It is the tendency, shared by different legal orders, to degrade the legal statute of particular (human) persons in order to deprive them of those rights and liberties that would belong them as human beings, generally (but not necessarily) by reason of their dangerousness (to this trend belong the models of the theory of enemy criminal law9). Thus, certain persons become non-persons. The most paradigmatic case is that of the so-called «enemy aliens»10, a legal category created by the U.S. government in order to exclude particular individuals not only from the safeguards granted by the U.S. constitution

8 Cf. G. Hallevy, The Criminal Liability of Artificial Entities – from Science Fiction to Legal Social Control, in “Akron Intell. Prop. J.”, 4, 2010, p. 171 ff. and Id., «I, Robot – I, Criminal» − When Science Fiction Becomes Reality: Legal Liability of AI Robots committing Criminal Offenses, in «Syracuse Sci. & Tech. L. Reporter», 22, 2010, p. 1 ff. See also, amplius, Id., When Robots Kill: Artificial Intelligence under Criminal Law, Boston, Northeastern University Press, 2013. 9 G. Jakobs, On the Theory of Enemy Criminal Law, 2010, on http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/bclc/crimweb/ foundation/Jakobs%20current.pdf (13 April 2014); M. Tondini, Beyond the Law of the Enemy. Recovering from the Failures of the Global War on Terrorism through Law, 2007, http://www.juragentium.org/topics/wlgo/ cortona/en/tondini.htm (13 April 2014); C. Gomez-Jara Diez, Enemy Combatants versus Enemy Criminal Law, in “Buffalo Law Review”, 2008, 1; C. aasS , Exceptional Law in Europe with Emphasis on “Enemies”. Preventive Detention and Criminal Justice, 2012, http://www.law.unc.edu/documents/faculty/ adversaryconference/exceptionallawsineuropewithemphasisonenemiesapril2012.pdf (13 April 2014); M. Papa, Droit pénal de l’ennemi e de l’inhumaine: un débat international, in “Revue de science criminelle et de droit pénal comparé”, 1, 2009, p. 1 ff. 10 See, one for all, D. Cole, Enemy aliens: double standards and constitutional freedoms in the war on terrorism, New York-London, New Press, 2003 and Id., Enemy Aliens, in “Stan. L. Rev.”, 54, 2002, p. 953. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Riondato 595 to American citizens, but also from the enjoyment of some fundamental human rights (to the extent that some of them have been subject to torture). Given such tendency, is not unlikely that whenever robots should be considered harmful or dangerous to men, they would be treated and fought as enemies. The human reaction to a robot threatening serious harm to valuable human goods and interests would be probably that of maintaining it unworthy of the legal treatment granted to human beings (that is the rights and guarantees typical of criminal law and procedure) and deserving to be neutralised or destroyed. The non-human nature of robots would render the «war on robots» more justifiable than many other «wars» that men are recently declaring with so much ease (the «war on poverty», «war on crime», the «war on terror» etc.), where the «enemy» and the «alien» is another «human» or «human-non-human» being.

5. Preventing Enemy-Robots. Robots as «hybrids», robots as «chimeras», robots as «crime»? Besides, the creation of robots replicating too closely human qualities, of «technological animals», in itself might be regarded at with diffidence by law. Not only because of the personalistic (if not anthropocentric) conception adopted by many jurisdictions, but also because of specific existing dispositions forbidding the creation of non-human beings sharing human features. Such dispositions reveal a legitimate human fear: the fear that man might someday loose control of its own technological creations, which might turn against him11. The main problem that all the areas I have covered so far have in common is the possible non-controllability by man of his own technological creature having essential qualities that are human or however similar to human qualities, included the strengthening of human qualities to the point of crossing the limit of the human through superhuman and/or inhuman entities, acting in a more or less relative autonomy. The employment of such entities in war opens the most terrifying perspective. In Italy a legislative disposition expressing this kind of concern may be found in article 13 of Law n. 40 of 2004 on medically assisted procreation. Amongst the many prohibitions concerning the experimentation and research on human embryos established by article 13 there is the general ban of the production of hybrids and chimeras. The creation of chimeras is expressly prohibited also in other jurisdictions, such as the United States of America (USA Human Chimera Prohibition Act 2005) Canada (Canadian Assisted Human Reproduction Act 2004), confirming that the need for control and regulation over the production of non-human creatures having

11 A fear that inspired many fictional works, starting from Čapek’s Possum’s Universal Robots, which firstly introduced the wordrobot , from the Czech word «robota» (hard labour) [K. Čapek, R.U.R. (Rosumovi Umělí Roboti), 1920]. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

