Bioethics and human rights

Challenges confronting healthcare, biotechnology and environment are faced by the International community. Healthcare and biomedicine were regulated exclusively by the professional regulatory system - medical ethics. Medical practitioners and scientists realized that medical ethics cannot answer to the questions raised by the progress of biomedicine. Pursuit for longevity, procreation control, genetic manipulation are tangible testimonies of new power of physicians, researchers and institutions having significant impact over us which is little reflected in political and legal doctrine. UN World Conference on Human Rights Education in 1993 officially linked bioethics and human rights. While the recognition of the role of human rights in the bioethics field is recent, the connection between medical and scientific advances and human rights takes the origin from the Nuremberg Trials. The United Nations, the Council of Europe and the European Union have been the first International bodies in drafting statements and guidelines linking bioethics and human rights. Much work should be done in the context of International law to emphasize how medical, scientific and environmental developments can impact human rights.