Statement

Recent progress in the life sciences has expanded the therapeutic reach of somatic cell genome editing, deepened understanding of off-target events, and successfully treated people affected by genetic diseases. These advances are to be applauded. At the same time, a wider suite of
biotechnologies beyond somatic genome editing, including heritable genome editing, in utero gene
modification, and synthetic human embryo constructs—along with biology’s convergence with
AI—have the potential to alter the meaning of human life, including our sense of selfhood and
possibility, and our relations with one another.

Progress in meeting society’s demands for inclusive deliberation in debates on genome editing and other emerging biotechnologies has been less robust and harder to measure. The 2015 International Summit initiated a range of important activities to foster deliberation on ethical and governance questions. At the conclusion of the 2023 London Summit on Human Genome Editing, there were calls to build on this foundational work and invite in voices that had not yet been adequately included. The 2025 Global Observatory for Genome Editing International Summit, held in Cambridge, Massachusetts—the fourth in a series of such summits—was undertaken in response to these calls for democratization.

The 2025 Summit took place at a moment when democracy is facing increasing challenges. Institutions that undergird freedom of thought and the free movement of ideas are under unprecedented strain. Long-established commitments to open inquiry and internationalism in science are being eroded even as technology’s impacts increasingly cross national boundaries. Growth in private and philanthropic support has made science less transparent and publicly accountable, and misleading statements about science have proliferated, contributing to a loss of trust in science’s capacity for self-governance. These challenges underscore the urgency of rethinking relationships between science, technology, and global governance, particularly where human dignity is at stake.

The 2025 Summit delineated a path forward. The inclusion of a broader range of voices shifted deliberation away from physical risk and safety toward more integrated concern for human beings as actors seeking control over their own health and well-being. Convening a multiplicity of perspectives on the future of humanity drew attention to dimensions of human experience beyond the preservation of biological life. The Summit explored dimensions of human agency and flourishing, such as compassion, that lie behind conventional bioethical discourse. Participants declared commitments to deep, sustained, inclusive engagement with matters of collective moral concern, favoring a posture of humility.

The multiple perspectives represented at the 2025 Summit recognized that the dignity of human life, in its full diversity of meanings, requires protection against the potential for violation and degradation. Commitments to human dignity demand renewed reaffirmation, reflection, and elaboration at the global level, supported by appropriately inclusive institutions. This recognition is an essential starting point for a global social compact on emerging technologies such as genome editing that have the potential to change our understanding of life.

Therefore, we call for a Charter on Emerging Technologies and Human Dignity. This Charter will set out principles to better organize the relations between emerging technologies and broader society. Such a Charter would facilitate deeper reflection, responsibility and moral purpose, thereby protecting human dignity while guiding science and technology toward generating beneficial innovation.

We recognize the challenge in creating such a Charter. But even the process would foreground collective moral concerns and contribute to building global capacity for deliberation. It would engage diverse conversation partners: from law, religion, humanitarian social movements, and diverse cultural and intellectual traditions, in addition to scientific, medical, scholarly, private sector, and policy expertise. These conversations would aspire to a cosmopolitan ethos, meaning that they would include a wide range of human experience, facilitate mutual understanding, and cultivate a spirit of humility. Moving beyond national geographies and framings, the process would identify shared, cross-border forms of reason and purpose while acknowledging and respecting cross-cultural differences.

The 2025 Summit endorsed four principles that should guide the development of such a Charter:

Principle 1: Begin with questions of human dignity and the common good. Questions affecting the future of humanity require inclusive deliberation about visions of the common good that are served by science and technology. An overly narrow focus on the risks of innovation sidelines fundamental questions of human dignity, purpose and progress. Questions affecting our common future should not be defined solely in response to innovations in science and technology but should attend to more democratic definitions of society’s needs and wants.

Principle 2: Reconsider current innovation systems and the consequences for the distribution of benefits and risks. There are multiple reward structures currently supporting biotech innovation. The distribution of ownership and control are not inevitable features of invention, but are themselves reflections of specific priorities and commitments. Therefore, these arrangements and their distributive consequences are a necessary and appropriate subject of public scrutiny and ethical deliberation.

Principle 3: Expand the range of questions for deliberation. Ethical questions surrounding emerging biotechnologies are fundamentally questions about the value of life, the range of human experience, and a future that will foster flourishing across the diversity of humanity. For example, the acceptability of heritable genome editing is not primarily a technical question of the precision of molecular techniques or effects (e.g., off-target events), but first and foremost a question about human relations and mutual obligations—parent to child, medicine to patients, society to its members, states to their citizens, and the global community to the common heritage of humankind.

Principle 4: Reimagine the limits of research. Limits on research need to be developed in new and responsible ways, paying attention to long-term consequences and future generations. Responsible limits will further creative and curiosity-driven science and innovation, yielding significant benefits. Inclusive deliberation aimed at reaching a consensus on what questions must be asked would provide a more democratic framework for determining what research is needed to answer society’s questions.