596 Robotics and criminal law human features is not merely an Italian concern. Article 13 of the Italian Law 40/2004 technically refers to the so-called interspecies living being, whereas «chimeras» are organisms having cells with different genetic inheritance, coming from two or more genetically different animals, belonging to the same or to different species, while «hybrids» are organisms having cells with the same genetic inheritance, which is originated by crossing different species – as clarified by the National Committee for Bioethics (CNB)12. However, in the common language the word «chimera» is also used to denote a monster having different natures (in Greek mythology the «chimera» was a fire-breathing monster resembling a lion in the forepart, a goat in the middle, and a dragon behind) or, in a broadest meaning, to denote a fantastic idea or figment of the imagination13, in which we may well include the possibility of «humanised» robots. Besides, robots share with (non-human) animals – which are the main elements of chimeras in its traditional or biological conception – the common feature of being capable of action but not of rational and moral thought. So that, if the rationale behind article 13 of Law 40/2004 is to prevent the creation of beings having at the same time animal and human qualities (such as the strength of a tiger and the mind of a man), then the norm may well prelude to an analogous prohibition of the creation of beings having at the same time robot and human qualities (such as the durability and the power of a machine and the brain of a man), to be set once that robotics will be able to accomplish such a creation. The interesting thing is that the extant prohibition of the production of chimeras is backed with a penal sanction. The violation of this prohibition is sentenced with the same punishment established for the general violation of the prohibition of experimentation on embryos, which is imprisonment up to three years and a fine from 50.000 to 150.000 Euros, but for the former violation the court may aggravate the sentence. In other words, criminal law is used to prevent (and repress) the creation of (non-human) beings sharing human characters. The legislator chose to protect the natural essence of the human person from the creation of different creatures having some human features with the strongest and strictest instrument available: punishment (and a very harsh punishment, indeed). This does not seem consistent with the perspective of the legal admissibility of the future creation of sophisticated AI entities having practically the same emotional, moral, intellectual feelings of men. Nevertheless, regardless their legal admissibility,

12 Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica (Italy), Chimere ed ibridi con una riflessione particolare sugli ibridi citoplasmatici, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 26 June 2009. 13 «Chimera», in Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014, in http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/111597/Chimera (05 April 2014); E. Casetta, Dall’ornitorinco alle chimere. Una sfida al realismo tassonomico, in “Intersezioni”, 2, 2010, p. 277. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Riondato 597 one cannot exclude that in the concreteness of factual reality robot entities of such kind may be actually created. In this (still purely imaginary) case, there can be two alternative scenarios, which follow the two-fold (inclusionary/exclusionary or assimilationist/separationist) perspective we have been tracing so far. Either robots will integrate completely in human legal orders, becoming entitled to all the rights and liberties to which men are entitled – with no limitation or distinction – or robots and men will disagree on what is right and what is wrong (robots might refuse to be subject to human law and might claim their own laws). Amongst the possible outcomes of the latter scenario there is, of course, the ultimate war between men and robot, which may potentially bring to the destruction of the human race. At the present moment, the exclusionary and separationist perspective seems to prevail – at least in jurisdictions that, like Italy, reject the possibility of the creation of fantastic beings potentially escaping men’s control – as this ultimate war, with its destructive effects, is precisely what the human laws we have been citing above are aimed to prevent. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Robotica e diritto penale (robot, ibridi, chimere, “animali tecnologici”)1

Silvio Riondato

Sommario: 1. Prefazione. – 2. Robot come oggetti di tutela penale. – 3. Robot come strumenti di rea- to. – 4. Robot come soggetti del reato. – 4.1. Robot come «persone»? – 4.2. Robot come «nemici»? – 5. Prevenire i Robot-Nemici. Robot come «ibridi», robot come «chimere», robot come «reato»?

1. Prefazione I rapidi sviluppi delle tecnologie robotiche e il crescente impiego dei robot nei più disparati ambiti della vita quotidiana, richiedono una riflessione sulle implicazioni della robotica nel diritto e, in particolar modo, nel diritto penale2. Qui di seguito, andrò a considerare le implicazioni della robotica nel diritto penale sostanziale, con particolare (sebbene non esclusivo) riferimento al diritto italiano. Non tratterò, quindi, l’impiego delle tecnologie robotiche nel processo penale e, più in generale, nell’amministrazione della giustizia penale. Ci sono almeno tre modi in cui i robot possono svolgere un ruolo nel diritto penale: a) come oggetti di tutela (penale) (beni giuridici); b) come strumenti; c) come soggetti (rei ovvero vittime). Di questi tre aspetti, il più problematico è sicuramente quest’ultimo, in quanto in qualche modo implica un’equazione (quantomeno fittizia) tra il robot e l’essere umano, con tutte le relative conseguenze etiche, filosofiche e giuridiche. Viceversa, l’utilizzo dei robot come strumenti di reato e la loro qualificazione come beni giuridici da tutelare, non comporta

