Health and law-making: collectively re-creating narratives

On April 28 2022, from 13:30 to 15:00 CET, an online workshop will be organized by the International Association for the Study of the Commons.

This event is part of a colloquia series "dedicated to the policy issues related to the commons and importance of bringing the commons discussion to policy makers' attention in Europe & CIS and for engaging our community in a wider policy dialogue."

Abstract
Since childhood, we learn that knowledge does not come from ourselves (schoolchildren), but from 'an omniscient 'master'.

When a crisis happens – a disease, a change in our environment – we similarly rely on external authorities, who are usually prompt to provide us with directives.

But is this really the most effective way to take care of our very needs, to overcome complex challenges? Can a few really be more knowledgeable than the multitude?

Is the centralization of power during an emergency still legitimate when Internet enables thousands of people to put in commons their resources (online hackathons), and to reach decisions within hours (digital democracy)?

During this participatory discussion, we will explore the narratives behind 'health' and 'law' policy-making centralization. We will explore how people can reclaim ownership of themselves, control over their medical journey and medical information (e.g. health commons, critical public health ). We will also discuss how individuals and communities can reclaim the right to elaborate rules that affect them and their coordination (legal commons, democratic constitutionalism   ).

Finally, we will reflect on Elinor Ostrom's statement that "a core goal of public policy should  be to facilitate the development of institutions that bring out the best in humans," and will introduce the work done in other fields such as by legal scholars working on indigenous law (Canada, Switzerland), and on changing the law regarding propriety (Italy) with reflections on how this can inspire health commons policy development.

Facilitators
Fabio Balli mobilises teams around creation-as-research initiatives based on solidarity, subjectivity and creativity in order to counteract an economy of impoverishment. His experience in the private sector, in institutions, and building commons (Breathing Games) allowed him to model how to foster large scale cooperation. Today, Fabio prepares the citizens festival Taking care together (April 30 to May 8 in Geneva). He is affiliated to IUC Turin, Italy

Pascal Carpentier is passionate about knowledge vehicles for innovations such as communities and Commons. Convinced about the relevance of open models and technologies to address the SDGs and improve patients’ condition and safety, he does research on Knowledge Commons governance. Pascal is the Head of Information Systems for the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative. He is affiliated to the Erasmus Research Institute of Management, Netherlands.

The series is hosted by Dr Tobias Haller from the University of Bern, Switzerland, and Dr Ilkhom Soliev from the Martin-Luther-Universität, Germany.

Approach
To create a knowledge commons which values our collective intelligence, we dedicate time for participants to discuss among themselves. We will build sub-groups of 5-7 people to foster interaction among all participants. Each sub-group will then present the key outcomes of their discussions to all participants thanks to a spokesperson. This will allow us to aggregate different perspectives on the two topics. Having two rounds of sub-groups followed by an open discussion will allow participants to go further in the reflexion by building on previous outcomes.

Similarly, we document the session on a public MediaWiki, which can autonomously be enriched by each interested person (after creating an account). This removes barriers to access, produce and disseminate knowledge. The content of this wiki is under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Additionnally, MediaWiki is a free/libre and open-source tool, which means interested communities can freely use, reproduce, enhance and adapt the software – another commons.

By both discussing and cocreating open scientific knowledge, we align with the UNESCO recommendation on open science.

13:30 – Opening

 * Introducing the colloquia series – Tobias, Ilkhom

13:35 – Roundtable

 * Each participant presents themselves in one sentence: first name, inner weather (how I feel), what calls me to this topic

13:45 – How to reclaim control of medical commons regulation?

 * Case presentation by Pascal, 5 min
 * Inadequacy of regulatory processes for commons-based / crowdsourced / start-up medical innovation
 * only 3% of open hardware / libre software initiatives survived the regulatory step during covid
 * Discussions in three sub-groups – 10 min
 * Restititution of each sub-group – 3 x 3 min

14:10 – Can we heal without redefining the rules that affect us?

 * Case presentation by Fabio, 5 min
 * Three times
 * Middle ages: medieval local customs, relatedness to Nature → social constructivism, contextual, specific right to use / enjoy the fruits of a common good
 * Industrial revolution: Naopleon civil code, scientific rationalism → post-positivism, universalism, excluding ownership of a good and its fruits
 * Today: a great reset (the blue pill of tech solutionism and IP) or a Great Renaissance (the red pill of redefining how we govern ressources)?
 * Discussions in three sub-groups – 10 min
 * Restititution of each sub-group – 3 x 3 min