The Birth of Biolaw: From American Bioethics to European Biolaw

Abstract

This chapter is focused on the origins of biolaw, placing its birth on theoretical and procedural developments of American bioethics, and showing how this field influenced European Law's regulation, jurisprudence and instruments. Historical events that triggered the emergence of American bioethics are analysed, as well as two paradigmatic international texts identifying principles to govern biomedical research with human subjects (Nuremberg Code and Belmont Report). The impact of the seminal book Principles of Biomedical Ethics and its influence on the emergence of what was later known as "European bioethics and biolaw" are also thoroughly explored. Finally, the chapter addresses the birth of European biolaw, which was originally aimed at defining and providing content to ethical principles related to autonomy, dignity, integrity and vulnerability, understood as four important bases for European bioethics and biolaw. Those basic ethical principles could not be understood as universal ideas or eternal truths, but rather, they had the status of "deliberative guidelines" and fundamental values of European culture. InceptionThe birth of biolaw is not related to a single event, but, rather, it is a multifactorial phenomenon. Certainly, much of its first epistemology was developed in Europe where biolaw gradually acquired a certain procedural consistency and got an incipient disciplinary status. However, and although it is a statement that can be discussed, its conceptual roots, while have some backgrounds in Europe, essentially grew crossing the Atlantic Ocean, namely, in the United States of America. The story is well known, but it has never been linked before to biolaw. It is time to do it.

The COVID-19 Pandemic Between Bio-Ethics, Bio-Law and Bio-Politics: A Case Study on The Italian Experience of The DuPre Commission

“…The relationship between bio-ethics and bio-law is significant because of its power to shed light on the factors implied in the intersection between science, technology and life (Kemp, Rendtorff & Johansen 2000;Valdés 2021a). In this complex scenario, which has undergone several decades of growth, the European approach assumes that the principles of autonomy, dignity, integrity and vulnerability are fundamental, which orient all European norms for respecting the human person in bio-medical and bio-technological developments (Rendtorff 2015).…”