1 Un sentito ringraziamento a Lorenzo Pasculli per la sua preziosa collaborazione. 2 Per una panoramica generale sull’impatto dei robot sul diritto (incluso il diritto penale) si veda U. Pagallo, The Laws of Robots. Crimes, Contracts, and Torts, Dordrecht, Springer, 2013. Si veda inoltre Id., Robotica, in M. Durante, U. Pagallo (a cura di), Manuale di informatica giuridica e diritto delle nuove tecnologie, Torino, UTET, 2012, p. 141 ss. Vedi inoltre G. Grimaldi, L’uomo e l’automa fra téchne e Aufklärung, in “Itinerari”, 2014, 2, 63. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

600 Robotica e diritto penale necessariamente tale assimilazione tra uomo e robot, ma piuttosto sembra presupporre una netta separazione tra gli stessi. Tuttavia, le novità dell’inarrestabile progresso scientifico-tecnologico, sollevano la questione se sia opportuno impedire persino la creazione di determinati “animali tecnologici”, anche attraverso delle norme penali, laddove appropriato.

2. Robot come oggetto di tutela penale Se consideriamo i robot macchine incapaci di quelle abilità morali, psicologiche, intellettuali, razionali e ragionevoli tipicamente umane, allora possiamo ben considerarli beni patrimoniali. Come tali, possono ben essere meritevoli d’essere tutelati dalla legge, anche con gli strumenti tipici del diritto penale, se necessario (per esempio, quando i robot siano particolarmente preziosi e sofisticati o quando vengano utilizzati per importanti scopi sociali). In tale accezione, la qualifica di robot come oggetto di tutela penale non crea nessun particolare problema teorico o pratico. Tuttavia, soprattutto in previsione dei futuri sviluppi della robotica, potremmo tranquil- lamente ammettere i robot quali possibili beni giuridici meritevoli di tutela penale, fino ad ipotizzare che, entro certi limiti, alcuni raffinati soggetti di intelligenza artificiale potrebbero essere equiparate a “forme di vita” non-umane. Del resto, diversi sistemi di diritto penale tu- telano già esseri non-umani da certe offese. L’esempio più evidente è quello della tutela penale degli animali (non-umani). Il vero problema è rappresentato dalla possibilità di passare dalla considerazione dei robot come oggetto di tutela dalle aggressioni penali, alla loro qualificazione come vittime di reato. La questione non è così fantasiosa, di fronte sia ai prevedibili sviluppi della robotica (e in particolar modo delle entità di intelligenza artificiale) sia alla recente comparsa di orientamenti interpretativi volti a considerare le forme di vita non umane, specialmente gli animali, vere e proprie vittime di reato. Tale prospettiva comporta l’attribuzione di diritti e interessi ai robot e rientra nel più vasto problema, che affronteremo più avanti, relativo al fatto che i robot possano essere considerati soggetti del reato.

