Hrcak
Portal of scientific journals of Croatia
JAHR, Vol.2 No.4 October 2011.
Conference paper
Bioethics, law and European integration
Christian Byk
; International Association of Law, Paris, France
Fulltext: pdf (101 KB),
English,
Pages 431 - 444
,
Abstracts
Bioethics is always described as implying a multidisciplinary and pluralistic approach of the issues encompassed. No doubt that the law and lawyers have deeply contributed to its origin and present development. However, conversely to the United States, it seems that bioethics has opened some new perspectives to the law in Europe. First, it forced the law to move out of its own frontiers and to apply its reasoning to life sciences issues with the consequence that some consider that the legal norms are used to legitimate unlawful practices while others believe legal norms have imposed binding conditions to the free development of science and technology. Second, Europe is the only region of the world where biomedical techniques are subjected to legal and sometimes binding harmonisation. In some way, we may conclude that the role played by the law in the elaboration of European bioethics is just an example of the important role of the law in the European integration.
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