Biolaw and Bioethics

This course’s objective is to provide basic knowledge about the legal and ethical framework pertaining to the management of life as biological phenomenon. The rapid development of biomedicine and biotechnology, during the last four decades, created new areas of human intervention in living Nature, including reproduction control and assistance, artificial life support, revealing of genetic information, genome modification etc. Soon, the need for regulating norms became obvious, in order to benefit from innovation and also to avoid risks emerging from that wide range of new technological options and possibilities. In that view, Bioethics provides the fundamental principles for any regulation in that field, such as the principles of human dignity, of personal autonomy and human rights, of environmental protection etc. On the other hand, Biolaw contains laws, judicial and administrative decisions, related to the management of life, that already exist in the EU and worldwide. The course emphasizes on European normative framework, and analyzes its basic structure, instruments, and institutions.