Emerging technologies – Human Rights and Biomedicine – www.coe.int

In the past decades the Council of Europe addressed a variety of developments in the field of biomedicine. While recognising these developments as a potential benefit for human health and welfare, the Council also realises the possibility of abuse as a reason for concern from the perspective of human rights and human dignity. On the basis of the common framework provided by the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, or Oviedo Convention (1997), the Committee on Bioethics of the Council of Europe (DH-BIO) has considered various ethical and legal challenges raised by the applications of biology and medicine.

In recent years innovations in the biomedical field are more and more emerging from the convergence of developments in different domains, including nanotechnology, cognitive science and information technology. As a result of this convergence, we can observe an increasing interaction between the life sciences and the engineering sciences. This interaction and convergence between different scientific and technological fields also raises new questions about the implications of these developments for human rights and human dignity.

For the CDBIO, there is a clear need to look into these new developments in order to be able to respond to the possible ethical and legal challenges raised by these new technologies and their convergence.