Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:12:55.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Health care and global justice*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2011

Michael Kirby
Michael Kirby*
Affiliation:
Australia
*
mail@michaelkirby.com.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

After outlining his experience in the world of bioethics, the author draws on his role in the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee to explain the new Universal Declaration of Bioethics, adopted by UNESCO in 2005. He describes it as the first global attempt to reconcile the differing sources of bioethical principles: health-care practice and experience and universal human rights. Whilst collecting, and accepting, some criticism of the text of the Declaration, the author sees its chief values as lying in the wider ethical issues that it reflected of concern to the community, the world and biosphere as well as in the adjustment of health-care approaches for consistency with the growing impact of universal human rights law. Whilst acknowledging the differing social experiences of people in different regions of the world, he invokes Amartya Sen to cast doubt on the notion of specific ‘Asian values’, whether in bioethics or human rights.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 7 , Special Issue 3: Health and Human Rights , September 2011 , pp. 273 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ALRC [Australian Law Reform Commission] (1977) Human Tissue Transplants (ALRC 7).Google Scholar
Annas, George J. (2005) American Bioethics Crossing Human Rights and Health Law Boundaries. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deveraux, Annemarie. (2005) Australia and the Birth of the International Bill of Human Rights 1946–1966. Annandale: Federation Press.Google Scholar
Faunce, Thomas A. (2005a) ‘The UNESCO Bioethics Declaration “Social Responsibility” Principle and Cost-effectiveness Price Evaluations for Essential Medicines’, Monash Bioethics Review 24(3): 10–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Faunce, Thomas A. (2005b) ‘Will Human Rights Law Subsume Medical Ethics?’, Journal of Medical Ethics 31: 173–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hannum, H. (1996) ‘The Status of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in National and International Law’, Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 25: 287–397.Google Scholar
Kirby, Michael D. (2006) ‘International Law – The Impact on National Constitutions’, American University International Law Review 21: 327–64.Google Scholar
Kirby, Michael D. (2009) ‘Human Rights and Bioethics: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UNESCO Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights’, Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy 25: 309–331.Google ScholarPubMed
Lenoir, Noëlle (1999) ‘Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights: The First Legal and Ethical Framework at the Global Level’, Columbia Human Rights Law Review 30: 537–87.Google ScholarPubMed
Macklin, Ruth (2001) ‘Bioethics and Public Policy in the Next Millennium – Presidential Address’, Bioethics 15(5): 373–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacPherson, Cheryl (2007) ‘Global Bioethics: Did the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights Miss the Boat?’, Journal of Medical Ethics 33: 588–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morsink, Johannes (1999) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origin, Drafting and Intent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Pillay, N. (2009) ‘Human Rights in the United Nations: Norms, Institutions and Leadership’, European Human Rights Law Review 1: 1–10.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya (1997) ‘Human Rights and Asian Values’ (16th Morganthau Memorial Lecture on Ethics and Foreign Policy), New York, Carnegie Council.Google Scholar
Smith, George P. II (1984) ‘Quality of Life, Sanctity of Creation’, Nebraska Law Review 63: 709–740.Google ScholarPubMed
Smith, George P. II (1996) ‘Pathways to Immortality in the New Millennium: Human Responsibility, Theological Direction or Legal Mandate’, St. Louis University Public Law Review 15: 447–69.Google ScholarPubMed
Smith, George P. II (2005) ‘Human Rights and Bioethics’, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 38: 1295–1321.Google Scholar
UNAIDS (2009) UN Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work. Geneva: UN.Google Scholar
UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] (2009) The MDGs Through Socio-Economic Rights: Constitution Making and Implementation Handbook. Bangkok: UNDP.Google Scholar
UNESCO (2003) Report of the International Bioethics Committee on the Possibility of Elaborating a Universal Instrument on Bioethics. International Bioethics Committee, 13 January 2003.Google Scholar
UNESCO (2010), Report On Social Responsibility and Health. Paris: International Bioethics Committee, UNESCO.Google Scholar
West, R. (2003) ‘Human Rights, the Rule of Law and American Constitutionalism’, in Campbell, T. et al. . Protecting Human Rights, Instruments and Institutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 93–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zacaria, Fareed (1994) ‘Culture is Destiny: A Conversation With Lee Kwan Yew’, Foreign Affairs 73: 113–26.Google Scholar