3. Robot come strumenti del reato La qualifica dei robot come strumenti del reato presuppone una concezione dei robot quali sempre dipendenti dall’essere umano e incapaci di azione puramente autonoma. Tale qualificazione implica che i robot siano impiegati dagli uomini come mezzo per compiere i reati - allo stato attuale della tecnologia robotica, questo è probabilmente il caso più consueto. Gli esempi concreti di tale ipotesi sono i più disparati e coprono praticamente ogni settore della criminalità, compresi i reati colposi. Dai dispositivi di intelligenza artificiali utilizzati per disattivare il sistema di sicurezza informatico di una banca o per distruggere o danneggiare i dati di un computer, ad aerei, soldati o armi robotici utilizzati nelle guerre moderne; dai robot industriali che accidentalmente provocano lesioni personali ad un lavoratore, alle armi automatiche teleguidate che uccidono un uomo innocente nel corso di un’operazione militare. La concezione dei robot come strumenti del reato comporta una netta distinzione tra File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Riondato 601 il mezzo e l’azione, nella teoria e nella struttura del reato, così come individuato da Delogu diversi anni fa3. L’azione è sempre attribuita all’essere umano, sia oggettivamente (dal punto di vista causale, il robot non può eseguire nessuna azione senza una precedente creazione e programmazione) sia soggettivamente (l’azione, non importa quanto complessa, appartiene in definitiva all’agente umano che la realizza con coscienza e volontà). Per inciso, questo è vero anche per i reati colposi, poiché – almeno secondo il sistema penale italiano – anche l’azione colposa è volontaria e consapevole, mentre in questo caso è l’evento dannoso a non essere voluto dall’agente, nonostante quest’ultimo potesse prevederlo e prevenirlo. Lo strumento, viceversa, esiste al di fuori dell’individuo (umano)4 e, perciò, può essere completamente robotico, pur se impiegato dagli uomini per integrare o per compiere le loro azioni criminali. In tal senso anche «azioni» complesse di un’entità robotica (il movimento di un braccio robotico, i calcoli di un elaborato sistema di intelligenza artificiale, i colpi sparati da un soldato-robot...) sono da considerarsi strumentali all’azione criminosa (tecnicamente considerata quale elemento del fatto di reato) e interamente attribuibili all’essere umano. In questa concezione, la natura robotica dello strumento può avere un particolare rilievo, tra l’altro, quale elemento per misurare l’intensità della colpevolezza così come la pericolosità o la lesività dell’azione complessiva, il che può essere valutato come fattore aggravante o atte- nuante dal giudice in fase di condanna (nel sistema italiano il riferimento qui va all’art. 133 del codice penale). Gli strumenti del reato sono inoltre rilevanti anche come beni oggetto di confisca o sequestro, sia in applicazione di misure preventive o di sicurezza sia in esecuzione di una condanna penale. Anche il diritto internazionale e sovranazionale (per esempio, la Convenzione di diritto penale sulla corruzione del Consiglio d’Europa o la Convenzione del Consiglio d’Europa per la protezione dei minori contro lo sfruttamento e l’abuso sessuale) include gli «strumenti» («instrumentalities») del reato (insieme ai proventi del reato) tra i possibili oggetti di confisca5. L’idea dei robot come strumenti del reato, non fa sorgere alcun nuovo particolare problema relativamente alle questioni generali riguardanti gli strumenti del reato nel sistema di diritto penale. Ancora una volta, i problemi iniziano quando si passa ad una concezione di robot come entità autonoma capace di agire indipendentemente dal dolo o dalla colpa del creatore o programmatore umano. Se presupponiamo che i soggetti di intelligenza artificiale siano capaci di determinare il proprio comportamento in completa autonomia, allora do- vremmo chiederci chi debba essere ritenuto responsabile delle loro azioni criminose – dal momento che non possiamo attribuirle ad alcun essere umano. Ed ecco che si ripropone nuovamente il problema della possibile inclusione dei robot tra i soggetti del reato.

3 T. Delogu, Lo «strumento» nella teoria generale del reato, in “Riv. it. dir. proc. pen.”, 1974, p. 275 ss. 4 Cfr. F. Alimena, La questione dei mezzi idonei nel tentativo, Roma, in “Il Foro italiano”, 1930, p. 65. 5 Sulla nozione di «instrumentalities» nelle convenzioni del Consiglio di Europa vedi L. Pasculli, Le misure di prevenzione del terrorismo e dei traffici criminosi internazionali, Padova, Padova University Press, 2012, p. 249 ss. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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4. Robot come soggetti del reato Il problema della qualificazione dei robot (in modo particolare delle entità di intelligenza artificiale) come soggetti di diritto penale, dipende strettamente dalla soluzione della questione più generale se un robot possa essere legittimamente titolare di diritti e doveri – in altre parole, se il robot possa essere considerato un cosiddetto centro d’imputazione giuridica. Sen- za dubbio, la risposta a tale interrogativo dipende, alla fin fine, dalla visione antropocentrica o non-antropocentrica del mondo che si assume come punto di partenza. Consideriamo la prospettiva del diritto positivo.

4.1. Robot come «persone»? Nella maggior parte degli ordinamenti occidentali, il diritto penale è incentrato sulla persona umana. Molte tradizioni costituzionali, così come le carte internazionali dei diritti umani (il Patto Internazionale sui Diritti Civili e Politici, New York 1966; la Convenzione Europea dei Diritti dell’Uomo; la Carta dei Diritti Fondamentali dell’Unione Europea etc.) si basano tutti sulla comune ammissione e riconoscimento del valore della persona umana e si impegnano alla tutela dei diritti umani e delle libertà fondamentali. L’utilizzo dell’aggettivo «umano» per descrivere tali diritti è, di per sé, significativo. Lo strumento più efficace per -rea lizzare la tutela della persona umana è proprio il diritto penale. La tutela è duplice: da un lato il diritto penale protegge i cittadini dai danni causati dai reati, dall’altro protegge l’individuo (sospettato o accusato di un crimine) da illegittime ed arbitrarie compressioni dei suoi diritti e libertà fondamentali. Questo orientamento personalistico del diritto penale trova conferma nel diritto positivo, dal momento che numerose disposizioni fanno riferimento alla nozione di «persona». Si tratta di un’acquisizione giuridica lungamente consolidata anche se, con il passare del tempo, la nozione giuridica di «persona» si è estesa al di là dell’originario significato naturalistico del termine, tanto da includere altri soggetti che, pur non essendo «persone» in natura, vengono considerate tali dal diritto («persone giuridiche» o enti giuridici). In tal modo, il diritto – lo stesso diritto creato dagli esseri umani – ha dimostrato d’essere sufficientemente elastico per adattarsi all’emersione di nuovi centri di imputazione giuridica. In diversi ordinamenti ciò ha anche portato all’estensione della responsabilità penale anche ad entità che non sono individui umani. Il caso più tipico è quello delle società, che sono considerate «soggetti» del reato, ad esempio in quei sistemi giuridici che adottano modelli di responsabilità penale degli enti in forza dei quali le società possono essere ritenute responsabili di reati. Le società sono generalmente contemplate anche come vittime del reato e come tali, sono titolari del diritto al risarcimento dei danni. Un altro esempio è dato dal fatto che recentemente alcuni autori e alcuni tribunali hanno suggerito che gli animali (non umani) possano essere considerati vittime di reato6

