To Bind or Not Bind? European Ethics as Soft Law

In the entrenched technoscientific and social developments and orders that\r\nhave characterized the technological developments in the past decades, the\r\nregulatory approaches adopted to think of them, set their pace and stabilize\r\nthem in different countries have been refined and revised over time. Especially\r\nthe European Union (EU) provides an excellent research site to study regulatory\r\nchanges. The growth and integration of the EU parallels the attempts\r\nto regulate fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology and synthetic biology.\r\nFor that reason it offers an excellent opportunity to study how “ethics” has\r\nbeen developed and mobilized as part of the co-production of science and\r\nsocial order.