Abstract: Rights, Regulation, and the Technological Revolution confronts a central question facing modern government: how can regulators respond to both the challenges and opportunities presented by a technologically driven society without sacrificing legitimacy for effectiveness, or weakening the essential conditions of a stable, aspirant moral community? The book analyses developments across biotechnology, information and communications technology, nanotechnology, and neurotechnology. In part one, Regulatory Challenge, it explores the difficulties facing the public control of rapid technological change, focusing on the problems of regulatory effectiveness, connection, legitimacy, and compliance. In part two, Regulatory Opportunity, it covers genetic databases, code and control and the corrosion of moral community. The book argues that as regulators struggle to find adequate frameworks to limit, license, and support new technologies, they will increasingly rely on a technological approach to complement, enhance, and even replace traditional legal strategies. The book breaks new ground by offering the first overarching commentary on the relationship between regulators, industry, and wider society as the new technologies of the 21st century achieve an ever-greater penetration in our daily lives.

Keywords: technology regulation, licensing, regulatory challenge, regulatory legitimacy, regulatory effectiveness, compliance