The biogenetical revolution of the Council of Europe - twenty years of the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (Oviedo Convention)

• Main Author: Oktawian Nawrot
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2018-05-01
• Series: Life Sciences, Society and Policy
• Subjects: Human dignity; Human biogenesis and human rights; Legal protection of human embryo; The Council of Europe; The biomedicine convention
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40504-018-0073-2

Abstract The Council of Europe’s legal regulation concerning development of biology and medicine undoubtedly form the most interesting, but certainly not perfect, over-national system of protection of human beings in prenatal stages of development. The strength of the mentioned system is that it based on well-known and common acceptable values and rules such as human dignity and its protection. The aim of the paper is to present the reasons behind adopting such a system, as well as the consequences of the latter. The author argues that in such a way a revolution within the human rights system of the Council of Europe took place. This revolution caused a significant expansion of the Council of Europe’s system of human rights’ protection and changed the perspective of the protection from vertical to the horizontal.