6 Cfr. A.N. Ireland Moore, Defining Animals as Victims of Crime, in “J. Animal Law”, 2005, p. 91 ss. Per quanto riguarda la giurisprudenza, si veda la decisione della Corte d’Appello dell’Oregon sul caso State of Oregon v. Arnold Weldon Nix riportato in 251 “Or. App.” 449, 283 P3d 442 (2012), nella quale si sosteneva che gli animali possono essere considerati vittime di reato. La Corte Suprema ha accolto la richiesta di judicial review del caso, proprio in relazione alla questione se gli animali possano essere considerati come «vittime» ai sensi dello Statuto Rivisto dell’Oregon (sec. 161.067), qualora un File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Riondato 603

(d’altronde, la qualità di vittima di reato non presuppone gli stessi requisiti psicologici della responsabilità penale). Tuttavia, non si può ignorare che proprio tali estensioni della nozione di «persona» e, più specificatamente, la qualificazione delle entità non-umane come «soggetti» del reato, siano solitamente finalizzate a promuovere o proteggere gli interessi e i valori tipici dell’essere umano. Infatti, l’attribuzione di diritti, interessi ed obblighi a entità non-umane – siano esse animali o società – avviene sempre in base ai valori e al senso di giustizia del legislatore umano. In altre parole, sono gli uomini a decidere cosa è giusto o sbagliato per le entità non-umane. In conclusione, in quanto prodotto umano, il diritto penale (e il diritto in generale) non può che essere costruito attorno al valore ultimo della persona umana. Sulla base di tale inquadramento, non ci sono ragioni particolari per negare la potenziale inclusione dei robot nella nozione estesa di «persona» titolare di diritti e doveri7, fermo restando che: a) il riconoscimento giuridico ai robot degli attributi della «personalità» o delle caratteristiche umane, sarebbe puramente fittizia. Infatti i robot non sono dotati delle stesse qualità morali, psicologiche e intellettuali dell’uomo. Persino le forme più sofisticate di Intelligenza Artificiale (IA) seguono gli algoritmi e i percorsi prestabiliti dai loro creatori umani: anche i robot capaci di agire indipendentemente e in modo imprevedibile, sono programmati per farlo (il che significa che gli uomini hanno sempre il potere di impedirlo); b) un tale riconoscimento sarebbe sempre giustificato dalla necessità o opportunità di perseguire particolari obiettivi umani, in ultima riconducibili alla tutela di valori squisitamente umani; c) sono sempre gli uomini a stabilire cosa sia giusto e sbagliato per i robot, secondo il proprio senso di giustizia. Al di fuori dei confini e dei limiti del quadro sopra menzionato, è molto difficile, se non impossibile, concepire una piena assimilazione giuridica dei robot agli uomini ai fini del diritto penale. Qualcuno potrebbe trovare insoddisfacente una visione così riduttiva e potrebbe spingere l’analogia tra uomini e robot fino a conseguenze più estreme. Alcuni hanno effettivamente concepito dei modelli di responsabilità penale diretta dei robot, fondati sulla discutibile premessa che i robot sarebbero capaci di azione (actus reus) e colpevolezza (mens rea)8. Tralasciando i (molti) vizi teoretici, tali modelli non sono comunque in grado di con- traddire l’idea di fondo per cui persino una responsabilità penale diretta dei robot sarebbe, in ultima, al servizio di obiettivi umani (come il controllo sociale) e fondata sul senso di giustizia umano. imputato fosse reo di «abbandono di animali di secondo grado» (ORS 167.325). 7 Sul tema L. Solum, Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences, in “North Carolina L. Rev.”, Aprile 1992, p. 1231 ss. Per un parallelismo tra la responsabilità penale delle società e l’eventuale responsabilità penale dei robot si veda P.M. Asaro, Robots and Responsibility from a Legal Perspective, Atti del Convegno IEEE su «Robotics and Automation, Workshop on Roboethics» (Roma, 14 aprile 2007). 8 Cf. G. Hallevy, The Criminal Liability of Artificial Entities – from Science Fiction to Legal Social Control, in “Akron Intell. Prop. J.”, 4, 2010, p. 171 ss. e Id., «I, Robot – I, Criminal» − When Science Fiction Becomes Reality: Legal Liability of AI Robots committing Criminal Offenses, in “Syracuse Sci. & Tech. L. Reporter”, 22, 2010, p. 1 ss. Si veda inoltre, amplius, Id., When Robots Kill: Artificial Intelligence under Criminal Law, Boston, Northeastern University Press, 2013. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

