In October 2005, UNESCO Member States adopted by acclamation the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. For the first time in the history of bioethics, some 190 countries committed themselves and the international community to respect and apply fundamental ethical principles related to medicine, the life sciences and associated technologies. This publication provides a new impetus to the dissemination of the Declaration, and is part of the organisation's continuous effort to contribute to the understanding of its principles worldwide. The authors, who were almost all involved in the elaboration of the text of the Declaration, were asked to respond on each article: Why was it included? What does it mean? How can it be applied? Their responses shed light on the historical background of the text and its evolution throughout the drafting process. They also provide a reflection on its relevance to previous declarations and bioethical literature, and its potential interpretation and application in challenging and complex bioethical debates.

A PDF version of this book is available for free in Open Access at www.tandfebooks.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. The sequencing of the entire human genome has opened up unprecedented possibilities for healthcare, but also ethical and social dilemmas about how these can be achieved, particularly in developing countries. UNESCO’s Bioethics Programme was established to address such issues in 1993. Since then, it has adopted three declarations on human genetics and bioethics (1997, 2003 and 2005), set up numerous training programmes around the world and debated the need for an international convention on human reproductive cloning. Negotiating Bioethics presents Langlois' research on the negotiation and implementation of the three declarations and the human cloning debate, based on fieldwork carried out in Kenya, South Africa, France and the UK, among policy-makers, geneticists, ethicists, civil society representatives and industry professionals. The book examines whether the UNESCO Bioethics Programme is an effective forum for (a) decision-making on bioethics issues and (b) ensuring ethical practice. Considering two different aspects of the UNESCO Bioethics Programme – deliberation and implementation – at international and national levels, Langlois explores: how relations between developed and developing countries can be made more equal who should be involved in global level decision-making and how this should proceed how overlap between initiatives can be avoided what can be done to improve the implementation of international norms by sovereign states how far universal norms can be contextualized what impact the efficacy of national level governance has at international level

Standard-setting represents one of the main constitutional functions of UNESCO and an important tool for realizing the goals for which the Organization was created. In addition to conventions and recommendations, the declarations adopted by the General Conference promulgate principles and norms intended to inspire the action of Member States in specific fields of activity. This first of a two-volume work on Standard-setting in UNESCO contains the essays presented at a symposium held on the occasion of its sixtieth anniversary. Topics addressed in Normative Action in Education, Science and Culture include methods of elaboration and implementation; constitutional objectives and legal commitments; international collaboration; and impact. CO-PUBLICATION WITH: UNESCO

This book rethinks the anthropology of friendship from the perspective of theology and disability, and suggests the respect for human dignity and the person ́s vulnerability as the criterion in reconsidering such an anthropology. The reality of disability is not only the reality of being in the world, but also concerns the concept of the meaning of otherness and being created as an image of God. The constructive critique that the emergence of disability as a human condition posits to theo-anthropological and ethical concepts is the quest of the renewal of theo-anthropological and ethical knowledge on the meaning of disability, otherness and friendship. The theological and anthropological entities, such as disability and friendship, are interconnected in a sense that the meaning of the one needs to be explained in the light of the other, and vice versa. The renewal of certain anthropological categories in such regard is a search for a deeper understanding of humanity, not apart from, but in light of, the presence of disability. The book examines the anthropological and theological systems regarding the theme of friendship and disability.