Towards a global policy? The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights

1. Background
2. Speaker Profiles
3. Recommended Resources
4. Audio Links

Background

In October 2005, the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) adopted by acclamation the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (UDBHR). For the first time in the history of bioethics, Member States committed themselves and the international community to respect and apply the fundamental principles of bioethics set forth within a single text. In dealing with ethical issues raised by medicine, life sciences and associated technologies as applied to human beings, the Declaration anchors the principles it endorses in the rules that govern respect for human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms.

 

Speaker Profiles

Professor Jan Helge Solbakk
Keynote Speaker

Chief of Bioethics Section, the Division of Ethics of Science and Technology, UNESCO.

Professor Solbakk trained as a physician and a theologian and also holds a Ph.D in ancient philosophy. Until 1995, he served as Director of the National Committee of Medical Research Ethics in Norway. He is currently Director and Professor of medical ethics at the Centre for Medical Ethics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. He is also adjunct professor of philosophy of medicine and medical ethics at the Centre for International Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bergen.

His fields of research are medical ethics, research ethics, philosophy of medicine and ancient philosophy, literature and medicine. He is in charge of a European research project on Research Biobanks and Health Registries. Since 1998 he has served as a member of the CDBI-CO-GT4, a Working Party on human genetics at the Council of Europe. In 1999, he served as a member of an expert committee on genetic therapy set up by the Norwegian Centre for Health Technology Assessment. From 1999-2000 he was chairman of a working party set up by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs in Norway to issue a report on stem cell therapy. He has been a member of the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board since 2000.


Dr. Harald Schmidt
Assistant Director, Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

Speaking on: The Idea of Human Dignity in the UNESCO Declaration.

Harald Schmidt studied philosophy, linguistics and history at the Universities of Bremen, Oxford, and Muenster.  He later held positions at the Research Centre for Bioethics at the University of Muenster; STOA (Scientific and Technological Options Assessment/European Parliament); and the German Ministry of Health.

In 2002 he joined the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, UK, as Assistant Director and has been involved in reports on pharmacogenetics, the use of GM crops in developing countries, research involving animals and public health. He is interested in the intersections between academic philosophy, applied ethics and public policy.
 

 

 

Dr. Calum MacKellar
Director of Research, Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB).

Speaking on: The UNESCO Declaration in the light of the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.

Calum MacKellar is the Director of Research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics and runs a non-profit organisation called European Bioethical Research.

After completing his doctorate in Biochemistry with the University of Stuttgart in Germany, Dr. MacKellar began working, in 1991, as a post-doctoral research fellow with the University of Edinburgh synthesising genetic antivirals against HIV. In 1993, he then continued this research in industry for more than four years, in Glasgow, during which time he also started work with the international journal 'Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics' of which he is now the editor. 

In 1997, he began teaching biochemistry and bioethics at Queen Margaret University College in Edinburgh. In 2001, he then went to Strasbourg in France to work with the Bioethics Division of the Council of Europe.

In 2003, Dr. MacKellar returned to Scotland where he now works as the Director of Research of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics. He is also a member of an NHS Research Ethics Committee in Edinburgh.

 

Resources

The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics & Human Rights

BioCentre symposium report  - Towards a global biopolicy? The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics & Human Rights in perspective.

 

Audio

Audio recordings of this Symposium can be downloaded here