Medical Law Review

Asylum-seekers, like any population, need healthcare services, yet national laws sometimes restrict access to such services. The European Social Charter (revised) protects the right to health and medical services. However, the Charter has a complex application, and its scope is limited concerning foreigners. This article analyses to what extent the provisions of the Charter on the right to health and medical assistance apply to adult asylum-seekers. It shows that the Charter may apply to various degrees to asylum-seekers depending on several circumstances, such as the national definition of residence or regular work, grounds for seeking asylum, citizenship or lack thereof...

For many purposes in England and Wales, the Court of Protection determines whether a person has or lacks capacity to make a decision, by applying the test within the Mental Capacity Act 2005. This test is regularly described as a cognitive test with cognitive processes discussed as internal characteristics. However, it is unclear how the courts have framed interpersonal influence as negatively impacting upon a person's decision-making processes in a capacity assessment context. We reviewed published court judgments in England and Wales in which interpersonal problems were discussed as relevant to capacity...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

While errors in medical diagnosis are common and often litigated, the different dimensions of diagnosis-formation, communication, recording-have received much less legal attention. When the process of diagnosis is differentiated in this way, new and contentious legal questions emerge that challenge the appropriateness of the Bolam/Bolitho standard. To explore these challenges, we interviewed 31 solicitors and barristers and asked them: (i) whether Montgomery should apply to information about alternative diagnoses; and (ii) whether the Bolam/Bolitho standard should be rejected in 'pure diagnosis' cases...

Time plays a fundamental role in abortion regulation. In this article, we compare the regulatory frameworks in England and Wales and the Netherlands as examples of the centrality accorded to viability in the determination of the parameters of non-criminal abortion, demonstrating that the use of viability as a threshold renders the law uncertain. We assess the role played by the concept of viability, analysing its impact upon the continued criminalization of abortion and categorization of abortion as a medical matter, rather than a reproductive choice...

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) can be used to determine the chromosomal sex of the fetus at an early stage in a pregnancy. The use of NIPT for fetal sex determination raises concerns about potential selective termination of pregnancy by prospective parents who desire a child of a particular sex. Although sex selection for medical reasons is generally accepted, non-medical sex selection (NMSS) has been the subject of considerable controversy. In this article, we explore the current regulatory landscape around reproductive genetic testing techniques that may lead to NMSS, both internationally and within Australia...

Artificial intelligence (AI) could revolutionise health care, potentially improving clinician decision making and patient safety, and reducing the impact of workforce shortages. However, policymakers and regulators have concerns over whether AI and clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) are trusted by stakeholders, and indeed whether they are worthy of trust. Yet, what is meant by trust and trustworthiness is often implicit, and it may not be clear who or what is being trusted. We address these lacunae, focusing largely on the perspective(s) of clinicians on trust and trustworthiness in AI and CDSSs...

Partial ectogestation continues to move towards human clinical trials. This article draws upon the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Warnock Report) to provide guidance as to what may need to be considered for the future regulation of this technology. While the Warnock Report dates back to 1984, its significance and legacy continue to influence the current regulation of reproductive practices in the UK. By drawing upon specific elements within the report, many of the decisions and recommendations within it could provide direction for the future regulation of partial ectogestation...

For doctors with mental health or substance use disorders, publication of their name and sensitive medical history in disciplinary decisions may adversely impact their health and may reinforce barriers to accessing early support and treatment. This article challenges the view that naming impaired doctors or disclosing the intimate details of their medical condition in disciplinary decisions always serves the public interest in open justice. We analysed and compared the approach of Australian and New Zealand health tribunals to granting orders that suppress the name and/or medical history of impaired doctors...

This article is an examination of the extent to which traditional medical knowledge in China can be protected by intellectual property laws. The analysis begins by providing a global picture with regard to the historic origin of intellectual property, exploring the reasons why China does not have indigenous counterparts to the western system of intellectual property rights protecting its traditional knowledge (including traditional medical knowledge) and stating the problems of transplanting western intellectual property standards in China...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Challenges to the legitimacy of mental capacity over the past 10 years have been spearheaded by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the treaty body for the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This challenge has been asserted to have produced a 'paradigm shift'. In this article, we examine why that interpretation has had such limited traction in the legal policy arena, and whether it should have traction. We also analyse whether the Committee has subtly but importantly shifted its position...

Over the last 7 years, a multidimensional crisis in Venezuela has resulted in massive emigration. Over 7 million have fled the country, with more than 2.4 million seeking to settle in Colombia. Of these, as of 2021, more than 1 million were undocumented, but the situation has started to change with the implementation of an ambitious migrant regularisation scheme. Regularisation promises access to comprehensive healthcare, full educational opportunities and the formal labour market. Securing these social determinants of health is critical because social inequalities produce health inequalities-that is, systematic health differences that are preventable and thus unjust...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The mutual influences of social epidemiology and ideas of justice, each on the other, have been seminal in the development of public health ethics and law over the past two decades, and to the prominence that these fields give to health inequalities and the social-including commercial, political, and legal-determinants of health. General and political recognition of injustices in systematised health inequalities have further increased given the crushingly unequal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; including impacts of the legal and policy responses to it...

This article assesses the equity of COVID-19 vaccination programmes in three jurisdictions that have historically taken different approaches to the institutionalisation of equity considerations. The Sars-Cov-2 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief persistent societal inequalities and has added novel dimensions to these problems. Certain groups have proved particularly vulnerable, both in terms of infection risk and severity as well as the accompanying social fallout. Against this background the implementation of 'objective' vaccination programmes may seem like a great leveller, addressing the disparate risks that are tied to social determinants of health and the pandemic behemoth...

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated profound inequalities in the conditions in which people live, work, and age. Law plays a critical role in shaping these structural health inequalities, which have existed for decades. This dynamic can be observed at the local level, with cities operating as environments unequally distributing the risks of non-communicable diseases between population groups. This article first focuses on urban development to explore the conceptual links between health inequalities and the role of law...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

When a system comes under strain, the persons most likely to suffer from the repercussions are those at and beyond its margins, as the age-old rule 'Help yourself before helping others' typically guides crisis management within the system. Similar behavioural patterns on the side of policy-makers have left a distinct mark on the healthcare rights of forced migrants in the context and aftermath of the so-called 'migration crisis' of 2015-2016, as this article demonstrates. Following the crisis, this group of persons, who are traditionally situated at the margins of society already, have been pushed further outside social and healthcare systems through increasingly restrictive incorporation policies across Europe...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.