The Bioethics Declaration: Scope and Aims

In one line

The broadest of the three UNESCO instruments, addressed to States but reaching corporations, and the one a treaty body has adopted as its reference.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights 2005 addresses ethical issues related to medicine, life sciences and associated technologies as applied to human beings, taking into account their social, legal and environmental dimensions; it is addressed to States and, as appropriate, provides guidance to individuals, groups, communities, institutions and corporations, public and private; its aims include providing a universal framework of principles and procedures to guide legislation; and its principles open with article 3(2), that the interests and welfare of the individual should have priority over the sole interest of science or society.

Why this instrument matters most

Three reasons, and they should be given before the content.

Its scope is the widest. The 1997 Declaration concerns the genome; the 2003 Declaration concerns genetic data. This one concerns medicine, life sciences and associated technologies as applied to human beings, which covers everything in Module II and most of Module I.

It is addressed to States and reaches corporations. Article 1(2) is unusual and should be quoted: the Declaration is addressed to States, and as appropriate and relevant it also provides guidance to decisions or practices of individuals, groups, communities, institutions and corporations, public and private. Most instruments in this field address either States or professionals; this one names corporations expressly, which matters because, as [The State's Duty to Regulate Technology] explains, most of the technology is privately owned.

A treaty body has adopted it. General Comment 25's acceptability element requires that scientific research incorporate ethical standards to ensure its integrity and the respect of human dignity, and names the standards proposed in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. That is the route by which this instrument enters article 15 of the ICESCR, described in [What Ethics Adds to Law], and no other instrument in this module has it.

Article 1: scope

1(1). The Declaration addresses ethical issues related to medicine, life sciences and associated technologies as applied to human beings, taking into account their social, legal and environmental dimensions.

Two phrases carry it. "As applied to human beings" confines the instrument: it is not a declaration about science generally but about science applied to people. And the naming of the social, legal and environmental dimensions makes plain that the ethical issue is not confined to the clinical encounter, which is why articles 16 and 17 reach future generations and the biosphere.

1(2). Addressed to States; and as appropriate and relevant, guidance for individuals, groups, communities, institutions and corporations, public and private.