UNESCO Chair Research Scholar launches new book: The Global Health Crisis: Ethical Responsibilities

UNESCO Chair Research Scholar Thana Cristina de Campos will release her new work The Global Health Crisis: Ethical Responsibilities on May 4, 2017 at the University of Ottawa. Below is a summary of the work from the Cambridge University Press. Click here to download the book launch flyer.

 

The Global Health Crisis
Ethical Responsibilities
Thana Cristina de Campos
University of Ottawa

Proposing a new view of global justice based on natural law, this book presents a discussion of the key ethical values in contemporary medicine and health, notably in relation to neglected diseases like malaria, Ebola and Zika. The lack of treatments for such diseases point to a global health crisis. Thana Cristina de Campos provides a general framework, based on global commutative justice, for discussion of the ethical responsibilities of international stakeholders, mapping the varying duties they have, and their content and force. She also addresses the urgent need for reforms to the international legal rules on bioethics, notably the system of intellectual property rights. These ideas will be of interest to those who are looking for a more nuanced view of the human right to health than that provided by advocates in the globalist mainstream.

Introduction; Part I. Defining the Object: What Is a Reasonable Scope and Content for the Human Right to Health?: 1. The moral value of health: health as a basic human need; 2. The human right to health and its corresponding responsibilities; Part II. Defining the Subjects: Who Are the Duty-Bearers of the Right to Health?: 3. States and natural persons as subjects of justice; 4. Pharmaceutical transnational corporations as subjects of justice; Part III. Defining Just Institutions: How Should Right to Health Responsibilities Be Allocated among the Subjects of Justice?: 5. The global health governance of the global health crisis; Conclusion.

Download Cambridge University Press information here.

UNESCO Chair collaborates in new online Bioethics Diploma program

The UNESCO Chair collaborated in the launch of a new online Bioethics Diploma through the Universidad Anahuac Mexico, which began on January 16, 2017. The program will be open to the next cycle of students on July 10, 2017. A summary of the course can be read here.

The program trains those students interested in the defense of life, the dignity of the person, human duties and values, the preservation of health, or the individual and social well-being. Students should also possess a disposition for an interdisciplinary investigation that integrates philosophical, juridical, and medical approaches to investigate the chief challenges facing contemporary society. Moreover, they should possess the capacity to recognize and react to the impact scientific and technological advances have upon society.

Graduates of the diploma will be empowered for a wide range of professional services. They will be prepared to form interdisciplinary teams to reach better decision in their professional field. Graduates will also be equipped to support, assist, and give counsel to both hospital bioethics committees as well as other ethical committees of investigation. They will thus be able to analyze and propose concrete solutions to ethical dilemmas using the method of personalist Bioethics learned in their online course work.

Prospective students have until May 31, 2017 to submit all requested documents. For more information, please visit the Bioethics Faculty’s website here.

Plantilla Flyer Posgrado

EUROSOL-Solidarity in Times of Crisis

The project

European Citizens for Solidarity (EUROSOL), co-funded by the Europe for Citizens programme of the European Union, gathers partners from eight EU member states to promote the European citizens’ solidarity in times of the refugee crisis. The Project started officially on January 1, 2017 and will finish on June 30, 2018.

In late 2017, the UNESCO Chair will organize a Public Forum Debate on “Human Dignity and Human Rights of Refugees.” The event will gather policy makers from eight countries to discuss and debate EU resolutions related to the refugee crisis. All participants will research, write, and propose new strategies for facing the pressing issues of the day. For more info read click here.

The project seeks to involve 50 policy makers from various backgrounds so as to achieve a fuller understand the nature of the current crisis. In particular, the forum seeks resolution to three main questions. First, whether governments should prioritize the humanitarian needs of refugees over their national interests. Second, whether all men are equal and deserving of the same quality of life. Third, whether crime and terrorism will grow if more refugees were accepted into countries.

Debates among stakeholders will strive for common accepted solutions at the local level and the exchange of opinions at European level to intervene to influence politicians and policy makers to promote intercultural dialogue, to combat stigmatization of immigrants and to foster tolerance and empathy, which in turn brings about more cohesive, respectful, peaceful and tolerant EU societies.

To facilitate the aforementioned project, the UNESCO Chair will also provide a Code of Ethics to guide the work of the Forum’s Consortium. UNESCO Chair Staff Member Kevin Ramírez will act as EUROSOL Project Coordinator on behalf of the Chair.

Events

Results of the entire project

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Chair Director interviewed in magazine of Mexico’s National Commission of Bioethics

UNESCO Chair Director Alberto García was interviewed in the 20th edition of the Gaceta Conbioética, the magazine of Mexico’s National Commission of Bioethics. García highlights the social dimension of Bioethics, often forget in widespread individualistic approaches. He goes on to explain the history of the Chair and its ongoing mission of fostering the art of convergence and cooperation in global bioethics. García also recalls the Chair’s commitment to the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights and the fittingness of its location in Rome, the site of numerous human rights agreements. He concludes with a description of the Chair’s seven main areas of interest, with an extended account of achievements in the areas of Bioethics, Multiculturalism, and Religion, Neurobioethics; and Bioethics Global Art. To read the full interview, please click here.