RETHINKING THE UNESCO UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON BIOETHICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
RETHINKING THE UNESCO UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON BIOETHICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Summary/Abstract: The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights(UDBHR) was adopted at the 33rd session of the General Conference of UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), held in Paris on19 October 2005. This international instrument keeps track with the prevailing trend to deal with bioethical issues from the perspective of human rights. Even before its adoption, the UDBHR had been thoroughly criticized. The authors criticize the UDBHR for being a weak instrument containing only minimum standards of protection and for having no binding legal effect since it represents the so-called soft law. The basic principles of the UDBHR are not, according to critics, formulated precisely but more than less generally. This paper is aimed at examining the content of the UDBHR. It indicates UDBHR importance as the first global law document which regulates the issue of human rights and bioethics in a comprehensive way. The significance of the UDBHR reflects in providing the member states with guidelines in tackling different bioethical issues. In this context, the role of UNESCO in bioethics is elaborated and so are its efforts to achieve a consensus among the states on bioethical issues.

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