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4.2. Robot come «nemici»? Oltre all’estensione della nozione di personalità giuridica tale da inglobare le entità non-umane, merita d’essere considerata un’opposta tendenza. É la tendenza, condivisa da diversi ordinamenti giuridici, a declassare lo status giuridico di particolari persone (umane) al fine di privarle dei diritti e delle libertà che apparterrebbero loro in quanto esseri umani, generalmente (ma non necessariamente) a causa della loro pericolosità (a questa tendenza appartengono i modelli della teoria del diritto penale del nemico9). In tal modo, certe persone diventano non-persone. Il caso più paradigmatico è quello dei cosiddetti «enemy aliens» («stranieri nemici»)10, categoria giuridica creata dal governo americano al fine di privare singoli individui non solo delle garanzie garantite dalla Costituzione degli Stati Uniti ai cittadini americani, ma anche del godimento di alcuni diritti umani fondamentali (al punto che alcuni di tali individui sono stati sottoposti a tortura). Alla luce di tale tendenza, non è improbabile che laddove i robot dovessero essere ritenuti dannosi o pericolosi per gli uomini, possano venire trattati e combattuti come nemici. La reazione umana ad un robot che minacciasse gravi offese a importanti beni e interessi umani, sarebbe probabilmente quella di ritenere i robot indegni del trattamento legale garantito agli esseri umani (cioè i diritti e le garanzie tipiche del diritto e della procedura penale) e meritevoli di essere neutralizzati o distrutti. La natura non-umana dei robot renderebbe la «guerra ai robot» meglio giustificabile rispetto alle molte altre guerre che di recente gli uomini vanno dichiarando con tanta disinvoltura (la «guerra alla povertà», la «guerra al crimine», la «guerra al terrorismo» etc.), dove il «nemico» e lo «straniero» sono altri esseri «umani» o «umani non- umani».

5. Prevenire i Robot-Nemici. Robot come «ibridi», robot come «chimere», robot come «reato»? D’altronde, la creazione di robot che replicano troppo da vicino le qualità umane, di «animali tecnologici», potrebbe di per sé essere vista con diffidenza dalla legge. Non solo per la concezione personalistica (se non antropocentrica) adottata da molte giurisdizioni, ma anche a causa dell’esistenza di specifiche disposizioni che vietano la creazione di esseri non- umani dotati di caratteristiche umane. Tali disposizioni rivelano un legittimo timore umano: la paura che un giorno l’uomo possa perdere il controllo delle proprie creazioni tecnologiche, le quali potrebbero rivoltarsi contro di lui11. Il problema principale comune a tutti i settori

9 G. Jakobs, On the Theory of Enemy Criminal Law, 2010, su http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/bclc/ crimweb/foundation/Jakobs%20current.pdf (13 aprile 2014); M. Tondini, Beyond the Law of the Enemy. Recovering from the Failures of the Global War on Terrorism through Law, 2007, http://www. juragentium.org/topics/wlgo/cortona/en/tondini.htm (13 aprile 2014); C. Gomez-Jara Diez, Enemy Combatants versus Enemy Criminal Law, in “Buffalo L. Rev.”, 2008, 1;C. Saas, Exceptional Law in Europe with Emphasis on “Enemies”. Preventive Detention and Criminal Justice, 2012, http://www.law.unc.edu/ documents/faculty/adversaryconference/exceptionallawsineuropewithemphasisonenemiesapril2012. pdf (13 aprile 2014); M. Papa, Droit pénal de l’ennemi e de l’inhumaine: un débat international, in “Revue de science criminelle et de droit pénal comparé”, 1, 2009, p. 1 ss. 10 Si veda, tra tutti, D. Cole, Enemy aliens: double standards and constitutional freedoms in the war on terrorism, New Press, New York-London 2003 e Id., Enemy Aliens, in “Stan. L. Rev.”, 54, 2002, p. 953. 11 Un timore che ispirò molte opere di fiction, a partire daPossum’s Universal Robots di Capek, che File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

