On February 27, 2024 as part of our Open Seminar Series, dr. Enrique Santamaría Echeverría from the Erasmus School of Law gave a presentation titled ‘Our common body? Biological Materials, Data and Knowledge Commons for Research & Development.’ He discussed, amongst others, different theories on the (human body) commons, the legal architecture, the imbalance between provider and recipient, commodification, and (health) data altruism. The presentation led to a lively discussion where participants shared additional insights.

Dr. Enrique Santamaría is an affiliate researcher of research group SEICA. His research focuses on the relations between the human body and the law. In particular, he explores the limits to the acts of disposition of the human body and its parts. Although his research focuses predominately on biolaw and private law problems (contract law, IP and other property rights), it also has a strong cross/interdisciplinary component, and tackles issues closely related to the fields of bioethics, philosophy, data protection, constitutional law, and the protection of human dignity and other fundamental rights.