Law and the Human Genome Review

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

During the last October, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights of UNESCO. This Declaration was particularly important for bioethics discourse. The result of a meticulous preparation process in which there were controversies and debates, showing new paths to follow. All of this has led the author to make a first analysis of their achievements and future goals.

After analyzing the legal nature of the right not to know, we describe below a case which was conducted in 2015 before the Basque Country Department of Health. This case stands as an example to reflect on the strength of this right, singularly when it clashes with the strict criteria of financing of health care delivery.

The unprecedented legal implications that non-therapeutic genetic manipulation in pre-implantation embryonic state points out demand a, until now, unexplored approach, which, at the same time, requires the redefinition and extension of legal-binding status of traditional categories of law related to constitutional, restorative, criminal and international law. In this paper, I will identify and define a juridical framework to regulate non-therapeutic genetic manipulation in pre-implantation embryonic state, specifically when that manipulation introduces deteriorations, disabilities or illnesses, which imply objective harms for a new subject of rights who should be considered in the juridical map: the future person...

This article will present some of the arguments that have been exposed about the legal acceptability in the technique of gestation of human life by surrogacy, beginning for establish the multiple denominations that have been realized and which make know this technique as: surrogacy, surrogate motherhood or substitute motherhood. Then it will determine the legal aspects involved in the transit of this technique to its accomplishment through contracts, thereby specifying the essential elements (capacity, consent, cause and lawful purpose), the content and the possible manner of gestation human life contracts by surrogacy...

IVF may entail the accumulation of surplus human embryos. Although Spanish law provides several possible destinations, assisted reproduction clinics, that often have to decide what to do with them, look for criteria to help them to make their decisions as reasonably as possible. The aim of this paper is to provide legal and ethical reasons to help them to decide.

This research will address loopholes in Mexico about surrogacy and the reluctance of legislators, and therefore being forgotten by Bioethics and Biolaw.

The strategic use of disease in warfare has long proven a menace to humankind; however, the changing nature of both science and security has the potential to encourage the assimilation of new (and old) biological weapons. This short article begins by outlining some of these changes before considering the means and measures in place to deal with the challenge of biological weapons. It proceeds to outline a Web of Prevention 2.0, comprised of mutually reinforcing strands that are intended to form a framework for a more holistic approach to dealing with the challenge of biological weapons around the globe in the 21st century...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The Laws which legislate the Ethical Committees in the Management of Biobank also rule other kind of Committees, sometimes with the same functions, and this situation (denomination, nature and functions) need to be understood. On the other hand, those Committees are legislated in different Laws, and this is another situation that must be put in order.

Argentine has a new Civil and Commercial Code that will enter into force in August. This Code contains a series of rules relating to bioethics that have served to illustrate a brief comment on its contents.

On 18 December 2014, in International Stem Cell Corporation v. Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (C-364/13), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered an important decision regarding the scope of the exclusion from patentability on morality-related grounds under Article 6(2) of the EU Biotech Directive. The Court made an important distinction between embryonic stem cell technologies based on fertilised human ovum and those based on unfertilised human ovum stimulated by parthenogenesis...

Medical malpractice claims have been growing all over the world. Medical acts involving new technologies and complex scientific acknowledgements are especially at stake, since they look particularly threatening to patients and judges and are, effectively, potentially more risky. The reason is that, side by side with traditional medical faults, new sources of liability emerge, as for instance the exchange or misappropriation of genetic material or surplus embryos. The present study analyses some of those new medical faults with the aim of alerting health institutions and health professionals, enlightening them about the juridical consequences of those conducts and providing simple tips to avoid lawsuits and condemnations...

In recent years, one of the most disconcerting issues in bioethics, a field closely related to legal disciplines, is surrogate gestation or surrogacy. Very little is known about the medical nature of these novel therapeutic processes in legal study. Different dilemmas emerge in the fields of ethics, medicine and law. This paper analyses the normative content of the Tabasco civil regime with respect to the concepts, types and effects of surrogacy. It emphasizes the primacy of protecting the physical and emotional integrity of pregnant women and the legal protection of the nasciturus...

This article analyses the difficulties faced by the legal prohibition of genetic discrimination. It highlights the rationality and exceptionality of this kind of discrimination, its "private" nature, the doubtful status as suspect classification, its better fit with the neutrality approach than the non-subordination approach, and the need to replace the "perfection-imperfection" duality by the respect for genetic diversity.

The Right to Enjoy the Benefits of Scientific Progress, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has recovered importance with the recently UNESCO Statements. The object of this work is to make a study about the content of this right, reviewing how it is recognized at the International Human Rights Law as well as to analyses how it is possible that it could be protected in the Spanish Constitution. The starting point of this work is the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress is not an autonomous human right, but integral part of the freedom of scientific research...

"Transhumanism" refers to a nebula of ideas where serious arguments are neighbouring with fantasy. It is not difficult to select texts and statements to discredit it. The author's approach is constructive, for he thinks transhumanism is worth attention. It provides the possibility to articulate in a coherent way a wide range of ideas and issues: anthropological, epistemological, ethical, political and even ontological scattered over bioethical debates. This was already undertaken in the late 1990s, with the creation of "The World Transhumanist Association" (WTA)...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Synthetic biology is a new discipline that is twofold: firstly it offers the promise to pay benefits that can alleviate some of the ills that plague mankind; On the other hand, like all technologies, holds risks. Given these, the most critical and concerned about the risks, invoke the application of the precautionary principle, common in cases where an activity or new technology creates risks to the environment and/or human health, but far from universally accepted happens to be currently one of the most controversial principles...

The roots of synthetic biology--the redesign of biological molecules, structures and organisms--can be traced to the research developed by Jacques L. Monod and François Jacob in 1961. This field has undergone significant growth in the past ten years and its emergence has raised the question of whether the patent system is suitable to protect inventions in emergent areas as synthetic biology. The article will analyze the numerous scientific, socio-economic, ethical and legal challenges faced by synthetic biology, introducing the European Patent Law related to biotechnology as the minimum common framework and considering if more changes are needed to adequately protect the inventor rights, while taking into account the arrival of a new research culture, characterized by embracing open-innovation and open-source initiatives...