S. Riondato 605 fin qui considerati, è la possibile incontrollabilità da parte dell’uomo delle sue stesse creature tecnologiche dotate di qualità essenziali umane o comunque simili a quelle umane, compreso il potenziamento di qualità umane fino ad oltrepassare il limite dell’umano con entità sovrau- mane e/o non-umane, che agiscono in più o meno relativa autonomia. L’impiego bellico di tali entità apre prospettive terrificanti. In Italia, una disposizione legislativa espressiva di questo tipo di timore può rinvenirsi nell’articolo 13 della legge n. 40 del 2004 sulla procreazione medicalmente assistita. Tra i tanti divieti posti dall’articolo 13 circa la sperimentazione e la ricerca sugli embrioni umani, vi è il divieto generale di produrre ibridi e chimere. La creazione di chimere è espressamente vietata anche in altre giurisdizioni, quali gli Stati Uniti d’America (USA Human Chimera Prohibition Act 2005), e il Canada (Canadian Assisted Human Reproduction Act 2004), il che conferma come la necessità di controllare e regolare la produzione di creature non-umane dotate di caratteristiche umane, non sia una preoccupazione esclusivamente Italiana. L’articolo 13 della legge italiana n. 40/2004 tecnicamente si riferisce ai cosiddetti esseri viventi interspecie, laddove le «chimere» sono organismi aventi cellule con patrimonio genetico diverso, provenienti da due o più animali geneticamente differenti, appartenenti alla stessa specie o a specie diverse, mentre gli «ibridi», sono organismi nei quali tutte le cellule condividono lo stesso patrimonio genetico, originato da incroci tra specie diverse, così come specificato dal Comitato Nazionale per la Bieoetica (CNB)12. Tuttavia, nel linguaggio comune la parola «chimera» è anche utilizzata per indicare un mostro polimorfo (nella mitologia Greca la «chimera» era un mostro sputafuoco: leone nella parte anteriore, capra nel mezzo e drago nella parte posteriore) oppure, in senso più ampio, un’idea fantastica o frutto dell’im- maginazione13, il che può ben includere la possibilità di robot «umanizzati». Del resto, i robot condividono con gli animali (non-umani) – che sono i componenti principali delle chimere nella concezione tradizionale o biologica – la caratteristica comune d’essere capaci d’azione ma non di pensiero razionale e morale. Sicché, se la ratio dell’articolo 13 della legge n. 40/2004 è quella di impedire la creazione di esseri che abbiano allo stesso tempo qualità animali ed umane (come la forza di una tigre e l’intelletto dell’uomo), allora la norma potrebbe ben preludere ad un analogo divieto rispetto alla creazione di esseri dotati, allo stesso tempo, di qualità robotiche ed umane (come la durata e la potenza di una macchina e il cervello di un uomo), da imporsi una volta che la robotica sarà in grado di realizzare una tale creazione. La cosa interessante è che l’esistente divieto della produzione di chimere, è accompagnato da una sanzione penale. La violazione di tale divieto è sanzionata con la stessa pena prevista per la generica violazione del divieto di sperimentazione sugli embrioni, e cioè con la reclusione fino a tre anni e la multa da 50.000 a 150.000 Euro, ma per la prima violazione il giudice può aumentare la pena. In altre parole, il diritto penale è utilizzato per prevenire per primo introdusse il termine robot, dalla parola ceca «robota» (lavori forzati) [K. Čapek, R.U.R. (Rosumovi Umělí Roboti), 1920]. 12 Comitato Nazionale per la Bioetica (Italy), Chimere ed ibridi con una riflessione particolare sugli ibridi citoplasmatici, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 26 giugno 2009. 13 «Chimera», in Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014, in http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/111597/Chimera (05 April 2014); E. Casetta, Dall’ornitorinco alle chimere. Una sfida al realismo tassonomico, in “Intersezioni”, 2, 2010, p. 277. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

