The Oviedo Convention: European charter on bioethics

Abstract

In this article the author analyses some problems related to defining of biomedicine and bioethics through international law. As he says, numerous rules in this field are literally scattered around and can be found in various international documents. The author presents in detail the first international agreement that defines this subject - it is Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regards to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, adopted by the Council of Europe in 1996. He is of the opinion that very rapid and complex development of scientific knowledge in the field of biomedicine produces new problems. For that reason there should be soon adopted a convention or charter of universal character that would codify as precisely and fully as possible the rules in the fields of biomedicine and bioethics.