The Law of Cryonics A Legal Philosophical and Financial Analysis

This book, through the lens of interdisciplinary legal analysis, draws a subtle balance between bioethics and financial regulation, with the latter playing an unexpectedly crucial role in the way life may potentially be governed. The legal topic of human preservation or cryoconservation was initially developed in the United States in the case of Donaldson v. van de Kamp. More recently, the subject arose in Europe as a result of a decision of the High Court, Family Division, London. This new theme of cryoconservation has unfolded through multifaceted forms, including its impact on regulation. In an area that may, at least prima facie, be regarded as belonging to the traditional realm of medical law, the findings presented here suggest that its potential has strong economic implications. The work argues that it is necessary also to look at this subject from a more interdisciplinary perspective, drawing a fil rouge between two otherwise seemingly opposing areas of law: medical law and financial regulation. The legal framework draws on the Anglo-American, and the United Kingdom in particular, along with civil law analysis from Italy. The work will be of interest to researchers and academics in the areas of medical law, legal philosophy, financial law, property law and insurance law.

1 Introduction: the fashionable and freezing world of cryonics 1

1 Human cryoconservation 1

2 Cryonics in literature 2

3 The methodology 4

4 Strengths and weaknesses 5

5 Impact 6

2 Human cryopreservation 8

1 Cultural background 8

2 Medical and scientific approach 10

3 The legally dead man 14

4 Cryonics and law: an oxymoron? 18

5 The freezing trial: cryonics in the courtroom 20

6 Cryonics and financial issue: the cryonic trust 27

7 Cryopreservation agreements 39

3 The junk side of cryonics: the homo sacer 47

1 The global crises 47

2 The junk science 49

3 Bitcoin as a fund for cryonics 53

4 Junk finance: from (junk) bond to bitcoin 56

5 The junk humanity: the concept of homo sacer 60

6 From homo sacer to cryo-humanity 65

7 Cryonics and finance: the oxymoron of the future society 69

4 Cryothanasia as an opportunity during a scarcity of medical resources 76

1 Introduction 76

2 Euthanasia: a sweet death? 77

3 The challenges during Covid-19 81

4 Cryothanasia 84

4.1 The meaning of cryothanasia 84

4.2 Cryothanasia as a medical treatment 86

4.3 Cryothanasia as a way to manage in the NHS 87

5 The cost of a world without death 88

6 The sale and purchase agreement of life 94

5 From digital immortality to human immortality 102

1 Introduction 102

2 Digital immortality 104

3 The human immortality: cryoconservation 109

3.1 Before cryoconservation and during cryoconservation: patient or consumer? 110

3.2 Who is the new being? 113

4 After resuscitation, which scenario for the future of humanity? 118

4.1 The law of cryoconservation 119

4.2 The hybrid individual 128

4.3 The wholly artificial being 129

5 The life in a post-singularity world 132

Conclusions 141

1 Cryonics: the human ‘bubble’ 141

2 The cryo-trust 144

3 From health emergency to cryonics 145

4 Cryolaw: the cryopatient and the cryobeing 148

Index 153

Pierre de Gioia Carabellese (PhD, LLM, PGCAP, CMI, CMgr, MA, JD) is Professor (full) of Banking and Financial Law in China (Beijing Institute of Technology, School of Civil and Commercial Law, Zhuhai campus, Hong Kong Area, 2022) and professorial Fellow of Advance HE (York, UK). He has been a Professor (full) of Business Law and Regulation in Australia (Edith Cowan University, 2020) and Professor (full) of Law in England (Huddersfield University, 2017). He is also a Solicitor (UK), Notary Public (Edinburgh) and Avvocato (Rome). Prior to that, Pierre was Assistant/Associate Professor of Business Law at HWU (Edinburgh), and Senior Advocate at Baker & McKenzie and In-house lawyer in banks (e.g. Deutsche Bank). He has been visiting professor/scientist in numerous institutions (e.g. Complutense and Leiden).

Camilla Della Giustina is a PhD candidate in Law at Campania University, Luigi Vanvitelli, Italy, and she holds a Juris Doctor cum laude from the University of Padova Law School. She has published widely on bioethics and regulation. In the last two years, she has been a PhD visiting scholar at Heriot Watt University and Napier University (Scotland, UK). In 2023 she is visiting research fellow at Edge Hill University (England, UK). She is an Italian qualified lawyer (Avvocato) and author of 100 publications, including five books.