606 Robotica e diritto penale

(e reprimere) la creazione di esseri (non-umani) che condividono caratteristiche umane. Il legislatore ha scelto di tutelare l’essenza naturale della persona umana rispetto alla creazione di diverse creature dotate di alcune caratteristiche umane mediante lo strumento più forte e rigoroso a disposizione: la pena (e, invero, una pena molto severa). Questo non sembra coerente con la prospettiva dell’ammissibilità giuridica di una futura creazione di sofisticate entità di intelligenza artificiale praticamente dotate degli stessi sentimenti emotivi, morali ed intellettuali degli uomini. Tuttavia, a prescindere dalla loro ammissibilità giuridica, non si può escludere che, nella concretezza della realtà fattuale, entità robotiche di questo genere possano effettivamente essere create. In tale (allo stato puramente immaginaria) ipotesi, ci potrebbero essere due scenari alternativi che seguirebbero la duplice prospettiva (inclusivista/esclusivista o assimilazionista/ separazionista) che abbiamo fin qui delineato. O i robot si integreranno totalmente negli ordinamenti giuridici umani, diventando titolari di tutti i diritti e le libertà di cui sono titolari gli uomini – senza limitazioni o distinzioni – oppure robot e uomini saranno in disaccordo su cosa sia giusto e cosa sia sbagliato (i robot potrebbero rifiutarsi di essere assoggettati alla legge umana e potrebbero rivendicare delle proprie leggi). Tra i possibili esiti di quest’ultimo scenario, vi è senza dubbio, quello della guerra finale tra uomini e robot, che potrebbe potenzialmente portare alla distruzione della razza umana. Al momento, la prospettiva esclusivista e separazionista sembra prevalere – almeno nelle giurisdizioni, come l’Italia, che respingono la possibilità della creazione di esseri fantastici che possono sfuggire al controllo dell’uomo – giacché questa guerra finale, con i suoi effetti distruttivi, è esattamente ciò che le leggi umane che abbiamo menzionato sono finalizzate a prevenire. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Note on the Authors

Gleb Bogush, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia; Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, National Research University - Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.

Riccardo Borsari, Associate Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Padova, Italy.

Gülay Bulut, Associate Professor at the Department of Genetics and Bioinformatics, Faculty of Arts and Science, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Stefano Canestrari, Full Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Bologna, Italy; Member of the National Committee for Bioetics.

Carlo Casonato, Full Professor of Comparative Public Law at the University of Trento, Italy.

Deborah W. Denno, Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law of New York, U.S.A.

Eric Hilgendorf, Professor of Criminal law and Legal Informatics at the University of Würzburg, Germany.

Roberto E. Kostoris, Full Professor of Criminal Procedure Law at the University of Padua, Italy.

Natalya Krylova, Professor at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology of the Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia.

Maria Beatrice Magro, Associate Professor of Criminal Law at the Guglielmo Marconi University, Italy.

Andrea Manfrinati, Research Fellow in Social Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy.

Adelmo Manna, Full Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Foggia, Italy.

Leonardo Mazza, Full Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Siena, Italy. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

608 Note on the Authors

Óscar Morales García, Professor of Law at the ESADE Ramon Llull University; Head of the Criminal Law Department of the Barcelona office of Uría Menéndez Law Firm, Spain.

Paolo Moro, Full Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Padua, Italy.

Emrah Nikerel, Assistant Professor at the Department of Genetics and Bioinformatics, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul; Assistant Professor at the Department of Genetics and Bioengineering, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Lorenzo Pasculli, Adjunct Professor in Law at the Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Padua, Italy.

Pietro Pietrini, Full Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Clinical Molecular Biology at the University of Pisa; Director of the Clinical Psychology Branch, Department of Neuroscience, Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Pisana, Pisa, Italy.

Debora Provolo, Research Fellow in Criminal Law at the University of Padua, Italy.

Silvio Riondato, Full Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Padua, Italy.

Carlos María Romeo Casabona, Professor of Criminal Law, University of the Basque Country; Director, Inter-University Chair in Law and the Human Genome, University of Deusto and University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain.

Rino Rumiati, Full Professor of General Psychology at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padua, Italy.

Francesco Salerno, Full Professor of International Law at the University of Ferrara, Italy.

Amedeo Santosuosso, President of Chamber, Court of Appeal of Milan (I); President of the European Centre for Law, Science and New Technologies (ECLT), University of Pavia, Italy.

Giuseppe Sartori, Full Professor of Psychobiology and Physiological Biology at the University of Padua, Italy. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio

Note on the Authors 609

Cristina Scarpazza, Psychologist, Expert in Neuropsychology, Ph.D. Candidate in Cognitive Neurosciences at the University of Bologna, Italy. Zsolt Szomora, Associate Professor at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, Faculty of Law, University of Szeged, Hungary.

Marta Tomasi, Research Fellow in Comparative Public Law at the University of Trento, Italy.

Ugur Tumerdem, Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Feridun Yenisey, Full Professor of Criminal Law and Procedure at the Faculty of Law, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Francesca Zanuso, Full Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Verona, Italy.

Mario Zatti, Formerly Director of the Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Verona, Italy. File riservato ad esclusivo fine di studio