Bioethics in international law

This thesis discusses implications of framing bioethical concerns
in international legal discourse. It starts from the observation
that legal approaches to questions of bioethical relevance have
become dominant frameworks for addressing many bioethical concerns
at the international level. In particular, the UN General Assembly
has long attempted to regulate human cloning processes through an
international Convention. Similarly, UNESCO and the Council of
Europe have both addressed a variety of bioethically relevant
issues, such as the processing of human genetic data, the ethics of
research or organ transplantation within international legal
standards. It is in the context of this strong connection between
international law, international legal discourse and bioethics that
this thesis seeks to analyse what exactly happens when issues of
bioethical relevance are discussed within such a framework, how
this affects the way bioethical issues are conceptualized,
conceived of and dealt with, and, ultimately, how well-suited or
successful international legal discourse is in its attempt to
resolve current bioethical questions. Following the methodological
approach of discourse theory, this thesis bases its analysis on the
assumption that where and when international legal standards, as
manifestations of an international legal discourse, serve as
framework for bioethical debate that also somewhat defines how
bioethically relevant issues are approached, thought of and dealt
with within that framework, that it somewhat determines what
methods are used to resolve such issues and that it somewhat limits
the range of conceivable and viable solutions to these issue. The
thesis thereby does not aim to demonise or abrogate legal
approaches to bioethics and it does not understand the implications
discussed in this thesis to be necessarily good or bad. To the
contrary, it will be shown that legal approaches to bioethics can
and have contributed to the development of the field in several
important ways. Yet, this thesis also shows that it is worthwhile
to closely examine implications that follow from a specific legal
approach to bioethical issues as these implications are not always
easily perceived. Given the important, and often dominant or near
exclusive role of international law and legal discourse in the area
of bioethics as well as the former's strong influence on bioethical
debates as a whole, the implications of addressing questions of
bioethical relevance within an international legal discourse should
at least be understood and acknowledged, a contribution that this
thesis aims to make. Moreover, only if these implications are
understood is it possible to ask whether engaging in that type of
discourse is at all a valuable enterprise and whether or not
international legal standards directly addressed to questions of
bioethical relevance constitute a suitable means to effectively
address questions in the area of bioethics.