International Bioethics and Human Rights: Reflections on a Proposed Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights

On 24 June 2005 the International Bioethics Committee (IBC) of the United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued a ‘Universal Draft Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights’ (hereafter, BHR). I was delighted with the document from the moment I read its title. Leading American bioethicists (Beauchamp, 1998; Macklin, 1998) had criticized my contention that any attempt to construct international bioethics by searching for principles of common morality would prove feckless; the best hope for international bioethics, I had argued, lay in negotiated rules bounded by a cosmopolitan conception of human rights (Baker, 1998a, 1998b, 1998c, 2001). The term ‘human rights’ in the proposed title of BHR seemed to confirm my position, and thus – since confirmation is not one of the delights philosophy usually offers its practitioners – the very title of the document gave me a tinge of satisfaction. Satisfied philosophers, however, serve little function. As John Stuart Mill famously implied of Socrates, a certain level of intellectual dissatisfaction is written into the job description. Returning to my role, in this paper I draw on my earlier analysis to assess whether the BHR provides an adequate framework for international bioethics.